“Everything’s pretty much ok, so why do I feel a bit perturbed?”
In conversation with a client.
There was a bit of a sense of foreboding, as if it wasn’t ok that things were ok.
I floated the idea that it might be ego, up to its tricks.
You see, ego—which just wants to exist; you can’t really blame it!—has no incentive to keep showing up in the same form. Once you’ve spotted one of its disguises, you’ll spot it again quickly.
So it has to evolve.
It’s like chatting away to someone in a room, that is causing you disquiet. Then you see who it is, underneath the outfit they’re wearing - “Oh, you’re ego! I see you! Ha – be off with you!” and you usher them out the door.
Then someone different taps you on the shoulder and you get chatting. They seem completely normal and friendly, until they start making unreasonable demands on you and before you know it, there’s disquiet again.
And then it dawns on you – “Hang on, you’re the same person, just wearing a different outfit!! You’re ego again! I see you! Ha – be off with you!”
And so it continues.
For as long as we draw breath.
It’ll show up in all sorts of ways. More than you can imagine in fact, because it will always be one step ahead of you, at first.
It will probably come disguised as presence, but it’s not.
This is why I always advise people to be properly in touch with their feelings, because that’s the best (only?) guide you’ve got.
Disquiet is, by definition, ego. It’s the source of all disquiet.
(I think this is why Syd Banks was always encouraging us to “look for a good feeling” – not because we should devote our lives to hedonism, but because a “bad” feeling is not the place to go looking for any answers!)
It won’t look like that at first, because it’s changed its outfit and come back in via another door.
🥸
Giles
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Giles P Croft