LOVE AND EGO

(This article was written by Alsibar, who has studied spiritual guides extensively, and the original text in Portuguese can be read at this link.)

LOVE, SURRENDER AND ECSTASY

What is love? Is it emotion? Is it a feeling? Is it something forged by thought? Can we love with purpose and awareness? What is surrender? Does surrender exist as long as the ego exists? Let's reflect together on this fascinating topic.

The poet and composer from Minas Gerais, Paulinho Pedra Azul, once said: "Love will be beautiful if two become one."

Jesus, in the fifth Gospel, stated: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, the outside like the inside, the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one, so that the male is no longer male nor the female female (...) then you will enter the Kingdom.”

And the explanation is very simple. Love is the experience of oneness with everything and everyone. But this can only happen in the complete absence of the ego, because the ego cannot love. It is contrary to its nature. How could it? The ego is self-interest, desire, ambition, thought, time, limitation. Everything the ego does has an interest and a motive behind it. And what has interest and a motive is false.

“When you have finished all that you had to do, you will say, ‘I am an unworthy servant; I have only done my duty,’” Jesus said in the canonical Gospels.

"To act with the intention of obtaining something is to act from ignorance," Krishna states in the Bhagavad-Gita.

In short: as long as the ego exists, there is no love, since one is the negation of the other. From this, a simple conclusion follows: as long as the observer—the thinker—exists, there is no place for love.

Love is not emotion. Love is not sensation. Love is not desire. If your "experience" with love boils down to these three aspects, it's best to reflect on what you truly feel. Could there be a misunderstanding? Wouldn't it be better to observe this feeling, not through the lens of thought, but through wisdom, through direct perception, without the interference of words?

Undoubtedly, we can discover the Truth directly for ourselves, not through opinions, whatever they may be. The mind, thought, loves to possess everything. In this supposed "mastery" over all, it feels safe and happy, in the illusion of having understood. In the illusion of feeling something sacred and valuable. But can something as sacred and pure as love be touched by thought?

We know what thought is. We know its tricks, its cunning, its megalomania. It is important to transcend it. It is important that it withers away and starves to death. Only then will we be able to glimpse something truly sacred and pure. Something we call Love, but which in truth is beyond all classification, all words and names.

We tend to separate and classify love. We say it is sensual (eros) and fraternal (agape). But who made this division?

Thought created it, and when the thinker ceases to exist, are there any divisions or classifications left? Or does everything reduce to ONE?

Oneness doesn't mean feeling the same way about your friends as you do about your partner. It means that the ego no longer exists, fragmenting and classifying things in terms of words and definitions. Then everything has its place, its sphere, and its function. A new order and harmony are established, one that thought cannot recognize.

Then you will no longer confuse "desire" with love. You will not confuse "attachment" with love. Nor "possessiveness" with love. Nor "jealousy" with love. Not even "emotion" with love.

Many of us simply seek the feeling that "love" provides. But that is nothing more than a biological process, the result of the activation of proteins in brain chemistry, such as serotonin and dopamine.

That has already been scientifically proven. And when the brain stops producing them, what remains? 

Nothing. And that's why people separate and remarry so often. They're always looking for new sensations, trying to feel the euphoria that this state provides. But when the brain stops producing those substances, we say, "Love is over. I have to find it again!" And we spend our lives trying to feel it again.

In general, we deceive ourselves into thinking the other person is to blame. We look for a thousand and one reasons to justify ending our marriages and relationships. But eternal or perfect relationships don't exist. That's an idealization. A dangerous and comfortable illusion we cling to because we don't want to face reality.

Nothing in this world of thought is perfect or lasting. Everything that thought creates, touches, and desires transforms, deteriorates, and dies, for that is its nature. Even if it doesn't want to accept it. And it cannot, for it is inherent in the nature of the ego to desire continuity, security, and comfort.

Only when man frees himself from the tentacles of the ego—which is the desire for permanence and continuity—only when the thinker—who is also ego—is completely extinguished, through the perception of his own limitations and nature, can something new, original, and true emerge.

In that "something" there is no tomorrow, no past, no future. In it, everything becomes clear and unified. There is no room for regrets, attachments, jealousy, or fragmentation. There is no room for feelings of possession or demands of any kind.

I know many won't understand me. And rightly so, because we only know the dimension of thought. And what I'm talking about is beyond that, it transcends it. And only those who reach this dimension can "feel" it, because it doesn't belong to the realm of words or definitions.

The "ego-thinker" tries to approach it, to master it, to possess it as it does with everything and everyone around it, but it cannot. Simply because that something is completely beyond its reach.

When all the barriers of illusion dissipate. When the feelings of "I" or "mine" no longer exist. When, even for an instant, man manages to free himself, to abandon the realm of thought and ego, then something new will emerge.

Don't try to feel it. Don't try to see it. Don't try to touch it, or control it. Some call it surrender. I don't like that term because it leads to many misunderstandings. If you understand "surrender" as "someone who gives up or surrenders to something or someone," you're mistaken, because the illusion of duality persists. In true surrender, there is no one (I, ego) who surrenders to something or someone (God, Guru).

"LOVE" can only arise when nothing remains in terms of ideas and concepts. Thus, only with the extinction and overcoming of concepts like "ego," "god," "surrender," and "love" can human beings truly perceive or feel something that transcends the ego's sphere of influence.

Otherwise, we will deceive ourselves, drug ourselves, and hypnotize ourselves. And this will have the same effect as any chemical drug that produces pleasure, euphoria, sensations, and dependence.

Love is the negation of all the chaos created and maintained by fragmented and fragmenting thought. We can only approach it indirectly and negatively, that is, by understanding what it is not.

On the other hand, if we try to contact it positively —through our knowledge, thoughts and desires— it will elude us because it is the only thing in the universe that has not been created or conditioned.

 And only by reaching a state of unconditioning, of total "purification" of the thinker, of the past and of the known, can that something emerge. But it only "emerges" when we are no longer there to experience it, explore it, or use it as we please.

In other words: true surrender is a natural consequence of the extinction of the ego. Only when the ego relinquishes its desire to dominate, categorize, and possess everything can LOVE (that is, the supreme experience of Oneness) emerge.

The relationship between man and woman is simply a representation of that Oneness taught by the great masters, sages, and enlightened beings. The average person only achieves Ananda, or the ecstasy of Oneness, in rare moments of sexual intimacy. But mystics and enlightened beings reach that state naturally and spontaneously.

Love is the supreme experience of Unity, of Wholeness, with oneself, with others, and with the Universe. It is the quintessential mystical experience because the ego, with its sense of fragmentation and separation, ceases to exist.

But that state cannot be desired or sought. Only when, through meditation and self-knowledge, the human being frees himself from the illusions of the ego, does that reality arise.

As long as there is any movement of desire and ego — both at a conscious and unconscious level — as long as there is searching, effort or motives, however subtle they may be, Love will not arise.

Call it Love, Truth, God, Christ, Buddha, whatever you like. It doesn't matter, because it is beyond all words, concepts, and definitions.