How can i expect this understanding of the illusory nature of the ego to change my relationship with my family and the world around me? Would not such a u-turn be unsettling? Experience shows that it will do you nothing but good. Indeed when the ego is pre-dominant the mind is like a bird constantly slamming into a glass wall - belief in the ego - that shrinks our world and encloses it within narrow confines. Perplexed and stunned by the wall the mind cannot pass through it. But the wall is invisible because it does not really exists. It is an invention of the mind. Nevertheless, it functions as a wall by partitioning our inner world and damming the flow of our selflessness and joie de vivre. Our attachment to the ego fundamentally linked to the sufferings we feel and the suffering we inflict on others. Renouncing our fixation on our own intimate image and stripping the ego of all its importance is tantamount to winning incredible inner freedom. It allows us to approach every person and every situation with natural ease, benevolence, fortitude and serenity. With no expectation of gain and no fear of loss, we are free to give and to receive. We no longer have the need to think, speak, or act in an affected and selfish way.
In clinging to the cramped universe of the ego we have the tendency to be concerned exclusively with ourselves. The least setback upsets and discourages us. We are obsessed with our success, our failure, our hopes and our anxieties, and thereby give happiness every opportunity to elude us. The narrow world of the self is like a glass of water into which a handful salt is thrown - the water becomes undrinkable. If on the other hand, we breach the barriers of the self and the mind becomes a vast lake, that same handful of salt all have no affect on its taste.
When the self seizes to be the most important thing in the world, we find it easier to focus our concerns on others. The site of their suffering bolsters our courage and resolve to work on their behalf, instead of crippling us with our own emotional distress.
