The Ego roundabout

Our very strong sense of a separate ‘I’ has an incredible momentum in most people’s lives. We didn’t start off the way as a baby. There was a stage when everything was all One amazing thing, coming and going in front of us. We were full of Wonder. Then we started to feel this sense of ‘I’ and began building up a list of what we are not. That is a chair. I am not a chair. That is a dog. I am not a dog. And then the Ego roundabout started slowly spinning, gaining more and more momentum until as adults we live with a strong sense of separateness from everything we perceive. We are this and everything else is that. Along with this spinning momentum comes thoughts, a constant stream of commentary, usually the same thoughts coming round and round as if they are attached on an actual roundabout! When I meditate, I notice how these thought keep popping up, but here’s the first realisation - whose thoughts are these and where are they coming from?! Well surely they must be ‘my’ thoughts because no-one else can hear them! But are they really ‘my’ thoughts? More likely they are just what I call ‘echo judgements’. Words, ideas, preferences and judgements all collected and absorbed by the mind and then spun out by the Ego, like echos from the past. The roundabout spins and another thought pops up, travels past and then disappears again, like a cloud on a windy day. If we don’t attach ourselves to that thought, then it does not have any power over us. It’s just an echo from the Ego, doing all it can to keep us feeling separate. The more we don’t attach to those thoughts the stiller and calmer we become. The Ego roundabout begins to slow down.... In a sense we move from being on the outside of the roundabout (drama) into the centre of the roundabout (calmer). The centre of our Being. The place that does not move. That timeless, formless place. I understand there is a stage beyond this centre point, where the roundabout stops going around all together. That’s when the Ego dissolves. With no centrifugal force flinging the thoughts and words and judgements onto the side of the roundabout, they just drop to the ground. For the Ego, the games up! Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? I will be honest and say I am not there, but writing these posts helps me to see the direction I want to head in and I hope they help you too. That is certainly my wish. So my friends, I invite you to re-discover the centre of your Being, where everything is still, peaceful, calm and just as it is. - Rob Holmes