The Nature of the Egoic Mind
by Jack Elias, CHT
An excerpt from Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy/NLP
Models of the Psyche, Concepts of Reality: The Three Malas of the Indian Vedic Tradition
In the Vedic tradition of India, the name of the energy that underlies and controls all phenomenal reality is Shakti. Since the energy of Shakti gives birth to everything, it is considered female. She gives birth to everything out of her own being. Shakti is everything, in no way separate from any phenomenon, yet she remains untainted and exuberant in the play of her own energies. She is our own inherent pure being — we do not simply have a little piece of her inside us — we are entirely her.
The unmanifest reality out of which the Shakti arises is called Shiva. Shiva is the all-encompassing awareness of the play — the immovable, indestructible witness — the male consort (lover) of the Shakti. Locked in eternal embrace — the same, yet different, ecstatically merging and moving apart to merge again.
The Shakti has many facets, i.e., there are different kinds of Shakti. The most important for our purposes is called “Matrika Shakti.” Matrika Shakti is the power of illusion, the power of maya, as it is called in many eastern traditions. What is the root of this power? Letters! Therefore, Words!, Language! . . . The primordial hypnosis — the thinking mind.
In our approach, it is important to contemplate the significance of the dream creating power of our thinking minds. We have to access our “Shivahood” to do this — our awakened awareness. Otherwise, hypnotherapy becomes just the shifting of one trance for another, always within the realm of the most powerful most subtle underlying trance: the egoic minding. I choose to call it “minding”, not mind, because it is not a thing, but a process. Until egoic minding is dissolved completely, awareness must be alert to its subterfuge, whether in yourself and your clients.
If this sounds intimidating, it doesn’t have to be, because short-circuiting the egoic underpinnings of people’s problems can make transformation much quicker, easier, and more delightful. Yes, more delightful — the egoic minding doesn’t have a true sense of humor — so humor is a powerful tool in breaking its spell. Humor arises out of awareness. Awareness of what? Awareness of 1) not being the thinking; 2) not being an object being thought about; and 3) awareness of being the awareness without having to think about it.
Think about it! While maintaining an awareness that thinking is occurring, contemplate that: 1) people’s problems are always about themselves as the object of the problem; 2) in order to be the object you have to be something; 3) that something is always an idea (or set of ideas), in other words, a suggestion (hypnosis!) of who and what you are, but never really what you are (what are you anyway?).
In other words, the problems are about a false self, an idea of self, a trance, an illusion, and could simply, in theory, be walked away from. What makes it hard to walk away? The subtlety and complexity of the shadowy (our blind spots) dualistic play of egoic minding.
The Matrika’s Wheel of Delusion
The core process of egoic minding is the dualistic play of thought. The seesaw, the polarity, the fixing to one side of a polarity to the exclusion (negative hallucination) of the other; overlooking the unity of the poles of hope & fear, good & bad, right & wrong, up & down, praise & blame which keeps the wheel turning. The wheel of delusion of letters and words tells you: 1) who you are, 2) where you are, 3) what is happening, and, 4) what you need to do. The master hypnotist, the master con-artist is your own egoic-minding.
Finding True Magic Audio Seminar Set: “Mindfulness & Awareness”
Article: “Waking Up from the Egoic Trance” by Jack Elias, CHT
an excerpt from Finding True Magic by Jack Elias, CHT
