TRANSCEND THE EGO!

“The problem ain’t what we don’t know: it’s what we do know that ain’t so.” Yogi Berra

Our culture offers us two quite different definitions of “ego”. On the one hand, Sigmund Freud’s hundred year old definition suggests that the ego is a weakling, constantly struggling between the demands of our morality and the demands of our base instinctual desires. On the other hand, a contemporary spiritual view of the ego suggests the ego is a scapegoat, the horrid part of ourselves that prevents us from becoming enlightened. As Eckhart Tolle says, the ego is “the complete identification with our thoughts and desires,” usually with a selfish perspective. Tolle defines the ego as the false sense of self that we build up, not knowing who we are. Unfortunately, he’s not very clear at identifying who we really are, and what this false self actually is.

“Ego” is simply Latin for “I”.   Both views of the ego raise questions as to what is “I”? If “I” is the ego, then who is defining it?  Or who is talking when a person says they want to rise above their ego? In both cases, the ego does not appear to be the “I” who is talking. If I normally let my thoughts and emotions run me, but on occasion I can ask, “Do I really want an ego? What is this ego that is running me?” -- that is a level  of consciousness above the ego. The “I” is therefore consciousness. The ego is not the “I”. This is why it is not a useful concept. Each of us has only one “I”. To be sure, some folks do have several “I’s” inside their heads, but they are usually diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.

Many spiritually oriented folks have been calling upon us to eliminate our egos, to somehow rise above that identification with our minds, our emotions, our instinctual urges, so that we can become more perfectly spiritual. Well, the time has come! An actually useful definition of the ego is what we have when our consciousness identifies with its inputs. But this should not be called “ego.” It is just a case of mistaken identity. What’s controlling you at the moment is just one individual program. It’s up to you whether to let it in. It is not your horrible all-controlling reified ego. There is no such thing.

What are we? We appear to be a union of Spirit and body. At the very least, Spirit is the Life Force keeping us alive, the spark of life. When Life Force leaves the body, we are pronounced dead. This Life Force was transmitted when our father’s living sperm merged with our mother’s living egg. In the same manner it was transmitted to our parents from our grandparents and to them from our great grandparents and so on right back to the very beginning of life on this planet. Through the similarities in DNA, we can recognize that all life on this planet is related, parts of one great living system. The Life Force is therefore very special, very holy. Our own individual sparks of life are very special, very holy.

Our consciousness is the direct expression of our Life Force. There is nobody inside you but “I”. There is no Spirit or Soul separate from “I” lurking in the shadows of your subconscious. When you identify yourself as the expression of your Life Force, then you may discover a deep respect for yourself. You are so much larger and more powerful than you may have imagined, as is everyone else as well, whether they know it or not. Look inside. Haven’t you always known that you are your Spirit?  Your consciousness is the consciousness of your Spirit. I used to think that somehow consciousness is separate from Spirit. Of course it’s not! Spirit and Life Force are one and the same, and consciousness is the direct expression of that Life Force.

On the other hand, we do have a subconscious, a shadow side, the extent of which is unknown and unknowable. The stream of consciousness springs from the unconscious, and it may contain anything from the programmed reminders and random print-outs of our biocomputer to subtle messages from the Great Mystery. Consciousness and the unconscious or subconscious are two sides of the coin of our Life Force. You cannot have consciousness without something to become conscious of. All that is unconscious invites us to explore and become more conscious. Because we are each a part of the Great Mystery, we are each infinitely deep, we are each an Individual Spirit Mystery, an ISM. Consciousness is the rider on this Mystery horse, and while consciousness has some control and knows something about its gait and capacities, consciousness can never know everything.

To think of this another way, the entire history of life has been the evolution of consciousness. We inherit instinctual programs, and in our early not-very-conscious years, we develop programs with which to deal with life. These programs tend to run us until we become aware that we have choice. Consciousness is the capacity to choose. The more we are able to choose how to deal with the programs which rise up out of our unconscious when stimulated by the right triggers, the more we become conscious and are able to take charge of our lives. Consciousness in this sense is just emerging as the true master of our lives, so that we no longer need to be driven by our programs into whatever tragedies or successes they demand.

