I have hated pretending, and sought for the real, but the reality is that it is all pretending. We may adopt a condition of being hard done by, but this misery is just playing a game; it is pretending. We can choose the role we play, other than playing the part that is presented to us. The natural way is pretending; playing a game; interacting with the world with a certain attitude; it has always been this way, even since we were babies. When we change that attitude we discover that we were only playing that part, and by knowing that, we can play a different part, more according to our wish.
As soon as there is a self, there is a mind creating that dichotomy. Create your own ego. You have to be defined anyway, so you do it. Don't let others do it for you. Be who you want to be. Create a concept of yourself which leads you into upholding some rules which make you be that. A code for yourself. Your honour. It's all pretending, so pretend to be what you want to be and play a good game. This is our integration.
If you don't choose your own ego, you will get what everyone else gives you, which will be a reflection of themselves. You must be present and on the ball. The game is on as soon as you are in contact with another. Choose who you are, and so be who you are; not someone else's concept. If you don't you will sink into an appeasement of their fiction of you, which you won't even notice that you are doing.
If you are the judge of your life, and have no need of sharing yourself, then you can filter your experience to be whatever you want it to be—within reason! This is how contentment can be achieved. This is how we can create our reality. Other people have their own picture of you and may try to shoot down your story. If you do not need to share it with them, you can dismiss their opinion if their input produces negative for you. They are not important; you do not have to import their view of you. They do not know you. That's their pretend game.
If you are not strong enough, people will overwrite you. You have to play their society game if you don't want this, but then you become part of their world. Only people who do not do this are the type that you should tolerate, and you should avoid those who project their ego onto you, because they certainly are not you and they cannot see you.
If you lose sight of your own reality, you are inside someone else's world then. You must keep in your own reality without the mental dialogue of explaining to another, as this justification weakens the belief of your own reality, or can distract you from it. You either project what you know of yourself or the ignorance of another’s opinion, which then gets reflected back onto you. It all becomes confused.
Whatever you look for within yourself, you will find; so don't look for the fool or the failure, for you shall surely find. This is how we can craft our ego; it is our choice, but we fail to realise we create our own false weaknesses as well as our false strengths. Crafting a true picture is the lofty goal, and is the fruit of our control. This is our true integrity within the paradox of ego.
Everything is true within the real you; the real you is not pretending. Not being true to yourself is the pretence. It is the falsity which produces lack of confidence and timidity—the confusion and hesitancy that is the conflict of trying to be what others expect. The flip-side of arrogance and over-confidence can also occur and is what causes the wake of disturbance in those who are sensitive to the uncertainty of who they really are.
The paradox of ego is that the concepts of yourself are never really true anyway, so you might as well make it all up. The problems arise when some concept clashes with something and you realise that you aren't quite the person you thought you were. It is the society which constrains your imagination of yourself, and creates the sanity necessary for the society to work. Those who do not comply tend to not contribute to the society, but this is a failing of the society, not the individual. The goal is integration, but the integer of being one can only be by being holy within oneself.
•••
It's all just concepts from sensory information. Any number of stories will fit each scenario. The stories we compose to tell our story of who we are, are always teetering between the truth or fiction that the next chapter will expose us to be. Your ego is a concept that fits best at the time, and will be trimmed and reshaped as the scenery changes. The ego is the credit keeper; it accepts the credit when a story fits, even if it isn't true. This ego will ensnare us and the character that is created will be your cage. It can also be your stage. Once we have a story it is difficult to let go of it.
You play the game that gets you through your social circumstance. We each are pretending. The story we have of our lives guides our behaviour—manipulate those stories for your good.
If you hate yourself you look ugly, when you love yourself you are beautiful. If another looks with love it is something within themselves that they see in you. What they see in you is something that they would love in themselves; otherwise they wouldn't be able to see it.
Some people will negatively affect you, and try to force their societally inculcated views upon you with no concern at all for your divine path. Society has detoured you from your divine path countless times in your life by distracting you from your interest and not allowing the necessary pursuance of your natural desire, by making you go to school and work. Most of your divine life has been stolen from you.
There was a point in your childhood when you knew what it was that you wanted to do, but couldn't even visualize it properly, let alone pursue the path, but you knew that in some certain direction, when you were free from the distractions that society demands (school, social responses etc), there was a prime desire that you promised yourself you would follow when given the chance.
I believe we all have had this secret desire. Mine was to egress the world of people and to go infinitely inwards to discover the true existence within, knowing that it would be impossible to do while having to play the social games with their clinging persistences that linger long after their cessation, and lead you into a false life which becomes your reality. But perhaps it isn't a desire, but is a glimpse of what your life will be. Perhaps we foresee our destiny but we forget as we become wrapped up in the game we started to play to get there.
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Sisyphean Futility
But any ego that we create is a mill stone around our neck and the pretend game we play can become a hell for us. The story of Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only for it to roll back down again, is an excellent demonstration of the futility of ego, whether or not that was the original intent of the story.
The Sisyphean task of keeping your ego elevated, is as impossible as Sisyphus' task itself. Sisyphus is not making any mistakes, the rock does not roll back down the hill, it rolls down the other side after he's pushed it to the top. To try and keep it balanced on the top is impossible. It will always topple over and roll down the other side and he cannot help himself to keep pushing it upwards, pushing it to its pinnacle; this is the futility of it all. To stop pushing the rock is the only way of ending the punishment; to stop trying to validate or elevate oneself and just be as you are. No ego will set you free; no story will set you free.
The chasm that exists between the potential you can be and the present that you are, creates the agony of this tormented life, as your ego is boosted by the need to have faith in oneself, and the actuality of not actually being this and no one believing in you, rolling the rock to the bottom again.
The only salvation is to forget the rock and forsake it—to forget and forgive ourselves. Our pretending only gets us into trouble later on when the inevitable mismatch of our story comes unstuck. The game exists for our social interaction and whilst within that game is perhaps necessary for our survival. The paradox of ego is due to the falsity of the environment which it is due to, as we exist as our true selves only within ourselves and contact with another is an exclusion from this divine state. We all live in virtual parallel universe's. Our ego's may be necessary for our performances in the physical world—and that stage we play upon is its home and comfort—but we are all Sisyphus while we do this and can only observe the folly of it when transcended from it, and know that deep underneath it all, our divine self smiles and is unaffected by the game and fame of our ego.
•••
To be our true self is the greatest that we can be, greater even than the fictions that we or anybody else may bestow upon us. To be who we truly are is unsurpassable and to be that all we need to do is allow our body to be as it is supposed to be and to quieten our minds of the fiction of past and future. We can achieve this with simple posture.
And it is all just posture. Confidence is just a posture; any ego construct of part of your character, like social elegance, attractiveness, capableness and even well-being. Ego is posture. Your belief in yourself will be shown to others through a subconscious betrayal of posture and behaviour. It is an emotion: a previous circumstance replaying itself. We can create better previous circumstances by practicing good posture in the present. Allowing our body to be as it truly is by removing the shackles of tension that have accumulated through our lives. Pretend to be what you really are!
- Head holding is key along with shoulder positioning.
- Mental awareness is essential. Practice the new ego by having no ego at all.
- Breathing can be a constant anchor. This is where we can gain composure.
- Relaxation makes it work. This allows us to sit easily in our new suit; our true suit.
