The Story of "Me"

I was playing a video game that had a main character and a storyline to it. It was a long game that I played for about a month or two. In that time, it became a familiar world that I returned to with familiar faces and places. The struggle of the character was clear and I was absorbed by it.

Then the game was over. The story was done.

I felt this feeling of emptiness. I wanted more. I wanted the story to continue.

I became aware of these feelings. They were no different than my own attachment to my own story, my own struggles. I don't want my story to end either.

Somewhere in here is the core of the way our brains are wired to make something that is make-believe, real. How we can watch a movie and react to it as if it is real, even though we intellectually know that it is just moving light and sound on a screen. A phantom.

The events in my life are real but what I make them mean is often conditioned by my past. If I am unconscious, my reality now will be looked at through a conditioned context - a filter of awareness - that already colors experiences as they happen.

To drop all of that is to see things clearly. But, like the game, there is something within me that doesn't want the story making to end.

The ego is really dug in there but I am very interested to see what reality is like without it.

No more of this story I am telling myself of 'me' having to struggle, fight, survive.

Could that be what life actually is?

Depth

I took a look within and saw something that I would call "the activity of the ego".

This activity took the form of concerned thoughts about "me" that generated emotional reactions - mostly fear, anger, withdrawing. This casue and effect happened very fast, nearly instantaneously.

The main theme of these thoughts was that "I" wasn't safe in some way shape or form. There was an imminent threat, or I was already in trouble and needed to get out of it.

I saw that these thoughts were "world generating" thoughts. I call them that because - if I believed them - they would generate a world in which I wasn't safe and I would then have to react accordingly.

The thought, "I am not safe." generates an emotion and provokes a reaction where "I" must be and act a certain way. 

The thought, "They are mad at me." generates an emotion and provokes a reaction to act a certain way.

To see all this in operation is to see the endless futility of the ego. To see this is to see the reason behind all of human suffering and conflict.

To see all this in operation is to be out of the cycle of unconsciousness. Something else is looking. Other questions that have nothing to do with self-concern begin to arise. Questions that move vertically instead of laterally, questions that go deeper into reality.

It isn't about "more", which dissipates energy. 

It is about "depth", which intensifies energy.