Understanding Your Ego – Alan Watts

well you know the biggest ego trip going is getting rid of your ego your eco doesn't exist there's nothing to get rid of it's an illusion as i tried to explain but you still want to ask how to stop the illusion now who's asking i mean do you think in the ordinary sense in which you use the word i how can i stop identifying myself with the wrong me well the answer is simply you can't now the christians put this in their way when they say that mystical experience is a gift of divine grace man as such cannot achieve this experience it is a gift of god and if god doesn't give it to you there's no way of getting it now that is solidly true you can't do anything about it because you don't exist you say that's pretty depressing news but the whole point is it isn't depressing news it is the joyous news there's a zen poem which puts it like this talking about it it means the mystical experience satori the realization that you are the eternal energy of the universe like jesus did it says like this you cannot catch hold of it nor can you get rid of it in not being able to get it you get it when you speak it's silent when you are silent it speaks now in not being able to get it you get it because this whole feeling what krishna murthy is trying to explain to people for example when he says uh why do you ask for a method there is no method all methods are simply um gimmicks for strengthening your ego so how do we not do that he says you're still asking for a method there is no method if you really understand what your eye is you will see there is no method so sad but it's not this is the gospel the good news because if you cannot achieve it if you cannot transform yourself that means that the main obstacle to mystical vision has collapsed that was you what happens you can't do anything about it you're at your wits end what are you to do commit suicide but supposing you just put that off for a little while wait and see what happens you can't control your thoughts you can't control your feelings because there is no controller you are your thoughts and your feelings and they're running along running along running along just sit and watch them here they go you're still breathing aren't you still growing your hair still seeing and hearing are you doing that i mean is is breathing something that you do do you see i mean do you organize the operations of your eyes and know exactly how to work those rods and cones in the retina do you do that it happens so you can feel all this happening your breathing is happening your thinking is happening your feeling is happening you're hearing you're seeing the clouds are happening across the sky the sky is happening blue the sun is happening shining there it is all this happening and may i introduce you this is yourself this begins to be a vision of who you really are and that's the way you function you function by happening that is to say by spontaneous occurrence and this is not a state of affairs that you should realize i cannot possibly preach it to you because the minute you start thinking i should understand that this is this stupid notion again of i should bring it about when there is no you to bring it about see that's why i'm not preaching you can only preach to egos all i can do is to talk about what is it amuses me to talk about what is because it's wonderful i love it and therefore i like to talk if i get paid for it then i make my living and sensible people get paid for doing what they enjoy doing so this is not on a you see this is the whole approach is not to convert you not to make you over not to improve you but for you to discover that if you really knew the way you are things would be would be sane but you see you can't do that you can't make that discovery because you're in your own way so long as you think i'm i so long as that hallucination blocks it and the hallucination disappears only in the realization of its own futility when at last you see you can't do it you cannot make yourself over you cannot really control your own mind see when we try to control the mind a lot of yoga teachers try to get you to control your own mind mainly to prove to you that you can't do it there's nothing you know a fool who persists in his folly will become wise so they what they do is they speed up the folly and so you get concentrating and you can have a certain amount of superficial and initial success by a process commonly called self-hypnosis and you can think you're making progress and a good teacher will let you go along that way for a while until he really throws you with one why are you concentrating see buddhism works this way buddha said if you suffer you suffer because you desire and your desires are either unattainable or always being disappointed or something so cut out desire so those disciples went away and they stamped on desire jumped on desire cut the throat of desire and throughout desire but then they came back and buddha said but you are still desiring not to desire they wonder how to get rid of that so when you see that that's nonsense there naturally comes over you a quietness in seeing that you cannot control your mind you realize there is no controller what you took to be the thinker of thoughts is just one of the thoughts what you took to be the feeler of the feelings which was that chronic muscular strain was just one of the feelings what you took to be the experiencer of experience is just part of the experience so there isn't any thinker of thoughts feeler of feelings we we get into that bind because we have a grammatical rule that verbs have to have subjects and the funny thing about that is that verbs are processes and subjects and nouns which are supposed to be things how does a noun start a verb how does the thing put a process into action obviously it can't but we always insist that there is this subject called the noah and without a noah there can't be knowing well that's just a grammatical rule it isn't a rule of nature in nature there's just knowing