Interestingly, just hours after I posted my thoughts about Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" yesterday I had a vivid example of how ego traps us mentally and emotionally and creates interupting "ripples" in our psyche if we don't have awareness. Some of my old mental and emotional patterns reared their ugly heads and before I could even have the awareness to just laugh and let them go I started identifying myself with them - "I am such a horrible person, why do I keep thinking these things?;" "What is wrong with me?" The thoughts then became very solid and I established a deep identification with them, which of course caused unhappiness and frustration. Over time as I practice awareness meditation I hope to reduce the amount and intensity of these thoughts, and looking back it was a good experience to improve my awareness, but it is also amazing how quickly the tides can turn.
The other amazing thing is how easily people allow their thoughts and emotions to define them when clearly they are based on past patterns, the current environment, the current energy level, etc. Unserstanding the cause and effect of things (awareness) and having a trigger for when things get out of control are the keys to de-identification.
