All states of mind lie in a spectrum:
Non-functional (low-energy, attention hijacks, low control)—————–| <–More Fear|——————————<spectrum>——————-|Less Fear –>|——————- Functional (high energy, high control)
So as I move through myriad states in the day, the non-functioning ones make me contract in fear in an attempt to preserve power and control, the functional ones make me feel comfortable and powerful.
Then there is another spectrum:
Desires out of harmony with the collective culture/situation/environment —————–| <–More Fear|——————<spectrum>——————–|Less Fear –>|——————— Desires in harmony with collective culture/situation/environment.
– Because when you are in harmony, the environment supports your ego (like say you love to dance, and all your friends love that too and admire you).
– But when out of harmony (say you want to meditate, when you are expected to party), then your ego is threatened by the outside forces which are opposed to your desire.
– If your desires are entirely out of harmony with the collective culture, then there is constant anxiety because everything outside becomes a threat.
– Whereas if the desires are mostly in sync, like say you have internalized the capitalist mindset, your self esteem is in work and success concepts, and everyone else around you lives by the same concepts), then your ego is not threatened at all, so you feel quite safe and there is at-most just a vague unease but very mild.
Since the ego itself is an illusion, it requires a lot of reinforcement for its sustenance. Without this reinforcement, either in terms of habits, rituals, or other people’s constant validation, it cannot survive. Thus, we spend most of our lives trying to bolster support for our ego. How much support do you need? Depends on how unstable and insecure you feel.
There is another spectrum here of how we coexist with others in the ego state.
Totalitarianism (total domination, imposition of your will) —————<spectrum>————————–Live and let live (you have a space, I have a space, and we interact when its mutually beneficial)———————————<spectrum>—————————–Transcendence (We all will mutually help one another to find the truth and our highest potential)
Competition model:
Totalitarianism is like despots, tyrants who are wanting to crush all threats/differences. The rule is like ‘I own everything and everybody, every person is subject to my control. I have ABSOLUTE control’. Now obviously absolute control does not exist, but yet, it is possible to live a life and have a mind dedicated to the mission of seeking absolute control. It is a certain direction of thought, that you do to end your sense of insecurity. You could spend endless hours pouring on how to influence, subjugate, control people to your way in the best possible way and become an expert manipulator or mind gamer. Why do all this? So that you can reach a situation where nobody can threaten you anymore and your egoic concept will be safe and you would feel at peace. Physical violence is a very crude way of achieving control so such despots quickly move into mind games to get their way. The more intelligent the person, the more intense his mind game will be and the more people he might pull into his antics.
Co-operation model:
In the live and let live idea, you divide everything up into spaces, and you have your space and let other people have theirs and interact only when mutually beneficial. So in that way, you can continue your egoic activities and the other can continue his in his space and you both can interact where-ever it is mutually beneficial with 0 unnecessary dependence. So this is a nice mature way to coexist peacefully as egos. This also enables cooperation between egos, because since each member has his own space, he is not threatened and therefore can genuinely freely interact with others. This arrangement is far more secure than the above because, no matter how strong you are, you are still constantly under threat, the world is too large and there are just too many threats.
Transcendence model:
Even higher on the spectrum is transcendence where, along with living and letting live, the ego attempts to find its own truth to end all of insecurity in an ultimate way. And all the other ego’s too assist each other as much as they can to free themselves of ALL limitations.
Journey to the Abstract 