Eliminating Ego
Everything good comes from the subconscious – the id, or perhaps the soul.
So it was with sex. Tantra eliminates the ego – our conditioning from our lives as we grow – eliminating that to become what we were naturally underneath. Same with Dao – becoming what we were as children by forgetting the wrong things we learned. Acting without thinking, naturally. But the suppression of ego lets everything flow. Comedy, painting, singing, problem solving, psychoanalysis. Everything can be done better when it’s done naturally. Look at stand up comics – it has to appear to be natural – charisma, and the most relaxed natural people will be gifted at coming up with witty put-downs on the spur of the moment. Playing darts too. Relax. If you stop to plan how the mechanics of throwing the dart should be done, it inhibits and goes wrong. In psychotherapy, if the listener has preconceptions then the new client cannot be accommodated – the therapist will try to force their client into a label which doesn’t fit well, and consequently struggle will result. When the counseller forgets their preconceptions, they can be open to new information, learn better what is going on in the new mind which has been presented to them, and then when they understand, they can act appropriately and give treatment which has been accurately tuned to the client’s needs.
Watch a lead guitarist, look at their face. If they’re any good they’re in a trance. Alpha state. In the focus of total immersion in the music, the musician loses the conscious mind, is oblivious to the surroundings and plays “straight from the soul”. Maybe that is one argument for drugs. It’s difficult performing not to get distracted – especially to a large audience. The nerves of being in front of people can inhibit what the performer is capable of by stopping them relaxing. Maybe watching a guitarist relaxed by coke is actually watching someone in their more raw and human form. Maybe by using such aids they can slip into their natural mode, which they might only normally be capable of reaching when they are alone on their own and totally relaxed. The alternative is to control one’s own fear through meditation. After all, there is no actual difference between performing at Wembley Stadium and performing in one’s own bedroom. One is equally as talented in each venue – it is pure illusion which phases people in such a situation. It is possible to be completely calm and relaxed under any circumstances with calm self-discipline of the mind. Using the Dao. See through the illusions, and turn the fear into courage. We can control what we are if we choose.
As Freddie Mercury put it in Innuendo: “Turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be. Surrender your ego, be free, be free to yourself” That’s what he did. He ignored the critics and turned himself into a freakishly talented performer who ruled the world of rock and roll.
Problem solving is the same. And happens best in sleep. When the ego has gone to sleep, but the unconscious works on, solving the stuff which is being confounded by one’s conscious. As a young mathematician I recall waking up with the solutions to integral calculus problems which I couldn’t sort out the night before.