Another Choice

There is death.

There is our death.

Because we are separated?

Because the instruments which consciousness utilizes to express itself through us, instruments developed by the forces of nature as all terrestrial living organisms are, are insufficient?

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The ego, this “Me-I”, this constant compulsion which whips and goads us and enjoins us to construct our separate personality and provide it with its own traits and specific terms, is in fact tributary of a state of contradiction, opposition and polarity that ceaselessly compels it to situate and position itself in relation to the others and to the world. A minuscule puppet tossed about by the currents of energy that course through the physical world, it must harden and tighten and precise itself with the help of vital motives and of intelligence so as to form and erect and firm up the barriers and the moulds necessary to its own development and survival. It must watch and protect itself from below – where the subconscient threatens to engulf it -, from all sides – from where at every moment the world might reject it - and from above – from where formless vastness might crush it.

It is the ego that, by all means, seeks to turn death– the ruin of its project - into an abstraction.

It is the ego that, voracious, demands to be satisfied. It is the ego that is avid for recognition.

There can be satisfaction only if there is separation.

If there is satisfaction, it is the ego that feeds from it.

From an impersonal standpoint, there is no qualitative difference between the satisfaction of having done one’s duty at the service of the nation, of having taken in a stray dog, of having prepared a delicious dish or of having realized the spiritual presence in everything.

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