Keeping the lights on

When we step outside ourselves, we can observe our actions, our thoughts, and our options.

The trouble is that we are quick to defend the image we have built of ourselves. That defense closes us off from opportunities, which then shapes our thoughts and actions.

The ego’s defense works because it is invisible. You do not experience defending the image as defending—you experience it as being right, being threatened, protecting yourself. The defense runs in the dark. So what the witness does is not add a competing force that overpowers the ego. It just turns the light on. And the move cannot fully run once you have seen it as a move. Naming the defense as defense strips its cover, and it loses conviction.

The witness isn’t freedom from the ego, it’s the refusal to be fooled by it.