Consciousness collects information, evaluates it, and chooses courses of action. Because these functions are what a pilot does, consciousness may be appropriately thought of as a Pilot, guiding us through life. The stream of consciousness is a rich mix of sensations, thoughts, feelings, memories, fantasies, intuitions, etc. The Pilot navigates the stream of consciousness, choosing which channels to pay attention to. In order to function, Pilot has to have an operating system. The only folks who do not have an operating system are newly born babies and advanced Alzheimer’s patients. Both have the hard wiring that regulates their breathing, heartbeat, and all other bodily functions, but the baby has not yet developed its operating system, and the Alzheimer’s patient has lost his or hers. You can see the consciousness in the eyes of a baby or Alzheimer’s patient, but they can’t do much of anything.

As every baby grows, it gradually develops its operating system, which manages a variety of operations. First, it is in charge of  taking in information from several sources, chiefly our senses, our thoughts, our emotions, our fantasies, our sexuality, and our intuitions. For example, you see something out of the ordinary and take a second look. You focus more sharply and pay more attention to detail. That is Pilot asking for further information, using its operating system.

Secondly, the operating system is in charge of  assimilating and categorizing that information. Pilot does the actual evaluation, but it is dependent upon the tools it has learned and placed in the operating system. For example, some of us rather automatically assign a truth probability to the information we receive. If it comes from The New York Times, we might assign it a truth probability of 90%, but if it comes from Rush Limbaugh, we might not assign it more than 20%. We evaluate the information we receive in terms of our total experience, and in terms of the values we have chosen. If one of our values is to obtain as much power as possible, we will evaluate incoming information in terms of its relevance to that value; if one of our chief values is to follow the Path of Love, the same applies. As well as evaluating sensory input, a properly functioning Pilot evaluates the information it receives in the form of thoughts, feelings, sexual impulses, etc. Is this a thought worth pursuing? Is this a feeling I want to act on, and what would be the appropriate action? All sources of information can provide valuable guides and are not to be repressed, but the mature Pilot sees them as inputs, not requirements.

Third, the operating system is in charge of memory, so that Pilot can choose what to remember and ask the operating system to file it. When it files that information in the memory banks, some of the filing functions are automatic, not conscious for Pilot. They work well or not so well. We may ask to remember a piece of vital information, particularly, say, for a chemistry test, and when we take the test, the information is not forthcoming. Maybe we will remember it after the test is over. So like all the other sources of information for Pilot, memory contains a degree of fallibility. We may call these fallibilities forgetfulness, lies, hallucination, false memory, phantom pain, delusion, etc. Pilot deals with these inconsistencies as best it can.

A fourth main function of the operating system is to have an action tool chest so that Pilot can use appropriate tools to choose a course of action. Babies learn early on how to move their bodies, so with that knowledge in the action tool chest, Pilot can then choose how and when to move. Many of the tools come to us through our education. If Pilot chooses to put optimism in the tool chest, then Pilot can choose to be happy and find reasons to be happy. If Pilot chooses to put pessimism in the tool chest, then Pilot can choose to be depressed and find reasons to be depressed. Pilot can use the mind to choose a course of action on the basis of logic. What would be the good and bad consequences of the proposed action? Pilot can choose on the basis of emotion. What emotion does the proposed course of action bring up? Things or events don’t make Pilot feel. Our emotions offer the Pilot input, and Pilot can choose to feel the offered emotion, transform it, or put it on the shelf and consider it. Pilot can also choose to repress it, but that is generally not an effective response. Another approach Pilot can take is to fantasize about what would happen if it chose a proposed course of action, and the fantasy can be a guide for choice, helpful in defining a situation or working thru a challenge. Pilot can consult any or all of its various inputs to make the best possible choice and then draw on will power to carry out that choice. The whole process can be quite automatic, semi-conscious, not necessarily mental.

Fifth, Pilot generally sets up the operating system to receive feedback from acting on its choices, and evaluates that feedback.

Now, just in case there is any doubt, what I have been calling the operating system is often referred to as “mind,” that bugaboo that gets in the way of our becoming enlightened. So let’s change the frame. Mind is the main operating system of our consciousness. Get used to it – and design your mind to function as effectively as possible.

