Today I stumbled across a technical article on the Internet. An article about a computer operating system I worked with professionally a good decade and a half ago. The article dealt with the predecessor versions of the program, the time of its introduction, the number of lines of program code, the compatibility with different computer hardware, the minimum requirements for operation, the errors of the operating system over the years of its use and additionally programmed extensions, the successor, the customer response, the number of units sold and so on… In addition, the article was provided with pictures of the user interface.
I read this article and the more I read of these mostly technical facts, the greater my peace became. A pleasant feeling of the old familiar arose. A memory of times that were quite clear and the challenges of which my mind was one hundred percent in control at the time. Any time. How much resurfaced from my memory! How many details discussed in this article I had to deal with at that time with the goal of using and mastering this program for the benefit of the company and its profit maximization. To ensure its error-free and fail-safe operation. I managed this quite well and 10 hours of each (working) day were clear and manageable at that time. Were mastered by me and full of meaning for my ego. I had a task that I (that my ME) could grasp. I had a place in the world.
I was surprised myself while reading what effect this technical, dealing with snow from the day before yesterday article had on me. I was surprised myself while reading it that I read it at all.
I knew that I had been very stuck in my mind the last few days because I had opened a channel through my consciousness to someone whose pain I was supposed to resolve. I felt the shimmering restlessness that is so contrary to the peace of mind. I felt my blood flowing and pressing against every one of my vessels and cells. I was pure physicality. Tense. Sense was visibly slipping away, irritability was coming, the harbinger of anger. The rage came too.
What a balm my memories of good old days, when everything was clear, were for my battered ego. When everything was under control. When peace and order reigned. When everything was under control! – that’s probably why I was led to that article. To soothe the fear of the suffering ego for the time being. To whitewash with the feeling of the apparent control and the security and the sense.
While I watch with interest as calm sets in, as my ego reconstructs the past and brings it to life anew in the present, literally „revives“ it, I think of the dead-straight fences, the lawn edges, the neat stacks of paper on the desks of this world. Of right-for-left. Of the scientific proof that must always be repeatable in order to be considered proof by science. Of Bach’s „Art of the Fugue“ …and of the loneliness of the ego, so lost in apparent chaos. I think of the security of our soul, which quietly embraces and overlooks everything. And I think of us. Of the consciousness whose task it is to watch over ego and soul. To let the soul work in matter and, conversely, not to let the ego become destructive.
This morning I was able to drown out the ego’s pain with memories of good old times. Now my consciousness, with the help of the soul, will dissolve the pain into what it is: Into nothing.
The resolution of pain. That is the task.