Assessing our egoic mood
The surest sign that our meditation is unsuccessful is the continuing presence of narcissistic self absorption and on going irritation with others – Dharmachakra practices
Egoic mood: Please see how many describes your thinking/behavior over the past few days. Do not analyse too much and see if any fits as these fluctuate for all of us over time.
If you fulfill any one point in the category, count that category. Add the number of categories you fulfill.
1. Self absorption
- I spend a lot of time focused on me, myself and being self absorbed.... or I am so focused on my own needs that I forget to consider other people’s needs
- I am a really poor listener most of the time (it is difficult to be self absorbed and a good listener)
2. Irritation or annoyance with others or with situations
- I get irritated or annoyed quickly with other people or with difficult situations
- I mostly blame other people or situations
3. Impatience
- I get impatient easily or I am not a patient person
4. Self centered or selfish attitude or behavior
- Mostly, I behave in self centered or selfish way
5. Contraction
- My body contracts easily and remains so for long time... It tightens up and does not relax
- I have lot of fears, worries, and anxieties .... my mind has habit of worrying or having fears
- I feel my heart is not open and relaxed ..... I am afraid to feel deeply ....
- I feel afraid to give unconditionally ..... afraid of being hurt again ... afraid to love
6. Complaining and negativity
- I tend to complain a lot .... or I have a habit of complaining.... or I start complaining quickly about things, other people, difficult situations
- I tend to hold grudges …. or I have resentment against some people
- I hold on to my anger for a long time …. or remain angry for a long time
7. Comparisons - thinking oneself superior or inferior (comparing is a egoic game. It does not matter if you feel superior or inferior. In soulful mood, the comparisons stop and you accept and enjoy yourself.)
- I compare myself a lot with others …. I mostly feel inferior or superior
8. Judging others or oneself, or feeling judged
- I find myself judging other people or myself a lot.
- I have lot of judgmental thoughts.
- I feel myself judged by other people. (in soulful mood, we accept other people as they are ... if they judge, ok they judge but we don’t feel judged .... external opinions don’t feel so important or overpowering in a soulful state).
9. Conflict, fighting, hurting others
- I have, more than average, conflict in my life with other people or situations
- I fight, more than average, with others about small and big things
- I hurt other people ..... I say hurtful things
10. Tend to label others as different
- I find it difficult to respect behavior that is different to or opposite of mine (e.g I would never do that) …. or I am unable to accept the many different and varied ways of behaving and thinking …. or my respect and acceptance is conditional (limited to people similar to me)
- I tend to focus more on how other people are different from me (I emphasize on different gender, culture, nationality, religion, politics etc ) while forgetting our common humanity
- I find it difficult to see our common humanity in people different from me .... I find it difficult to see them simply as human beings without putting labels on them (e.g. Gay, Muslim, women, poor, less educated, what labels do you commonly put on ‘others’ to label their ‘otherness’ ...)
11. Authentic self
- I put pressure on myself to be what is socially acceptable (according to my culture, society, religion, country etc)
- I spend most of my time being the socialized self (talking, behaving according to what is acceptable, following others: person or group – family, society, culture, country etc)
- When I disagree, I find it difficult to resist external pressure and put pressure on myself to follow external norms
- I am not sure what I believe in or respect most.... feel uncertain about my deepest values
12. Time in egoic mood
- I spend most or more than half of my day in this mood.
7 or more : high Egoism 6 -4 : medium 3 or less: low egoism.
To be content, we need low egoism. Too much egoism covers up our contentment and peace. It makes it difficult to feel the underlying happiness and lightness.
Holding on to our egoic reactions: Holding on tightly to our egoic reactions to outside world, (eg. Anger, resentment, grudges, negativity, bitterness, jealousy etc) for long term, can make us feel heavy inside. It is similar to being emotionally heavy and carrying a lot of weight. We have to shed all that weight, learn and practice to let it go, before we can feel lighter.