I have been talking about how a mature Pilot and operating system function. What actually happens is quite different, because our culture does not offer this model to children. Pilot naturally tries to understand what it is and define itself. In a young child, Pilot identifies with the body, with the mind, with emotions. This creates the ego and leads to the terrible twos, when any desire must be instantly gratified. Ideas and emotions pass directly into action. And this is what Eckhart Tolle warns us against -- when Pilot makes the mistake of identifying with its inputs instead of recognizing that it is the receiver and evaluator of all inputs. In other words, the mind is not in charge. It is a bad master – but it can be a very good servant.

“I am angry,” “I am hungry,” “I am afraid” – these may all be serious semantical mistakes, evidence that the Pilot’s evaluative function has been usurped by its inputs. The only “I” is Pilot, unfettered consciousness. It might be more correct to say “My emotions are signaling anger,” “My body is telling me it is hungry,” “My past experience suggests it is appropriate to be afraid in this situation.”  Changing the internal language with which we talk to ourselves is very important. It is necessary to break that identification of the inputs with “I” so that only the Pilot can claim to be “I” and speak for the entire organism.  On the other hand, Pilot may choose to feel and express an offered emotion after evaluating it and choosing how to act. Pilot then can correctly say, “I am angry,” or “I love you.”

One of the major things I have learned from this exploration is that I am not my feelings, I am not my thoughts, I am not my instincts: I am the Pilot who receives and evaluates input from all of these parts of myself. I have discovered some distance between what I am and the elements that used to dominate and control me. Becoming aware of being a Pilot, of being the evaluator and decider, is a major step in my evolution, and wonderfully empowering. I am consciousness. Everything else is secondary, simply supporting this highest flowering of my being. I become a Pilot when I take charge of my inputs. That is the challenge.

Thus, the problem is not exactly the ego: the problem is that we don’t know that we are consciousness, and consequently identify with our inputs and the programs we have created for ourselves. We may think we are the roles we play – we are a teacher, husband, golfer, care giver, etc. That is like saying an actor is the roles he plays. As we grow and try to figure out what we are, we develop all kinds of programs that may be beneficial, or may be dysfunctional or totally selfish.

The purpose of life is to grow in consciousness. We do this by exploring our reality, both inside and out. Any time we experience a new activity, learn or refine a skill, gain new knowledge, go deeper into appreciating a sunset or another person, or track subtle energies, we are growing in consciousness. When we do the same thing in the same way over and over, whether it’s driving to work, watching football, making love, or meditating, it’s less likely that we are growing in consciousness. Increasing our consciousness is one of the finest joys we can experience, which is perhaps a sure sign that doing so is our fundamental purpose. When you can look at an experience or even an idea and say, “Aha!” – that’s what we’re here for, the exquisite pleasure of discovery. In short, we are evolving consciousness. Our consciousness has been evolving since the moment of birth, and very possibly before that. While it is true that many of us stop evolving long before the body dies, the more we are aware that we are evolving consciousness, the more we can keep evolving right up to the moment of death.

What people call “ego” is just identification with a collection of probably selfish programs that need to be examined and upleveled. Eckhart Tolle is partly right when he says that this is the problem. But if one sets up the ego as the enemy and tries to fight it, it tends to become stronger. In a case such as this one, it may be true that what we resist, persists. Doesn’t it make sense to love all parts of ourselves, rather than to think we have a horrid part that should be rejected? If we recognize simply that we had an insufficiently developed Pilot that was dominated by some dysfunctional programs, it then becomes relatively easy to uplevel or replace those programs and release the identification. On the other hand, if we simply blame our egos for our selfishness and look no further, we never actually examine and replace the dysfunctional programs that operate out of selfishness, and we may never stop identifying with them.

We know that dogs, which are all descended from wolves, have learned within the last 100,000 years various techniques for getting along with humans. For example, if a human hides a treat under one of two cups and then points to the cup that the treat is under, the dog will immediately go to that cup. This is an inherited trait, not a learned trait. Wolves cannot do this. Neither can chimpanzees. It is a trait that has evolved fairly recently in evolutionary time in the brains of dogs. If such is true of dogs, humans probably have many such programs inherited in their brains. We probably have such basic programs as the fight or flight response buried in our reptilian brains. We can imagine that some aboriginal tribes were very war like, and others were more peaceful, so that you might inherit either a peace program or a war program. Likewise, some were highly patriarchal; others were much more egalitarian. Again, if you have the egalitarian program you naturally treat people with much more respect than if you had the authoritarian program. Some tribes were much more into sharing, and others were much more into selfish me-first behavior. Here again, you can have programs in either direction; in fact, you may have programs in both directions, to be activated under different circumstances.

