Question for Liz from a reader:

“I read somewhere in your story, or a blog post, that at some point in your journey with the Course, you experienced heavy ego “rebounding.” I am 1/3 through the workbook. I find there’s strong correlations for me between a day or few days of inner peace, much less ego chatter, etc, followed by very persistent, loud, insistent(!) ego noise and demands. Some mornings after a previous day of consistent meditation are particularly noisy. How did you deal with ego rebounding, and what do you recommend for those periods when my ego’s voice, and its resistance to any of my meditative work, is strong?” – M

Liz’s Answer:

Yes, you have described the ego’s rebounding very well. This is the process. You experience peace or an insight and as soon as you even so much as glance (usually unconsciously) in the ego’s direction it does whatever it needs to do to hold your attention. And it’s usually not something nice! This will go on as long as the ego still seems to have something you want and/or you are afraid of God (True Being).

After long, futile struggle I eventually learned to just accept the rebound. I accepted that it was happening because I still believed on some level that the ego had value and/or was “safer” than Truth. I accepted that I was in a long process of undoing that belief. Accepting the process and where I was in the process did not undo all of my discomfort but it did lessen it considerably.

On those days when the ego was particularly raucous and I couldn’t meditate I just accepted that, too. I made the attempt and tried to just be with the resistance, observing it and letting it go. But if it was too uncomfortable I would just go do something else. Throughout the day I would turn my mind inward to Truth whenever I remembered. And if I couldn’t feel It I would remind myself that it was still there. The sun still shines even if, from my point of view on earth, the clouds seem to obscure it for a time.

And I’ve learned that ego episodes always pass. This was something that I would remember in the midst of them, too.

Kabir, 1440 – 1518,
Mystic poet and saint from India

#1

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals;
not in masses, nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

~ Kabir

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

#2

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,
in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth,
find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

When the guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

 ~ Kabir