Why do we get upset when misplaced hope smashes against unforeseen reality?

by Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering

The short answer to this question is that our disappointment and upset is due to expectation and desire. The self — is also called “me,” “I,” the egoic mind, the persona, etc. — is alway seeking pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This is because the mind has been conditioned since birth (and perhaps earlier) with certain ideas and beliefs, chief of which is that we need something to make us better, more complete, happier, richer, stronger, more powerful, more worthy, and so on. This is a never-ending pursuit, because the self is ignorant that it is already complete, as consciousness.

What is consciousness and what does it have to do with You?
Consciousness is the totality of all that is — good, bad, winning, losing, forms, expressions, phenomena, success, failure, pleasure, pain, life, death, creation, destruction, movement, thought, and so on. If you were to remove the egoic mind, which is just a belief formed out of psychological conditioning, then you would realize you were consciousness. Upon this realization there would be an understanding that there is no need for desire or fulfillment because there is nothing that consciousness needs; it is already complete.

But since the self is ignorant of its own composition, it desires endlessly. When the desire is not met then there is disappointment, depression, sadness, anger, and so on. For this reason, ancient philosophy from the East has taught that desire causes suffering. Remove the egoic self and you remove desire. Remove desire and you remove disappointment.

But how?

How do I get rid of my egoic self?
For those seeking some sort of enlightenment or self-realization, the question always arises, “How do I get rid of my egoic self?” This begins with a basic understanding and then intense and persistent observation. The understanding is that the self is no more than a belief and that without this self there is consciousness as the single movement of existence. But to say you are consciousness is only a step in the path to discovery, because there is something deeper.

Next, it is important to know that you cannot actually know what you are at the very core. This is because behind consciousness there is something else, and this stateless state cannot be described, measured, or known by the mind. So, to find out what you are takes the process of negation. It’s like digging a hole, removing all the dirt, rocks, and water until nothing is left except for the space that has been there all along. What is this space? Is it you? Find out.

You can only know what you are not
You can only know what you are not, not what you are. To realize any of what you are reading here takes observation — observe thoughts, how you think, what you think about, what you are drawn to think about, what your relationship is to the totality of existence, how the egoic self has changed while the feeling of existing has never changed, and so on. Go through the process of finding out all of what you are not.