Some of these programs may be functional for the Path of Love; most are probably not. We may characteristically respond in a selfish manner or a dominating manner because of the way our brains are programmed, not because of anything we have learned. Therefore, when such programs emerge in a particular situation, we may have to work especially hard to reprogram our brains to respond in ways we would like. But once we separate our consciousness from our inputs, it can definitely be done. It is largely a matter of bringing these instinctual programs fully into our consciousness and then redefining their appropriate scope of action.

Before going on, one caveat is necessary. I like to define myself as consciousness, but that is not quite the whole story. Altho I separate consciousness from input, we are totally responsible for our output. Everything that we do or don’t do leaves an impression on our loved ones, on our society, on our place in history. Therefore, we might as well accept our output as part of out identity. It’s a question of what would you like your tombstone to say?  So if the output is part of our identity, why isn’t our input also? I was in a horrendous head-on collision that left me moderately impaired. So isn’t that part of my identity? After all, I go down stairs one at a time, I have trouble going down steep slopes, and I can’t ride a bicycle. Isn’t that part of my identity? My answer is no, not quite. Consciousness evaluates that experience and chooses whether to suffer the limitation and complain about it, or do my best to rise above it. So it is not the input that determines my identity but what I choose to do about it. I choose the values which determine my output, so it is appropriate to see those values as part of my identity. I choose to dance the Path of Love. That value is a major part of my identity. It is what I have done with my consciousness.

We have to clean out the programs that may have been chosen with limited consciousness. Some programs may be very persistent because they are entrenched habits or have emotional charges attached to them. It then may be helpful to process the emotional charge or practice an affirmation for the program we want. An affirmation may be very simple: “I choose to pay attention to my fears and evaluate them;” “I’m as smart as I choose to be.” To process the emotional charge, remember when you first chose this program. Explore the situation and reasons for adopting it. Can you see that it might have been appropriate for that time and place? But it is no longer appropriate for how you want to function today. Releases of such programs can be very powerful, often full of laughter or tears. Just remember that you are the Pilot, and it feels good to recognize and uplevel the operating programs.

When we recognize that our Pilots run on the Divine energy of our Life Force, we may discover that our Pilots can draw on vast streams of energy, and are amazingly powerful. It is true that the Pilot can be overpowered by the mind or emotions, but that is simply because the Pilot does not know its own strength. When I discovered the power of my Pilot, I asked if the painless rash on my chest might be caused by my addiction to chocolate, for which I had a habit of more than two ounces a day. I resolved to temporarily stop eating chocolate. I went totally without chocolate for three weeks and didn’t miss it. Not eating chocolate had no effect on the rash. Now I have gradually resumed to eat about half that amount, an ounce a day, and I keep it in balance. I also wanted to lose about ten pounds to reach my ideal weight, and have now lost 25 pounds. I feel great! I know I am not my hunger, and when hunger speaks up, I say, “Thank you! I appreciate the input. But I want to maintain a low weight and the entire body will feel better if I do so. So please relax. My body is not going to starve.” I have found it helps to set a time when I will eat and the hunger pangs will be satisfied – they don’t need to keep telling me eat, eat, eat! If I specify a time, then the hunger pangs know when to come back. It’s important to treat my various desires, in fact all of my inputs, with respect and appreciation. Furthermore, I know I am embraced by Mother Earth. She supports me in every way. Therefore I have no reason to be needy or greedy, to want more endlessly. In all the important ways I already have more than enough, and I celebrate my appreciation.

