The gift of the Ego

(Not my writing, I took this excerpt from http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/, written by Ariel Bravy. I could have written this myself, but I don't think I could have done a better job.)

Let’s have some fun and play God.

Imagine you live in the world of the Absolute, where everything is perfect, loving, whole, united, connected, and wonderful.

That’s great and all, but you can’t really understand or appreciate anything because you’ve never experienced its opposite.

So you’re God and you decide you want to blow yourself up into an infinite number of smaller versions of yourself, all of whom can experience the universe from every possible angle and vantage point.

Now, there’s no way to not be who you are. The next best thing you can do is to forget.

What’s a great way of doing this? Give these little pieces of yourself an ego.

The ego is basically what allows you to create the illusion of and thus experience the exact opposite of who you are. You choose to do this because it allows you to experience BOTH who you are and who you are not.

With this new gift of the ego, you can experience fear. Now you will be able to fully appreciate love.

You can experience duality. Now you will be able to appreciate nonduality.

You can experience time. Now you will be able to fully appreciate everything happening at once.

You can experience being disconnected from yourself. Now you will be able to fully appreciate how amazing it is to be fully connected to yourself.

You need to be that which you are NOT in order to appreciate that which you ARE. But because it’s impossible to be that which you are NOT, you can create the illusion of everything that is not and think that it’s actually real.

You are really God. You are consciousness. You are one with everything. You have just been given this gift of the ego in order to be able to experience what it’s like to be yourself and not be yourself.

You are enlightened. It is your true nature. The mind is just sitting on top, yapping away, telling you that this illusion is real.

Surrender is simply releasing all of the illusion and coming back home to your true self. It’s letting go of the illusion. Everyone has had the opportunity to play with energies of both pain and pleasure, “good” and “bad.”

The ego makes all this possible. It’s what creates even the possibility of good and evil.

So don’t try to disown your ego or hate it. Love it, for it is the special gift which lets us experience and appreciate all of life. Thank you ego. I love you.

When you’re ready, simply surrender the ego as something you no longer need. You put it down just like any other toy you’re finished playing with. Surrender it away and reconnect back to your true self.

That’s all enlightenment really boils down to.