The Illusion of our Identity

Not all of the ego needs be annihilated in order to arrive at enlightenment.

While we are still in the body we need a thread of ego left to operate in this reality we call life. What is dramatically different about this remaining thread, however, is that it has been totally abdicated to the Universal Inspiration’s command. No part of a person’s will is ever in conflict with the reality of any given moment. There’s absolute trust that, no matter what, Wisdom exists at all times.

The part of ego that necessitates elimination is basically an intricate mess of ancient emotional attachments. When we think about it, all suffering or loss is derived from some form of emotional attachment, for example, relationships, careers, values, opinions, and objects. These things, when threatened, can cause emotional pain, from mild upset through to complete devastation. Our desires are also born from this dysfunctional foundation. What we think we need emerges from an illusion. The ego is really an emotional core that we mistakenly believe to be the “I” that we call “myself”. Can we ask ourselves what or who would be left if we could hand over all our emotional attachments? Let’s imagine that we willingly detached from all our beliefs and launched into a free-fall of trust in the process of undoing - what would be the result?

We are emotionally attached to so many things of which we are not aware. An example is the attachment to the belief that we know our own best interests. This idea is so absurd when we look at it from a higher perspective. If the “I” we accept as our identity is made up purely of emotional attachments, then everything it desires or avoids will be absolutely dominated by these attachments. There’s no room in this identity called “I” for the Universal Inspiration to work its miracles, no trust to invite conscious love to manifest, and certainly no grace by which to receive its gifts. The collection of emotional attachments called “I” always does what it does best - obsessively protecting its status at any cost, even if that means physical death. This “I”, despite its seeming need for love, is secretly kept alive by one fundamental seed - and that is separation.

The ego must maintain a separated state in order to stay alive. If you find out who you are not, you will discover the miraculous state that rests at your core.

How does our mistaken identity work? The mass of emotional attachments we call “me” believes that it is on its own; that is why it needs so much and why it fears so much. At its secret core it knows that it is other than God, that its very livelihood depends on how well it can stay under the Divine radar while fooling us that we are on the right track.

When we ask the ego the question, “How could such a loving God have created such an unloving world?”, it replies with a standard response: “It’s unfair, but I guess if God created it, we just have to do our best to protect ourselves and our loved ones, maintain control of our lives as best we can, and seek happiness while trying to avoid pain”.

Once we start clearing away the debris during the process of undoing ego, we come to recognize a monumental incongruity. If the ego called “me” is a mass of emotional attachments, how can it successfully navigate this world of seemingly random chaos? If we are spending our lives struggling with protection, control, and the constant seeking of happiness while trying to avoid pain, then what is left for God to do? What is the purpose of having a God if we are playing that role continuously?

Have you ever thought about our individual and collective purpose here on earth? Our purpose is not to run around, lifetime after lifetime, acting out the dramas of our mistaken identities. And what happens when the body dies? Are we let off the hook, returning to a temporary state of bliss, only to re-enter yet another life of seemingly random drama?

The meaning of what we call life, while we remain under the spell of ego, will remain a mystery as long as we cling to our unquestioned beliefs . There is no God outside us, whatever we may call this Universal Presence. It is part of us; It never, ever leaves us. Of course, at times we feel It is not there but that is because “we” are not present. Being an ego with a bundle of un-investigated fears and attachments, we are all too busy juggling our daily control issues to question the meaning of life, let alone to question our very identity.

If God is supposed to be all-loving, why is it that we are capable of being so unloving? The answer is that God did not create this reality; we did. We came from the original state of all love, which means no pain, no loss, no fear and no separation. We were one, and we still are, beyond the illusory life we choose to live. We had no need for time or space or matter because these were manifestations of separation. We were blissfully content as one - that is, until we decided to experience something else. The experience that we called for is “duality”, meaning two-ness or otherness. In this reality we have the concept of good versus bad, up versus down. The “I” perceives itself as separate from everyone and everything. In the ego state we truly believe that we have needs that may not be fulfilled and that we are vulnerable to loss.

These beliefs are responsible for some rather absurd ideas, including the popular misconception that love can turn to hate. If this has been true for us at any time in our lives, we must ask ourselves “who” had the experience? Who perceived that love disintegrated and became hate? If we’ve ever had that experience then we can be absolutely sure that we are perfect candidates for the process of “ego release”. Only the ego believes that love can diminish or transform into hate. Love is unknowable through the ego. Love is not a feeling, it is not an experience, and it cannot be sought after. Trying to get to know love while still believing we are who we think we are, is akin to jumping off a sixty-storey building convinced that we will fly. Until we are prepared to take the journey into undoing the ego’s perception, we will never know who we really are or what our true purpose in this life is.

By Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira, authors of the soon to be released book,‘Take Me to Truth’.

Contact Nouk and Tom at: info@takemetotruth.com