When the Pilot is firmly in charge and knows what it is doing, it can draw on endless will power to carry out its intentions. When you understand that you are consciousness receiving inputs, you are no longer identifying with those inputs and fighting with yourself. Therefore it is easy to use your will power to replace the dysfunctional programs with the programs you want. Will power is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

         I seem to be making new discoveries every few days. Awhile ago my computer accidentally erased part of this chapter. I grew really angry, and the anger caused me to accidentally erase the back-up. I recognized that my anger had taken possession of my Pilot and overpowered the evaluative function. I went into meditation and asked how can the anger do me any good? I could feel the effects of the anger, pumping adrenaline into the muscles of my shoulders and arms. It came to me that the angry energy was going to the wrong place. Was I preparing to fight my computer? As I asked for Guidance, the message came that I needed to translate the anger into hyper-alertness. Anger tends to be blind. In a highly charged, volatile situation, I don’t need to be angry, I need to be super alert. If I had been super alert, I might not have followed the first mistake with a couple more. Being on hyper-alert is a different vibe from anger. All I have to do is transfer the energy of the anger, to uplevel that program. As I reprogrammed my Pilot that when anger arises, send it into hyper-alertness, a wonderful good feeling came over me. I could feel the change happening in my body very solid and definite, like the way the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle snaps into place. So I’m clearly processing my stuff, which is beautiful. Any time anger arises I use a simple affirmation: translate this anger into hyper-alertness. Thru my knowledge of myself as Pilot, I am making all these new discoveries about how I function. Now I see my initial angry reaction as pretty humorous. I suspect that many of us program ourselves or inherit a program to get angry when things go wrong. The anger gives us a big shot of energy with which to deal with the problem. But the anger energy is not the best energy we can draw upon. It’s a good exercise to learn to draw on our stores of energy without getting angry.

When we recognize that consciousness, or Pilot, is the direct representative of our Spirits and that we need to build the best possible operating systems for our Pilots, a giant shift in understanding takes place. Perhaps it is what C.G. Jung truly meant when he talked about individuation. We are always in process, but this is the step that must be taken to reach our next level of evolution. So how can you strengthen your Pilot?

To be sure, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness is a very powerful way to strengthen one’s consciousness. I recommend it. But I also recommend strengthening thru a slightly different understanding of ourselves. To start, it is good to recognize and appreciate one’s Pilot. I am conscious. I can be aware of so many different things. Wow! How exciting! Thank you, Great Mystery, for giving me this wonderful gift of life! A major step toward strengthening your Pilot is to love yourself and all your parts. This means that your Pilot is loving your Pilot, and love is the fertilizer that encourages growth. How destructive it is for folks to hate their egos and try to get rid of them! I suspect that much mental illness and criminal behavior is a result of an insufficiently developed Pilot, which leaves folks in the grip of their minds and emotions.

Secondly, it is very important to clarify and cleanse the relationship between your Pilot and your operating system. Because our culture has no clear notion of what our Pilots are supposed to do or that we even have an operating system, we grow up in ignorance of who we are. Over the years, we build into our operating system mental or emotional programs of how we’re supposed to think, feel, or act. These programs may become largely or completely unconscious. The Pilot is thus contaminated by programs that may or may not be functional: “I’m afraid of flying.” “I feel normal when I’m depressed.” “Nobody likes me,” “I’m dumb,” “I could never raise children,” “I’m better than anybody,” etc. Once you discover the true function of your Pilot, it is desirable to dredge up all the unconscious and semiconscious programs in your operating system, and evaluate whether they are dysfunctional, need to be upleveled, or are appropriate for you.

When you choose to replace or uplevel programs, the Pilot knows just what to do. But if you attack the operating system, it may go into a defense mode, and the programs you don’t like may become even more aggressive. To attack part of yourself is like an auto-immune disease and is not helpful. When you know you are the Pilot and you are in charge, the mind and every other aspect become servants, or tools, or input devices.

A holy man might say that he has transcended ego or mind. What he means is that he is no longer dominated or controlled by thoughts or emotions. Separating Pilot from the inputs is a more functional way to speak about this, and is perhaps one definition of what the Buddha meant by detachment. Rest assured that the most enlightened holy man has an operating system full of programs, but he has revised his programs to be in line with light and love. He probably did this through one or more experiences of samadhi, and through the recognition that this is really how we want to live, this is our destiny. Any of us can reach that state, if we simply follow a route that works, which this Pilot Paradigm is offering you.

