RELEASE FROM THE TRAP

    The ego-notion superimposes all sorts of illusory and distorting factors upon our vision of reality, but there is no necessity for our remaining in such a distorted understanding.   We can learn something valuable about reality-distortions by experiencing such things firsthand, but there is no necessity for subservience to unwanted conditionality.  Understanding comes about by simply observing the root separative mental contraction, the contraction of attention associated with the habitual ego-notion; this observation eventually gives a deep insight into the automated mental processes which bind us into the unwanted.   The binding is an illusion that can be undermined only by the understanding of it.    First, there is a periodic awareness of mechanical thought and daydream imagery, all based on the root contraction, ego.   Be attentive every moment (presence) to the ego-notion as a contraction promulgator of the dualistic view which then erupts as a motivation to seek after mechanically arising desire. This first step is made by periodically thinking purposefully about the processes occurring in the mind along with a simple analytic enquiry into the separative or dualistic attitude, and recognizing its delusory nature.

    The second step is a bit more difficult, but is really only an extension of the first step; this entails reflection and insight into how pervasive the ego-notion has become and has thus become the root of the mechanism of inattentiveness and false identity.   With this understanding as background, the fundamental intelligence we all possess can emerge more and more unhindered and a subtle recognition of the holistic, nondualistic reality becomes progressively more stable, while delusion and distractiveness become progressively more absent.   Freedom is the freeing of consciousness from its mechanical contractions, our release from the trap of non-recognition in passive attention and the stabilization in our real identity.   This has always been known by those who did it, but has remained unknown to all those who have not.