There’s another great post from Deepak Chopra over on Huffington Post that’s really interesting. Any amateur psychologist knows that part of our problem on Earth is our sometimes ornery ego. The highest aspiration for a Buddhist is to basically meditate so that one realizes there is no ego–that there is no “I” (a realization I don’t expect to attain in my lifetime).

And so Chopra suggests we use the ego to our advantage (reminds me of a position Brad Blanton takes in Radical Honesty). Here are some of Chopra’s points:

Speaking personally, I have never favored trying to defeat, kill, or discipline the ego. My reasoning is that Leela–the dance of creation–is the true model of life. If life isn’t meant to be a struggle, then it isn’t meant to be a struggle against the ego, either. …

The trick is to use the ego’s natural tendency for your own good, to make it evolutionary so that a higher “I” can be constructed. You constructed the “I” that you have now, so constructing a higher “I” is entirely within your abilities. In lower stages of consciousness, this possibility seems remote. A person is too overwhelmed by the basic needs of life, and emotions like fear, anger, and greed dominate. But as self-awareness dawns and the basic needs are met, as a person feels safer and mostly free of fear, the ego can shift its attention. It no longer has to be a worried gatekeeper, a defender of the status quo.

Strangely, the people who seek pleasure most desperately–such as addicts–are the most afraid. Pleasure protects them from deeper anxiety. By itself, in the absence of other problems, pleasure isn’t a negative thing. It is incidental, in fact, to the purpose of life, which is evolution. Once the ego realizes this, it stops craving so much pleasure and allows pleasure to be what it always has been, a passing moment.

Please read the whole post for the rest.

I was thinking this morning a bit more of what exactly was different about this time for me than the thousands of time before. It has something to do with my starting down this path (choosing health; choosing to feel good) and then having an experiential shift as it really dawned on me how much control I really have over how I feel. So the words:

But as self-awareness dawns and the basic needs are met, as a person feels safer and mostly free of fear, the ego can shift its attention.

sound very similar to what’s been going on for me. For not only are my basic needs being met, I’ve developed a sense of confidence that they’ll continue to be met. This leads to reduced fear, which means it’s far less likely that I’ll turn to another dependency in order to cope.

Cool stuff. If only it were easier to explain!