So much depends on the terms we use, on how we define things. Many traditions speak of desiring to be a servant of God, to do His Will. This is a markedly old-fashioned patriarchal way of looking at the relationship. Since we are all parts of God, we are already representatives of God. Therefore I want to be the best representative I can be, dancing the Path of Love. It doesn’t matter that I am representing God to other representatives of God. The point is simply to learn how to dance the Path of Love, and if enough of us do this, we will achieve the triumph of consciousness thru our use of free will, where we automatically choose love over any other value. This will be an evolution to gentler, subtler beings, Pilots who still have an entire universe to explore.

For most of us, dysfunctional operating systems contaminate our Pilots. Another way to cleanse the contamination is to look at the values you have chosen to apply to your life. The charge of egotism simply means that you have chosen the value of being self-centered. We may become self-centered as a protection against the confusions of childhood, but it is not a functional value for an adult who might want to practice love and compassion. So what values do you act on? Do you believe it’s a dog-eat-dog world? Do you believe material stuff makes you happy and the more the better, or do you believe in simple living? Do you believe love conquers all? Do you believe in equality but actually practice patriarchy? By exploring and evaluating your values, you can cleanse the Pilot of any intruding dysfunctional values in the operating system. Thru this process I realized much more deeply that I wanted to travel on the true Path of Love, on which I had been trying to travel all along, not very successfully.

We actually have considerable consensus on what values we wish to practice: love, compassion, peace, joy, respect, equality, honor, integrity, efficiency and precision in our work. The dark side may intrude any time, and we need to respect that in ourselves and one another. We want to be sure that we are doing the best we can, and feel our Spirits shining.

As well as cleaning up its programs and values, the Pilot can be strengthened simply by becoming aware of all the different functions of the operating system and making sure they are all in good working order. You may find you rely mostly on thought and feeling, and don’t use your capacity to fantasize in a helpful way. Or you may never have developed your intuition. You may ignore or discount certain kinds of sensory input, such as the subtle message your skin gives you when it is getting too much sun.

The Pilot can also be strengthened by traditional educational tools, such as how to think logically, how to discriminate fact from opinion and how to verify facts, how to analyze propaganda, how to use art or dreams for personal investigation and development, how to identify emotions precisely, how brain chemistry may affect mental processes, how to communicate compassionately as presented by Marshall Rosenberg, etc. We may need some specific workshops on how to recognize when the Pilot is overwhelmed by an ideology or powerful emotion, and how to create space to allow for evaluation. It is so easy to be sucked in by an ideology and forget that it is just one way of looking at things. Then the ideology dominates our Pilot and we work on defending it instead of exploring alternate views.

One of the most powerful tools we have to strengthen the Pilot is the Doubting Thomas Technique. Timothy Leary’s “Question Authority” campaign was just a part of this. It is very simple: doubt everything, question everything. What can possibly go wrong? In talking to other folks, What are the limits of your proposition? How far does it apply? What is your substantiation for it? How valid and logical is that substantiation? Where has your proposition actually worked? What were the results? Etc. I welcome the Doubting Thomas Technique for every part of this document. I just ask that you grasp the whole first.

A Pilot can also use the Doubting Thomas Technique to explore hir own input. Where is this input coming from? Why does it have this emotional charge? When was it embedded in my unconscious, and why? Is it on the Path of Love? How should I best act on it? Etc. The more we can get clear on what is going on inside our heads, the better off we are going to be.

Because we have free will, the Pilot can surrender its evaluative functions to Holy Spirit, or Divine Will, or Jesus Christ, as in what would Jesus do in this situation? But in all such cases, the Pilot can also take back what it has surrendered. Ultimately, the evaluative function belongs to the Pilot and the Pilot must take responsibility for its choices. However, the Pilot can also put the evaluative function on automatic, or semi-automatic. The Pilot simply programs the operating system to respond to situations in terms of its chosen values. Thus a Quaker who believes in non-violence can respond automatically to any situation in a non-violent way; whereas a soldier with the opposite conditioning might automatically respond with maximum force. The Pilot can thus put its imprint on the stream of consciousness itself. If a person is deeply in love with their partner, they might decide never to have sexual thoughts or feelings about anybody else. When Pilot chooses this program, sexual thoughts or feelings may not even surface in the stream of consciousness.

