Dealing with Subconscious Sabotage

Hi, Eckhart. My question is, when I try to maintain presence in my everyday life, I'm aware that my subconscious need for superiority sabotages me pretty regularly and it happens very often. So I wonder what suggestions you have.

It would be nice for us to have one or two examples of how that looks.

I was afraid you would ask that. Well, typically when, like this morning, someone approached me and they were anxious and worried and off balance. And I thought it's sort of an automatic thing, sort of, you know, why don't you get your act together? And rather than just having a positive exchange and then I notice, of course, when I'm anxious or off balance, I want everybody to be kind and understanding. So it's. I judge that as not a good thing. I would like to be more automatically kind.

One more example, perhaps.

One more. Okay. When my question was chosen and I was invited to be here, I was really excited about that and it was tempting to think and it was kind of my first thought that, oh, isn't this wonderful? I have this great question, but, you know, I quickly realized that in reality that's. It might be a pertinent question, but it's not about me and it's not. It doesn't mean that I'm great. So it seems like a constant fight for me.

Well, of course, it's very normal, that kind of mind activity. It's just as awareness arises, it seems to be more of a problem than it would be for a normally unconscious person. Now, the good thing is that the awareness is there of it. If you were totally unconscious, that is identified with those thought patterns, you wouldn't even know it. Because the essence of identification is you don't know it. You are it, you are the thought. So you would then instead of feeling superior and realizing that you feel superior and then not wanting to feel superior, you would just feel superior and that would be really unconscious and that would be quite normal. Now because awareness arises, that's a good thing. You're aware of certain mind patterns, subtle things where you feel superior or special. It's another word for it that's specialness. Because specialness doesn't. Superior always implies better than specialness could also be, I'm much worse off than you, that's why I'm so special. My problems are much bigger than yours. Don't tell me about your problems, let me tell you about mine. Or as my dad used to say, when people said, I have a headache or whatever ache that you have a headache. I've had a headache for weeks. That's not so much superiority, but. Well, in a way it is it's specialness. I'm more special than you because I have more headaches than you. I must be more interesting. For whatever the reasoning behind it is, it's irrational, of course. So awareness is there, which is a decisive factor. It has come in. The awareness is aware of that mind pattern. Then, however, the awareness is obscured again by an additional mind pattern that says I shouldn't be having these thoughts, which are more thoughts. So we have three things here in operation. There's the original thought pattern, harmless as it may be, but there is a recognition of the thought pattern which comes from the fact that there's awareness. Through awareness, the thought pattern is recognized. But then the mind comes in again. It uses the awareness, the recognition that arose through awareness to construct an additional level of problems which says I shouldn't be having those thoughts. I'm not a good person anymore if I have those thoughts. I'm not kind if I have those thoughts. And what is that? Thoughts. So it can happen that as awareness arises, which is a wonderful thing, you're not totally identified with the mind pattern anymore. And then the mind is so cunning that out of that recognition it creates new mind patterns. And the new mind patterns say I'm not a kind person. If I think that I mustn't think. I feel bad about thinking that I shouldn't. By now I should be rid of that, whatever it says. So that's where you have to be careful to become aware that the mind has come in again after the awareness, that is not necessary. But you didn't know that that was unconscious. So the mind has little. It's very cunning. You recognize the mind there, and then the mind comes back in again and uses your recognition to manufacture more thought out of that. Right. And this is why it's very good to ask that question. It helps everybody. So you are special.

Thank you.

But of course, everybody has similar problems. So we are all special. The that's where you. Once you're aware of that, you can then recognize that as unnecessary. You don't need that. It's superfluous mind activity that does nothing except strengthen your mind. And then you can simply allow the recognition to be there without the additional mental judgment of there's something wrong with you. And that in itself gradually dissolves the power of the mind pattern. All you need is the awareness of what your mind is doing. Then gradually what your mind is doing becomes less dense, less powerful, and the awareness grows. So there's a shrinking of the mind pattern and a growing of the awareness. The only way the mind can stop that pattern is by. As I said, by coming in after the awareness and creating more thought around that. So just be happy with being aware. It's a mind pattern. It's nothing to do with who you are. You're not an unkind person. You're not whatever the mind says. It's just. There's that mind pattern. Isn't that interesting? There it is. And that is in itself sufficient.

Great. Thank you so much.

Sa.