The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [26]
Put yourself back in the situation and feel what you felt then. You might want to close your eyes and visualize the car that cut you off in traffic or the plumber who handed you the outrageous bill. Do what it takes to make the situation vivid in your mind.
When you feel that stab of anger, hurt, mistrust, suspicion, or betrayal, say to yourself, “That’s how my ego feels. I can see why. I’m very used to it. I will go along as long as it lasts.” Now let the feeling run. Get as worked up as your ego wants; envision fantasies of revenge or self-pity, or whatever your ego thinks is appropriate. Imagine that you are swelling up with your feeling; it spreads out from you like the shock wave from a slow-motion explosion.
Follow this wave as far as it wants to go, watching it grow fainter and fainter as it spreads to infinity, filling the whole universe if it wants to. Take deep breaths if you need to in order to get the wave of feeling to depart from you and travel outward. Don’t time yourself. The feeling may be strong enough to take a while before it wants to expand.
Now, just as you see the wave disappearing into infinity, look at yourself and see if any of the following feelings are present:
• A giggle, the desire to laugh at it all
• A shrug, as if the whole thing is no big deal
• A sense of calmness or peace
• Looking at yourself as if at another person
• A deep sigh of relief or exhaustion
• A feeling of release or letting go
• A sudden realization that the other person may be right
These are the telltale feelings that arise in us when we are crossing the invisible boundary between ego and the real self. If you follow any emotion far enough, it will end in silence. But it’s asking a lot to get that far every time. Your aim is to get to the frontier at least, the line where the ego’s needs begin to lose their grip.
• When you laugh, you are losing the need to take yourself so seriously.
• When you shrug, you lose the need to blow things out of proportion.
• When you feel calm, you lose the need to feel agitated or to have drama.
• When you can look at yourself as if you are another person, you lose the need to be the only one who counts.
• When you feel relief or fatigue coming out, you lose the need to hold on to stress. (This is also a sign of reconnecting with your body instead of living in your head.)
• When you have the feeling of letting go, you lose the need to be vindicated—the possibility of forgiveness is in sight.
• When you suddenly realize that the other person may be right, you lose the need to judge.
There are other telltale signs of leaving ego behind. If you fall into the pattern of being easily offended, feeling either superior or inferior, wanting what is coming to you and begrudging what others get, or imagining that people are talking behind your back, each of these can be dealt with just as you did in the above instances. Relive the feeling, let your ego take it as far as it wants, and watch the feeling expand until it fades away at the edge of infinity.
This exercise won’t miraculously dispel every negative feeling. Its purpose is to give you a close encounter with your real self. If you try it in that spirit, you will be surprised how much easier it becomes in the future to escape the grip of emotions that have been in control for years.
Secret #5
THE CAUSE OF SUFFERING IS UNREALITY
THE MOST COMMON REASON that people turn to spirituality is to deal with suffering. They don’t do this by accident, but because every religion promises that it can relieve pain, that faith transcends the sorrows of the flesh, that the soul is a refuge for the suffering heart. Yet when they turn to God or faith or the soul, many people find no relief, or only the relief that otherwise might come from talking to a therapist. Is there a special power found only in spirituality? For those who turn to it, therapy works, and the most common forms of suffering, anxiety and depression, respond in the short run to drugs. When the depression lifts, is there any reason to turn