This is an important point. I have discovered that I can make requests of my stream of consciousness, which is part of this being that my consciousness inhabits. This realization was so powerful it brought tears to my eyes. I was asking my stream of consciousness to only give me stuff that works, forget about impractical fantasies. Let what comes be on the Path of Love, valid and useful! I then realized that a long time ago, when I was maybe 16 or 17, I asked my stream of consciousness not to give me paranoid thoughts, because my mother was so crazy with her paranoia. Ever since, if anything pops up that seems like it might be a paranoid thought, I ask, is there any truth here? Usually there is none or very low probability, and I can easily dismiss the thought. Sometimes I recognize there might be a grain of truth, and I then decide to pay attention, be cautious, or take other appropriate action such as to seek more information. Consequently, for all of my adult life I have not been bothered by paranoid thoughts. Now it is so lovely and satisfying to know that consciousness is in charge, and it really can make requests of various parts of this being and receive compliance, at least some of the time. I tell my stream of consciousness, thank you for everything you do, you are magnificent! I request with all due respect, give me thoughts that work! Give me thoughts that help me celebrate this glorious adventure of life! If I can do this, of course you can too.

Our pilots can never be completely in charge. We don’t know the code by which the brain creates programs, and we don’t know the triggers of those programs. It would be nice if we did, but since we don’t, we can only guess at how to take the energy off a program. It is a challenge calling for exploration. On the one hand, the body is hard wired with automatic programs of its own. For example, altho Pilot can choose to lengthen or shorten life, the body will determine when we die, or even when we get sick. Altho Pilot may have some influence, the body determines our heart rate, breathing rate, and a host of other functions. On the other hand, there is always the shadow side. No matter how much we process our previous programming and bring it under the guidance of the Pilot, unexpected and inaccessible recesses will surface in all of us, part of the indeterminacy which is a fact of this existence. It ranges from the behavior of subatomic particles to the random combinations and mutations of our very genes. The complete Pilot learns to deal with indeterminacy, one of the lessons this reality offers us to keep us growing.

Even tho this random element frequently gives us major challenges, part of this great experiment is to see how well we can respond. But there is still occasionally amazing grace that happens by what feels like divine intervention. One way or another our lives are saved by inexplicable circumstances. That is all part of this mysterious time/space continuum in which we live. There are clear, logical, scientific knowns on how things seem to work, and there is also the intervention of the mysterious, the unknown, frequently the magical. The Pilot is sometimes navigating uncharted waters. We keep moving, we keep growing, we keep meeting new challenges. That’s the excitement of life and what gives us wisdom.

Separating Spirit from consciousness, from the Pilot, is dysfunctional and leaves us separated from our Divine natures. That separation may be the cause of the disharmony we experience in our society. Once we truly understand that we are our Spirits, we can start to bring our lives into harmony. The natural emotional state of the Pilot is equanimity, which includes a subtle joy in being alive, knowing that all is just as it should be. But at the same time, Bubba Free John once said that the natural condition of the human being is creative imbalance, which may play an important role in our education and evolution. We don’t want to be completely balanced because that’s static, and static is the next thing to dead. Elements from the shadow side may pop up at any time. We are therefore willing to allow various events to get to us and temporarily upset our equanimity, until we recognize these are challenges to work on, adventures to undertake, and we develop joyful resolutions.

As Pilot, you may choose to ask your intuition for Guidance in major areas and follow it. This is an option we all have. In other words, far from hindering as in the supposed case of the ego, the Pilot can actually help you become enlightened. Believe that your intuition is a direct link with God, and you will experience that it is. If you feel you are not making contact, find a meditation technique that feels right for you, and work on it. Find that still small voice within. Experiencing God is not something you reach out for: it is something you relax into. When you continually ask for Guidance, through your intuition you can program yourself to be on the Divine Path of Love as much of the time as possible. This in itself is one definition of enlightenment. You can also direct yourself through meditation to feel directly the cosmic vibration, infinite compassion, or the ecstasy of holiness. Just program your operating system to be open to these transcendental experiences. Nirvana is always available to those who seek, and the stronger and clearer the Pilot, the easier it is to find. We have a subtle connection to the Great Mystery, which is why prayer sometimes works, why meditation seems to be able to lower the crime rate, and why many of us experience apparent miracles of all kinds.

