When it comes to our wants and desires, we often find ourselves deluded by whatever we’re convinced is right for us.

We base our wants, needs, or desires around the futility of superficial expression.

Our ego is a pivotal motivator in how we go about dressing up our lives and ideals, because it requires that our vanity flourish and that self-importance remain a vital aspect of its existence.

Over the past six or seven years, I’ve begun to minimize my possessions, some of which I never thought I’d part ways with—I valued these things, which were often hard-earned and practical, served a specific purpose, or offered greater convenience.

Despite the difficulty of letting go, once we’ve done it, it dawns on us that such attachments are merely illusory, teaching us the value of right-wanting (and living). I often write down what I’m desiring, wanting, or needing and will follow up with, “What is true? Thank you.”

I’ve also recently learned about a process of negation, where we focus on aligning with natural energy flow, rather than exhausting ourselves determining all that is false about whatever perceptions we might possess. Questions are often answered with eventual insights, or revealed through the evidence supporting our alignment in waking life.

Natural energy flow is simply remaining in a state of neutrality—allowing what is (whatever is keeping us alive, from an energetic standpoint), to simply flow from a surrendered state (non-duality). Like a river, we eddy out, float downstream a ways, dive or jump in, and often flail, while attempting to get out of our energy stream.

Just jump back in, and stop trying to swim.

If you’ve awakened and are now peering into this mad world around us (possibly with utter dismay), you may begin to recognize the unconscious behavioral mechanisms that hold people hostage to their own self-perpetuated patterns throughout life, therefore creating the same premise for suffering as the motions and actions that support it.

I call it insanity. Call it what you will.

What is created can be destroyed. It’s actually the most natural process that we may bear witness to, here as spirit in human form. Nature is in constant flux, despite its seemingly still, quiet facade. Decay is constant—we see it in oxidation, in death. Life is constant, too—rebirth, rejuvenation, and determined growth.

We are an integral part of this process and who we were in the past is much less important than who we are today, regardless of what such a metamorphosis may look like to others (not every seed germinates or grows into adulthood). Others may detest such a commitment to growth, but this should never deter those who feel this surreal transformation taking place inside themselves.

Give way to this inner catalyst to change and give in.

Let this process consume you. Propel you. Alter your existence and perceived reality.

Just like we learned to become who we think and believe we are today, we can also recognize through the process of negation (which seems to happen naturally) what is actually a self-created delusion, and what is real.

Until then, the real shall remain a part of the illusion, where it is inspired, shaped, and will eventually take form, serving its necessary function.

We must avoid too much attention to this germination process, while acting (literally, tending to our daily functions) with gratitude, appreciation, and content as often as we can surrender to this unbridled energy, wishing it to flow through us without any impedance.

Rather than build, when it’s time to deconstruct, I’ve learned to sit with the decaying emotions, thoughts, and memories (some of which are triggers), braving the space required for their death and the eventual rebirth of whatever is meant for me, here and now. My personal experience related to this negation process (long before I was aware of it taking place) has lasted for several years and will likely last many more, perhaps the remainder of my natural life here.

Isolating dormancy (death of perceived-self), transformation within the cocoon—a metamorphosis away from the ego and integration with the embodiment of spirit—lends to our ability to function more naturally over time, so that once we’re fully prepared to emerge, having risen from the ashes of our proverbial death of self within, we are indisputably awake and aware—fully present, here in this ever-shaping reality. Truly enlightened.

Before long, it becomes totally obvious that whatever this existence is, appearing to reside in material form, is just as malleable as each thought and emotion we inevitably possess, or allow to pass through us everyday. It shapes itself, as nature does (they’re both integral—inseparable from the other), so serenely and effortlessly—destructively, beautifully, reciprocally.

Once we learn to abide by this singular energetic flow, we can serve our own right-wanting and heartfelt desires. Attract what we want. Abide in our natural states of humanness. Work more humbly and effortlessly. Live. Truly live. Remain patient for what’s to come. Slow down. Accept what is. More easily detach from all that isn’t meant for us.

Synchronization of mind, heart, and spirit within lends to synchronicities, evidence, or signs, and awe-inspired observations materializing around us in our physical world. We’re granted the opportunity to meld or alchemize our existence more fluidly.

As the saying goes, “Let it flow, then let it go.” Surrender and allowance, coinciding with right-wanting (through the process of negation) are some primary principles to manifesting and simply being awake—more fully present or integrated, while residing here on this plane more fruitfully.

To be clear, the ego itself serves as a natural function of our daily lives, but should never rule over us as it seems to so pervasively today. It’s a tool, nothing more—nothing less.

Let us not become too distracted by the illusion of living and, instead, learn how to truly live.

Author: Thayne Ulschmid

Image: Artem Popov/Flickr

Editor: Emily Bartran