"I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree."
--A Poison Tree by William Blake
Every day, I am learning new lessons about the seriousness
of this journey and the tasks we're being asked to
do moment by moment.
Sometimes, I choose to ignore the call of my Soul. I refuse,
absolutely refuse, to rise higher, always to rise higher,
than the situation.
Lazy and weary...I refuse.
"This never-ending journey of the Soul is asking for too much!"
Always...I'm humbled by this refusal.
I love my human side. I love the part of me that
loves to fight fire with fire.
No matter how long I've traveled along this dusty road
with my Soul, I refuse to grant it the power... to change and alter
all the parts of me that I believe make up the essence of me.
"Who are you?" a person once queried me.
That is the question we often must ask ourselves
as we struggle with our humanity, our ego selves, tosubmerge its power and dominance over our Soul.
We always know the right thing to do. Often, we refuse.
Doing the right thing takes effort...work.
Why bother?
It's so much easier to give in to the anger...the hate...
the desire to win.
Why?
It's our humanity calling us home.
It's our ego selves always calling us to be complicit
with its need to reassert itself, even as it feels its
strength weakened by the inner journey as we reach out to our Soul.
Each and every time I've been tested lately by these
ego calls, I've always failed to rise higher.
I simply don't want to do so.
I truly, earnestly want to ride out this life, for however many years, decades, I may have remaining in this journey with my personality, my humanity, my ego self, intact.
I know this part of me is my "false self."
But who cares.
After all, there is that part of me that loves...truly loves...
the satisfaction of being "in your face," and justifiably angry.
Often, I don't care whether my getting angry will win me anything
in end.
I want to be ME!
So, I topple over all the other traits that I've acquired, like patience, tolerance, caring... and reach back to the old, familiar self in comfort.
Thing is...as we grow closer to the "lighter" side of ourselves, our ego self becomes more demanding, more threatened. An ordinary eruption becomes a catastrophe.
All or nothing. That's what the ego wants.
There is no "in between."
That "in between" part is unsatisfactory to the ego.
So strong is its need for dominance.
There you go, ego!
Satisfaction guaranteed: anger...hate...vengeance!
Freedom. The struggle is over.
Our ego is satisfied.
Thing is the victory lasts only for so long.
Eventually, the Soul keeps creeping out of the dark place we've left it submerged,
as ego ran full course through our lives.
Gosh. If only we could get rid of that Soul.
The Soul...
Oh...and those "pesky" humans who deal with anger by returning love.
Gosh...if only we could get rid of those people...those friends...those
companions...who would choose to respond with love to the anger...hatred...
we've tried to spew on them.The most humbling times are those when these people...these loving people...refuse
to answer the call of their own egos and treat us with love.
Bend your head in shame.
That's the only thing left to do.
"I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end."
--William Blake
The real reason?
Our "friend" chose to respond to the call of his/her Soul
by rising higher ...always rising higher...and choosing
to heal our anger by returning love.
Often, this is the true reason our wrath did end...
when our ego is not ready to lay down the weapons and the swords.
Do you have a friend like that?
Do you have an enemy, like your ego self, you want to "see outstretched beneath a tree?"
 |
| Death of EGO! |
My journey to get "there," still continues.
Namaste',
Che'
