SelfRealization
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Ego Traps
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to ride a bike to work or use public transportation, but then find yourself judging anyone who drives a car, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to stop watching television because it rots your brain, but then find yourself judging those who still watch TV, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to avoid reading gossip, tabloid or news magazines, but then find yourself judging those who do read those things, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to listen to classical music or soothing nature sounds, but then find yourself judging those who listen to mainstream or pop music, you’re in an ego trap.
• If you think it is more “spiritual” to do yoga, become a vegan, buy organic, buy healing crystals, practice reiki, meditate, wear hippie/thrift shop clothing, visit ashrams and read enlightened spiritual books, but then you judge anyone who doesn’t do those things, you’re in an ego trap.
Always be aware of the feeling of superiority. Self-righteous superiority is your biggest clue that you are in an ego trap. The ego loves to sneak in the back door. It will take a noble idea, like starting up yoga, and then twist it to serve its own ends by making you feel superior to others; you will start to look down on those who are not following your righteous “spiritual” path. Superiority, judgment and condemnation. That is the ego trap.
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Why Do People Bully? The Scientific Reasons
“In a recent Ditch the Label study, we spoke to 7,347 people about bullying. We asked respondents to define bullying and then later asked if, based on their own definition, they had ever bullied anybody. 14% of our overall sample, so that’s 1,239 people, said yes. What we then did was something that had never been done on this scale before; we asked them intimate questions about their lives, exploring things like stress and trauma, home lives, relationships and how they feel about themselves.”
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“I don’t really care so much what people say about me because it usually is a reflection of who they are. For example, if people wish I would sound like I used to sound, then it says more about them than it does me.”
— Prince
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In our culture, external validation is valued over internal satisfaction.
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The Moon Cannot Be Stolen
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you shoud not return emptyhanded. Please take my clothes as a gift.”
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow, ” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”
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“I don’t really care so much what people say about me because it usually is a reflection of who they are. For example, if people wish I would sound like I used to sound, then it says more about them than it does me.”
— Prince