A wise person once said, “Happiness is not a destination but a method of travel.”  As the Pilot cleanses contaminations and takes charge, you may find it is pretty easy to be happy. It is your choice. The secret of happiness rests in how we choose to respond even when we are challenged by a seemingly random catastrophe. If we choose to follow the Path of Love, with grace, beauty, courage, and laughter, our path is lined with the flowers of happiness. If we choose to respond with fear, hate, or revenge, then our path is more likely to be lined with the toadstools of despair, misery, and feelings of meaninglessness, worthlessness, and desperation. Whether our path is lined with flowers or toadstools depends entirely on which values we embrace.  Once you separate your consciousness from your inputs, just ask yourself this question: who is responsible for your happiness? When you accept the obvious answer, it’s an easy step to figure out what to do about it. Choose to be happy!

To say this another way, the aim of life is not to feel good. It’s not to be happy, it’s not the whoosh, it’s not the high you get from alcohol or marijuana. That’s not the purpose of life, it’s like the monkey in the experiment who keeps pushing the lever to stimulate the pleasure center of his brain even while he’s starving to death because he’s too absorbed to stop for food. The purpose has to be in increasing consciousness, often achieved by accomplishment of some kind. That has to be where the real satisfaction lies. Feeling good, being happy, is an excellent method of travel, but it is not the end goal.

It doesn’t take much to realize that the most beautiful path available to us is the sacred Path of Love. When we ask for Guidance on the Path of Love, the Path acts as a filter to give us only those answers which are most joyous, loving, and helpful to our Spiritual evolution. On the other hand, if we ask for Guidance out of our confusion, we are likely to get only confusion back. The Path of Love is the most rewarding path because love opens people to their Spirits, and the more we realize we are all Spirits, capable of deeply loving one another and deeply loving every aspect of God’s Creation, we can thereby bring immense joy to the world.

The next stage in our evolution is to recognize our Pilots and enable them to take charge of our systems. Consciousness becomes the Pilot when it chooses to take charge of the software. It has very limited capacity to take charge of the hardware. Our self-built programs, inherited programs, and hard wiring have a deep hold upon us, but we now know we can rise above much of that. If “mind” is defined as the collection of programs and hard wiring that feed into our stream of consciousness, then we have an evolution from consciousness run by mind to consciousness running mind. Being conscious means using free will. A being is conscious to the degree that it has free will. Consciousness is the decider as well as the observer.

The test of our free will is this: can we become harmonious within ourselves and build a harmonious society? Can we recognize all others as equal parts of God, to be treated with love and respect? When we have a strong Pilot, we will conclude that we don’t want to play lying games with each other. Pilots want to be as honest and straightforward as we can be. We don’t have to wear a mask to protect ourselves. We can be real. Pilots can truly trust one another to do their best to follow the Path of Love. A great respect, trust, and love will build among all of us. We can all be open to feedback from one another. We will feel our own spiritual natures deeply, be deeply in touch with ourselves, with our Spirits, participating in this glorious adventure.

When we consciously activate our Pilots, we have a much better chance of choosing the life affirming values. At last it may be possible to love God with all our hearts, and love our neighbors as ourselves. As more and more people become aware of themselves as Pilots, Pilots will find it’s remarkably easy to link up with other Pilots and appreciate that we’re on the same spiritual path, even if we have widely differing beliefs and practices. Who knows? Perhaps as Pilots develop and grow close, we will become telepathic with each other and swim in the Grace of Love. I’ve experienced some powerful hints of this. We will become a force for great good in the world, both inside ourselves and by what we do for others. We may even become the tipping point that will fundamentally change the direction of our society, and we will all evolve to a new level. We may at last become the nervous system of the planet instead of its cancer.

An enormous amount of work lies before us to bring us into harmony with one another and the planet. It will be very satisfying work, and we need to get on with it as fast as we possibly can.

We are each a deep mystery, full of endless surprises and delights. The Pilot Paradigm is an oversimplification of the subtle and complex interrelated beings that we are, but I believe it can be highly beneficial. My hope is that by reading this, you will get as much out of the Pilot Paradigm as I do, and you will never be the same again.

Please send questions or comments to  

donangelo@spiritualadventurer.com

Dancing the Path of Love