The ego is an extremely tricky phenomenon. The more I look into my ego, the subtler it gets. It is the root of all my desires including the desire to get rid of it. Including the desire of dissolving it. It does not matter what the desire is to the ego. It thrives on the tension created between what is and the imagined what should be. I am writing this because I wanted to describe my most recent explorations into my ego.
About 26 days back, I had started a 90 day sit and do nothing challenge where everyday for 90 days I decided to take one hour and sit and do nothing. I also thought it was a good idea to take a timelapse video and post it on my Instagram. I started posting the video everyday i.e. I would shoot myself doing nothing for one hour and post the video with a voiceover of some deep insight that I had. It took me 25+ days to notice that what started as an intuitive experiment had been converted into an ego trip.
It was quite challenging to see this. Along with the timelapse videos, I was also posting daily videos sharing a free flow of any insight that would occur to me. I started noticing that this was also the play of my ego. Why? Over the last few weeks I started noticing being too concerned of how my videos were performing. I became concerned about why people were not engaging with my content, why weren’t they getting in touch with me to talk to me or hire me as their coach. That’s when I saw it. The subtle desire, the subtle trick of the ego and how it had started taking control.
I started noticing me setting goals for my IG account. On how I have to reach 1000 posts. How I have to be consistent and keep posting. I noticed myself comparing myself to other accounts as well. On how they were posting excerpts from their podcast interviews and how they had so many more posts than me. I started noticing the subtle dissatisfaction I was experiencing when I would open IG or threads and see no new messages or comments. All of this was happening right in front of me and I was unaware. My ego had slyly taken over and I was asleep. The worst part was that I thought I was awake. My ego made me believe I was awake and aware. What a trickster!
All this has done is made me realise that I am not yet ready to share with the world. I might never be. Who knows? And honestly, I’m ok with it. I am ok being a nobody who will leave no mark behind. If that’s what the universe wants for me, who am I to fight it.
I am getting guidance from the universe as well. Just today I heard an answer that Osho gave to a question asked about how to share the gifts that the seeker has received and it felt as if Osho was talking directly to me. He says to drop the desire to share as well as that would still be the ego trying to assert itself. It would mean that I am letting go of my experience and converting it into knowledge. Osho says to wait. To allow the pot to be filled and overflow automatically. It felt like a relief when I stopped posting on IG. It all boils down to how I’m feeling and how sensitive I am towards it. I am finding more and more courage to follow my feeling. I have realised that’s how God communicates.