A short talk (YouTube video) by Ashok Gupta exploring how the mind and ego drive emotional distress, how the COVID-19 pandemic magnified latent anxiety, depression, and loneliness, and how awareness can build resilience and hope. The speaker frames the mind as a tool that can overtake us and the ego as a source of separation that seeks validation, and encourages recognizing vulnerabilities as an opportunity for growth.
Chapters
We feel these emotions because of the mind, because the mind has overtaken us. The egoic mind as it's sometimes called, the mind and the ego working together. Now the mind is like a car. Now what do we do with a car? We walk out of our house, we jump into the car and we drive somewhere and then we get out of the car. That's how the mind is supposed to work. It's a tool, it's a utility. We jump into our minds, our mind is able to help us process the world around us. And then we're able to switch off the mind and go back to peace and stillness. But instead what happens? We jump into the car and the car goes on autopilot. Like you get these self driving cars now. And we become a passenger and the mind has now taken control. That which was a tool has now become the driver and we're overtaken by the mind. And instead what we want to do is learn how to step out of the car and not let the car overtake us, not let our minds overtake us with these emotions. So that's the role of the mind. What about the ego? The ego is that sense of individual identity or separation from people around us, from God, from the universe, whatever you believe in. And hand in hand with the ego is this sense of here I am alone in this uncaring, lonely universe, which is unsafe. Do we sometimes recognize that there's this background feeling of dread, this background feeling of uncertainty. But sometimes we don't feel fully comfortable and at peace with life and ourselves because we feel that once again we're in this uncaring, lonely universe. And that is one of the roles of the ego is to then try and overcome that sense of dread, that sense of insecurity, that sense of I'm not good enough. By then shooting out into the outside world and through our self image, our achievements, helping others, whatever it may be, we look to validate ourselves, to validate our sense of insecurity, validate that gap within. Can we recognize that within ourselves? And sometimes we even do that with Christmas, once again, we set ourselves those expectations of putting on the great dinner or making sure we've got the best present, or making sure that everyone's having a great time. With all that pressure and expectations, we burn ourselves out. And it's all down to this individual ego. Now along comes the pandemic. And what the pandemic has done for many, it is magnified that sense of egoic mind or a background sense of dread. Because suddenly now, everything that we took for granted in life. That sense of safety, that sense of we know what's coming next has all been thrown out the window. We suddenly realize we are not in control. We don't know what's going to be around the corner. And that for many people has been challenging and created huge amounts of anxiety and depressive thoughts and grief. That, that what I took for granted is no longer true. So let's just recognize that. But that's okay, because the most important thing I want to say is 2020 as challenging as obviously the number of people who have passed away. And we feel great sorry for that as much as that has happened. At the same time, these kinds of situations in life we can use as an opportunity to bring forth what was unconscious within us. That anxiety that you're experiencing right now about what's going on in the world, that was always there within us. It was just below the surface. That sadness, that depression that has suddenly come forward, that was always there within us. It was never resolved. That sense of isolation and loneliness that we might feel, that was always there below the surface. It's just that this pandemic has brought it to conscious awareness. And the people and the situations and the events of our lives are designed to do exactly that, to bring it up to the light of consciousness. So we all are aware of what's going on within us, of our vulnerabilities, and to build strength and resilience within us. Look, you got through this. You're here right now. No matter what has happened this year, no matter you've lost loved ones, no matter you may have had financial difficulties, you're still here. You're still alive and kicking, you're breathing. And I want to give you that hope now that there is this powerful human spirit within us all, that can get through these challenging times and can find that resilience and that strength within to get through this in a stress free way.
