Ego & Thoughts

Here are a collection of valuable quotes from 2 Fractal Enlightenment Articles:

"If we believe every thought that we have that things are bad, or not going well, or life is terrible, then we will start giving our attention and awareness to thoughts of this nature and when a thought comes in that tries to say otherwise, we probably will discard it and not believe it.

Since all thought is energy, and energy will go where the attention is placed, we can assume that all of our energy will be focused on the higher vibration thought patterns (based more in love rather than fear). Also, since like attracts like with energy we see that the more attention we give to these types of thought will attract more of the same type.

It has been said that we don’t attract to us what we think, but we attract to us what we BELIEVE. If we can pick and choose what we believe by bringing awareness to our thought patterns and retraining our minds, then why WOULDN’T we choose to believe that all is well, and that the universe is always supporting us? Wouldn’t these types of beliefs allow for a more enjoyable life experience?"

"The mere desire of wanting to get rid of something stems from the belief that the thing you are trying to get rid of actually exists. So on one hand we have the fact that a certain amount of ego is necessary in order to participate in life. On the other hand we have the issue that the ego causes us suffering. It causes us to buy into beliefs about ourselves or about others that aren’t true and limit our experience of the world.

People spend years believing in all the stories it is creating about reality only to later find out it was all a lie. We could have literally decided to believe or not believe or create even any story we wanted to about our lives. But the ego does not want us to know that.

It masquerades as “us”, causing us to think that we are the ones generating the ideas and beliefs in our minds but in actuality we are the awareness that is behind the thoughts and ideas. This is the most important thing we must realize when becoming master of the ego. Once we come to terms with the fact that it is not us, we can start identifying where our ego is causing suffering in our lives from a place of presence rather than identification. From this level of presence we can observe the ego without judging it and without fighting with it. 

Do not fight with your ego. Do not try to get rid of it or kill it. Surrender to it, make friends with it, observe its nuances and when you begin to recognize a thought pattern that is starting to cause more suffering than you would like, simply, observe it without believing in it. The ego is feeding off of belief, and wherever the belief is placed is exactly the energy that will be amplified."

Eckhart illustrates an eloquent Butterfly analogy regarding the ego: