In the animal the soul and the material survival instinct work. The soul produces in the animal the knowledge of the life, the community, the peace and the inner sense. It is always dormant and always consistently present. The survival instinct generates in the animal the knowledge of loneliness, separation and pain. If peace prevails, then the survival instinct is low and the influence of the soul is high. If danger comes, then the survival instinct grows in proportion to the separation that arises and the pain that is to be expected or is already present, and increases in the extreme to raging hatred. To then, when the danger is over, become small again. To become then from the hate against the outside to the more or less distinctive attention to the external events. To become an observer, a pure perceiver. The survival instinct steps into the background. The animal consists only of soul and material survival instinct. It exists in and through the interplay of these forces, depending on how the outside shows itself to it. Silence or hate. It is equal to it. It does not think about it. It reacts. Depending on the temperament. The basic relationship of soul and survival instinct inherent in it.
The animal man also consists of soul and survival instinct. We call the survival instinct ego. The ego. The individual. Or the individual, as we say nowadays euphemistically. But the human animal has another component in itself and that is the consciousness. The consciousness summarizes the perceptions of the soul and the ego. It makes the connections of the cosmos, which are otherwise hidden, visible in the human being. It enables the survival instinct, the material principle, to express itself in thoughts and words. It brings the experience of time into the world. This experience of the ego and all its other perceptions can now be described in words. Called. The principle of judgment is made manifest. The concept of plan is made visible. Primordial principles, primordial concepts, which are otherwise hidden everywhere in creation and work unrecognized. The sense is given to these now revealed perceptions of the ego by the perceptions of the soul. When these two perceptions are united in the consciousness of man, then he is the image of the cosmos, of the whole creation. Then he is harmony. Then he is the material expression of meaning. In word and deed. In his pure existence. Consciousness makes the soul and the material into the one whole. Since the soul rests and cannot „do“ anything, and the ego knows only separation and knows nothing of unity, it is consciousness that must create the acting One out of the resting and the separated. The consciousness, itself created by soul and ego must now order its creators.
So when we speak or think, it is not our ego that speaks or thinks. It is our consciousness, which makes the perceptions of our material senses, our ego, our survival instinct visible. Put into relation with the soul perceptions. From this our material actions arise. Shaped by greater or lesser influence of the soul perceptions of our consciousness.
The consciousness has thereby every experience possible in the creation at its disposal. From the experience of maximum hate up to the experience of maximum unity and security.
If it is not the ego that speaks and thinks itself, but thoughts and words are only an expression of sensory perceptions by the consciousness, then our ego itself is only a sensory perception based on a one-sidedness, a preponderance, of material vision. On the perception of separation. So our ego is only one point on the scale of possible perceptions of our consciousness. Depending on where the pointer moves (who moves it? That’s also an interesting question), to more soul input or to more material input, there is more or less perception of an ego in our consciousness. So, ego and non-ego are two equal, merging perceptual states of consciousness. The difference between these two extreme points on the scale is only that the perception of ego leads to increasing fear of „one’s own“ end, while in the perception of non-ego this of course does not matter. In the perception of non-ego there is nothing that could come to an end. There only unity and eternity prevail. Consciousness, therefore, once far into the realm of ego, clings to the material state, for its perceptions are those of fear of death. Even the possibility of an increase in soul perception then frightens the consciousness in the ego state, for that too would mean the death of the ego at the level of consciousness. Therein lies one of the reasons why we often find it so difficult to get up to spiritual activity. The ego resists its „numbing“. In order to overcome this resistance, a point must be reached through practice from which an ego dissolution no longer causes fear in the consciousness. The pendulum must be moved by practicing so far from the ego into the realm of the non-ego that the experience of ego in consciousness is no longer overpowering and thus it no longer blocks the dissolution of ego (at least a temporary one). „Practicing,“ however, first of all does not necessarily mean elaborate and textbook faithful performance of spiritual practices. „Practicing“ means overriding the fear mechanism. It means coming to rest. To sit until the ego can’t anymore. To go out into nature. To see mountains, to see forests, to see beauty that limit the ego and make it smaller, that allow the experience of hearing the words „security“, „love“ whispered very quietly, almost unheard, by the surrounding nature. To practice means to seek out „good“ people and to change one’s own through their consciousness. The good people live in the neighborhood. Not in Nepal or anywhere else. To practice means to enroll once in a small and inexpensive – quiet and unexcited – seminar and to meet there the people who are also looking for their meaning again and to be influenced by their consciousnesses in community. All this shifts the pendulum from the realm of ego-anxiety. Slowly but surely. The fact that our whole world has been created exclusively out of ego-anxiety for a long time doesn’t necessarily make this process any easier, but it is happening. Slowly but surely. Above all: slowly. Practicing patience is also practicing. Devotion to the time it takes.
In various spiritual schools, the question has always been whether the knowledge of God can be obtained by practicing (practicing) or whether the knowledge simply comes to you. The latter view has prevailed in many places and I agree with it. The knowledge cannot be obtained – actively. It just comes to us. Nevertheless, I believe that realization can only come to us when the ego gives way, when it shrinks. Be it only for a fraction of a second, in which our consciousness is then supplied with more soul than material knowledge. So we can at least shrink our ego by practicing and provide space for soul knowledge. This comes when it comes and not when we think we have practiced enough. Because this thinking is already again impatient ego, which wants to control something.
In our society the ego (or let’s call it better: the principle working through the material perception in the consciousness) has hijacked the concept of consciousness. It is only logical that in a world in which only matter exists, in materialism, consciousness must also be matter. And if it is matter and is inherent in man „individually“, then it can only be the ego, because in man nothing exists except the ego. Thus the ego saves itself from the dissolution by filling the consciousness in such a way that this perceives nothing more except ego, perceives only the ego as the only form of existence and becomes the compliant „into-the-world-bringer“ of purely material ideas, fearful survival instinct ideas. This is how the ego protects itself from the (seemingly) murderous enemy within itself. Thus, the fear-filled consciousness itself prevents a transformation to more security and unity in perception and thereby in existence from taking place. Thus, it is our consciousness that can no longer recognize the meaning and prevents itself from realizing the divine principle in man.