The End of Ego
Partial transcript of a dialogue in Alaska in 1995.
INTERLOCUTOR: I want to kill my ego.
RUBEN FELDMAN GONZALEZ: Bring it to me and I'll do it for you.
(Laughter)
INTERLOCUTOR: (Not laughing) I forgot you don't even believe in Ego.
R.F.G.: Ego is thought. It's not that “I think something.” I have to see that I'm thought.
That basic understanding is the beginning of the end of ego and of nonfunctional thought -which is most of thought.
INTERLOCUTOR: I would be lying if I told you that I understand what you are saying.
R.F.G.: I'm trying to use simple words, but please recognize that I'm using a very polished language (polished by a long series of insights in Unitary Perception).
INTERLOCUTOR: I know ego is thought and that ego is conflict. But I don't know how to stop that.
R.F.G.: If you truly understand that you don't think, but rather that you are thought, you have a very fundamental insight.
Then you will not be observing any thought. There will be only observation of everything observable (including thought). This insight is very relieving and fills you with energy. You stop concentrating.
Our conflict is not only unconscious in origin nor merely learnt.
The fundamental source of conflict (something I have called “horizontal conflict”) is fragmentary perception.
INTERLOCUTOR: Try to make it very simple for me.
R.F.G.: I'm trying to avoid every complication. Look at this: “I” as an observer, am looking at something. I'm concentrating my attention on one thing. Since I know I'm only thought (knowledge, memory), it is thought creating a limited space between the observer (Ruben) and the observed (a sports car). The observer, who is concentrating, is bound to the thing (or person) observed by all the products of thought: desire, fear, comparison, rejection, justification, condemnation, anger, sorrow, frustration, etc.)
The limited space (observer-observed) created by thought is a hell of conflict.
Now, you cannot stop thinking because you are thought.
The only way out of the trap of horizontal conflict is Unitary Perception.
When you perceive everything perceptible at the same time without words, in silence, in a very passive awareness that is full of energy, then there is only observation.
That Unitary Perception or total observation is not limiting space.
In Unitary Perception space is one because everything in life is happening in space: sound, color, shapes, gravity and the process of thought which is you yourself but which is not any more limiting observation to a sports car and limiting space merely to the space between the observer and the observed: “ I want that car” (desire) “I'm angry and sad because I can't buy it” (frustration), “this car is better than my jeep (comparison), “people shouldn't buy those cars while others are hungry” (condemnation), “I may die in that car if I speed (fear), “I'll accumulate money gradually to buy it” (achievement), etc.
So thought has created a very limited space which is only thought and conflict, the source of all conflict (horizontal conflict): the limited space between the observer (Ruben) and the observed, (a sports car).
Have I made it simple?
INTERLOCUTOR: And the same process repeats itself every time I see some-thing or some-body, right?
R.F.G.: That's all we know. Everyday hell.
INTERLOCUTOR: If I simply listen in silence and look in silence I can stop the hell.
So then, how will it help me to be free from ego (and so free from conflict) this idea of Unitary Perception? And how is it different from my concentrated intention to change and be virtuous?
R.F.G.: Good question! Unitary Perception is not an idea. It is a fact to experience without ideas.
Let's suppose you are a businessman.
You are smart, you go to church to help your business, you want to be respectable for all the other churchgoers.
You don't want them to know that you are very dishonest in all your business, that your first priority in life is profit, pleasure and prestige.
You go as far as appearing honest, you may admit publicly that you are ambitious, but you take care not to say that you are greedy and that you are a big liar.You are a liar just to make more money and to deceive your wife whenever you can.
One day you say to yourself (after seeing that lying brings you a great deal of conflict, anger, sorrow and fear): “I'll stop being a liar.” What have you done?
You have fallen into horizontal conflict -the source of all conflict.
You have limited your psychological space to the very narrow space you created between the observer (businessman) and the observed (the lies).
After a lot of effort, concentrated attention and a waste of energy you may stop lying.
Now what?
You have not gone beyond the thought that creates you as the businessman and also your lies.
You have created a very narrow and superficial solution for one particular problem -one part of the problem- which is your lying.
But the problem is not your lies. The problem is thought, the creator of you and your lies.
In order to transcend thought you need Unitary Perception.
Unitary Perception is the deep and final solution to thought, lying and ego.
If you could just be in Unitary Perception for only one minute, then you would know freedom and you wouldn't have to ask me -or anybody- any more questions.
INTERLOCUTOR: So, to know that I should be honest and to strive to be honest is of no use.
R.F.G.: Everyone knows they should be honest. VERY FEW ARE. Self-assertiveness might make you honest but essentially you continue to be in a subtly deceptive, superficial mind.
Only Unitary Perception can give us the silent new mind, a mind of depth that has deeply changed, the mind we all need.
The matter is not merely to change beliefs, words, language, and thought.
We have to go far beyond beliefs, words, language and thought.
We need a completely silent mind that is able to listen and see without any distortion, without any incoherence.
Truly seeing (not recognizing) that you are a liar, right now, that's all you need to start being honest.
INTERLOCUTOR: Are you saying that if I intensely try to be honest, if I make an effort to be honest I'm repeating the pattern of horizontal conflict -the source of all conflict- and then there is not true change?
R.F.G.: No change! And you continue deceiving yourself by trying to be honest. We have to be aware of the totality of the mind right now, all day long. That can only happen in Unitary Perception.
Unitary Perception is the source of energy and virtue.
Ego is always seeking and controlling. Ego wants to lie and ego wants to be honest.
Ego is afraid of lying and ego is afraid to be honest.
Unitary Perception is the only possible end for ego.
Ego is absolved and resolved in Unitary Perception because it ends in Unitary Perception.
INTERLOCUTOR: So, I will be psychologically as nothing!
R.F.G.: And I cannot do it for you!
Happiness and true life start then. To be as nothing is the beginning of bliss.
If you simply listen without words there is only listening, there is no thought-ego there to create the hell. You are not listening to something, you are simply listening.
INTERLOCUTOR: (Laughter) I'm doing it, it's beautiful.
R.F.G.: Of course, we live isolated from beauty and love because we only think. Thought has created the meaningless routine of the office, its boredom, its brutality. People wanting to be famous, to be wealthy and in such a way wasting their lives . . . missing life!
INTERLOCUTOR: The end of ego is the beginning of happiness.
R.F.G.: There is no other way. The way is Unitary Perception.
From: Beyond Silence
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