## Metadata - Author: [[Cardwell Nuckols]] - Full Title: The Ego-Less SELF - Category: #books - Document Tags: [[health]] [[mindfulness]] ## Highlights - He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest … a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. —Albert Einstein ([Location 59](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=59)) - Begin by knowing that spiritual experiences are subjective and don’t use a strict scientific paradigm and thus lack formal objectivity. ([Location 63](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=63)) - According to nonlinear physics, there seems to be no such thing as formal scientific objectivity anyway. The pioneers of nonlinear physics were rather startled by their discovery that we are all intrinsically connected, and they turned to philosophy and the spiritual world to explain their findings. Wolfgang Pauli turned to archetypes and the Kabbalah, Niels Bohr to the Tao and Chinese philosophy, Erwin Schrödinger to Hindu philosophy, and Werner Heisenberg to the platonic theory of ancient Greece to understand that we cannot separate ourselves from our surroundings. We are not stand-alone entities; we are in constant interaction with the energy surrounding us. We are continuously emitting and receiving biophotons (light radiated… ([Location 64](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=64)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle tells us that any attempt to observe an electron alters it. At the subatomic level, we cannot observe anything without changing it. There is no such thing as an independent observer who can stand on the sideline watching the world race by without influencing it. The Von Neumann formula takes this finding even further by proclaiming that the action of the conscious observer alters that which is observed and the intention of the… ([Location 70](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=70)) - This is why it is so important to live life with… ([Location 77](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=77)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Dissatisfaction in life is a problem derived from a spiritual sense of a lack of wholeness… ([Location 80](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=80)) - Science improves and saves lives, but the spiritual domain is where healing… ([Location 81](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=81)) - When seized, life’s tragedies become spiritual… ([Location 86](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=86)) - The ego is our “false self,” “mind,” or “small self.” It knows of no power greater than itself. It is self-serving and is constantly battling for survival or personal gain. It is always fighting against or fleeing from some perceived fear. It will do whatever it takes to relieve itself of life’s “miseries.” But it always fails. Its self-destructive line of thinking can drive us into maladaptive behaviors… ([Location 86](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=86)) - The Self is God immanent and is the source of happiness and unconditional love. This book is about a journey of discovery. It is about a return to the Self. At the end of all our exploring, we will arrive where we started and know the place for the first time! —T.S. ELIOT The Creation of the World: A Hindu Parable “Now that we have the earth and the sky and the mountains and the rivers and the moon and the stars, we will create man. Where shall we hide the truth of his being from him?” asked God. One angel said, “Let’s hide it on the highest mountaintop.” And to this God responded, “No, eventually he will learn to scale the mountains. He will find it.” “Let’s take it down to the very deepest part of the ocean,” another angel suggested. “No, eventually, man will learn how to go to the darkest, deepest part of the ocean. Do not hide it there,” said God. “Well, let’s hide it on the moon, then,” said yet another angel. “No… ([Location 94](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=94)) - At the end of all our exploring, we will arrive where we started and know the place for the first time! —T.S. ELIOT ([Location 95](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=95)) - The Creation of the World: A Hindu Parable “Now that we have the earth and the sky and the mountains and the rivers and the moon and the stars, we will create man. Where shall we hide the truth of his being from him?” asked God. One angel said, “Let’s hide it on the highest mountaintop.” And to this God responded, “No, eventually he will learn to scale the mountains. He will find it.” “Let’s take it down to the very deepest part of the ocean,” another angel suggested. “No, eventually, man will learn how to go to the darkest, deepest part of the ocean. Do not hide it there,” said God. “Well, let’s hide it on the moon, then,” said yet another angel. “No, eventually he’ll reach the moon as well,” God replied. They continued this way for a time before the answer came to them all at once. They knew exactly where to hide the truth where humankind would never look for it: within himself. ([Location 98](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=98)) - Traditional Western thought often ignores the vast insights provided by the Eastern methods of spiritual transformation. Many Westerners are groomed to measure their worthiness by how much power, control, and security they’ve achieved. ([Location 112](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=112)) - Psychotherapy and mood-altering prescription drugs have little effect on these difficulties of living. ([Location 122](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=122)) - devastating. Healing, or true contentment, comes when we realize that we brought absolutely nothing into this world and can take nothing out of it. ([Location 128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=128)) - It is the spiritual journey—not any particular destination—that holds the clues to our yearning for peace, joy, and love. ([Location 131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=131)) - Alienation and death are our most primal fears. ([Location 140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=140)) - Fears about our worthiness and fears about our need for power and control, for example, cause us to place our happiness in the hands of people and circumstances rather than where it belongs— ([Location 142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=142)) - thought of my early life. In college we called ourselves “maxers” and prided ourselves on taking everything—especially alcohol and drugs—to the extreme. There was never enough alcohol or drugs, and no amount could fill up the hole within us. We were thirsting for something that the alcohol and drugs could not give us. Where do you go when you have gone too far? ([Location 150](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=150)) - The way back home—back to the Self—is an existentially lonely one, ([Location 153](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=153)) - Everything simply depends on the way it is observed and understood. ([Location 170](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=170)) - As the Buddha taught, “Rare is it to be born a human being, rarer still to have heard of Enlightenment, and even rarer still to pursue it.” ([Location 186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=186)) - This loss of the ego also rids one of the fear of death, for death is an illusion: only the illusory self can die, since the Self is eternal. ([Location 208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=208)) - The ego is very manipulative and is all about survival. ([Location 210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=210)) - surrender—I recalled Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s story of enlightenment. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=214)) - Tags: [[pink]] - This is described by Aldous Huxley in his classic The Doors of Perception, where he states, “It has always seemed to me possible that, through hypnosis, for example, or autohypnosis, by means of systematic meditation, or else by taking the appropriate drug, I might so change my ordinary mode of consciousness as to be able to know, from the inside, what the visionary, the medium, even the mystic were talking about.” ([Location 283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=283)) - The problem with the drug experience—like other external approaches to happiness—is that one cannot own it; it is always fleeting. You can get so close—only to have it slip away. ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=286)) - Tags: [[orange]] - This is the chase, and it is endless, because we can never really own and possess that sense of peace and connection that comes from drug use. ([Location 289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=289)) - By giving any inanimate object control over our lives, we allow it to dominate us. ([Location 306](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=306)) - The contemplative Thomas Merton said it well: “I cannot discover God in myself and myself in Him unless I have the courage to face myself exactly as I am, with all my limitations, and to accept others as they are, with all their limitations.” ([Location 314](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=314)) - critic Friedrich Nietzsche said, “God is dead.” What he meant was that science would discover all of the universal mysteries, and there would be no need for God, as man would control his universe. How wrong he was. How wrong I was. ([Location 365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=365)) - Why is it we can always see everyone else’s problems so clearly but are virtually blind to our own? We always seem to be the last to know. ([Location 732](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=732)) - Everything we experience in this world is processed in, and takes place in, our brains. Could it be that nothing is as it seems and our experiences are just figments of our imaginations? ([Location 735](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=735)) - Whether by simple observation or by more complicated human intent, our connection to the energy around us is relevant to and alters the outcome of events and circumstances. A positive or loving intention will reap a more favorable outcome than will a negative or hateful intention. What we send out to consciousness has a way of coming back to us. ([Location 3120](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003ZK5APC&location=3120))