How long will it take before my ego starts shrinking from meditation?
How long will it take?
Ego is really tough.
Go ahead.
So I'm saying is there a certain amount of time that it's supposed to take?
One week and three days.
No, but ego is a difficult one.
Ego is difficult.
You have to be repeatedly crushed.
Your ego has to be crushed by reality.
Reality has to get in the way of the ego.
It has to show the ego it's wrong.
As with everything, it comes gradually, and it should come from the very beginning of meditation.
If you're practicing vipassana, it should come gradually.
Every moment that you practice vipassana should be attacking the ego.
But there are moments of incredible revelation where you just realize what an egotistical jerk you are.
Or you realize how, not egotistical, but how useless you are.
This is realizing how devoid of any value you are.
That sounds horrible.
It's the most liberating.
The most liberating thing is to realize that you're useless, that you're valueless, that you're meaningless.
It's so liberating.
Because you have no stresses.
You have no expectations put on you.
when you're comfortable with being useless, with being valueless.
That's the liberation of the ego.
It's a part of it.
So you have to come to this realization of how useless you are, realizing that really you have no purpose.
It's true, though.
It's wonderful to be useless, to be valueless, to be meaningless.
I don't know.
Maybe useless is going too hard.
Useless isn't it?
Because we are useful to ourselves, useless to each other.
Useless is maybe not the right word.
Pointless, valueless, worthless.
That was it.
Worthless is the word.
Intrinsically worthless.
Realize that you let go.
You have no expectations.
You can act without expectations, without worrying that are you really going to help people?
Are your activities really going to be right?
Really going to be any good?
What does it mean for them to be any good?
You just see that they are what they are.
And then you're really useful, you're a real help to yourself and others, acting in such a way that brings about benefit for yourself and for others.
It's definitely when the aversion sets in and you look at why you don't want something and you see I and you see the ego, it's usually a good every now and then you see why you suffer.
reverend