The Ego Mind and Thought  

The following chart is a visual representation of the human mind. Level I describes our true reality as never having left our Source, God. Level II depicts the ego part of our mind which labors under the illusion of having separated from our Source, mindlessly trapped in a body, and overwhelmed by a chaotic external world.

Jesus was once asked when the kingdom of God would come. The kingdom of God, Jesus replied, is not something people will be able to see and point to. Then came these striking words: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) With these words, Jesus gave voice to a teaching that is universal and timeless.

Look into every great religious, spiritual, and wisdom tradition, and we find the same precept — that life’s ultimate truth, its ultimate treasure, lies within us.

As Jesus made unambiguously clear, we can experience this inner treasure — and no experience could be more valuable. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” he declared, “and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). From this interior plane of life, he is saying, we will gain all that is needful.

This inner treasure of life has had many names. Plato refers to it as the Good and the Beautiful, Aristotle as Being, Plotinus as the Infinite, St. Bernard of Clairvaux as the Word, Ralph Waldo Emerson as the Oversoul. In Taoism it is called the Tao, in Judaism Ein Sof. Among Australian aborigines it is called the dreamtime, among tribes of southern Africa Hunhu/Ubuntu. The names may differ, but the inner reality they point to is one and the same.

In every case, it’s understood that this inner, transcendental reality can be directly experienced. This experience has likewise been given different names. In India traditions it is called Yoga, in Buddhism Nirvana, in Islam fana, in Christianity spiritual marriage. It is a universal teaching based on a universal reality and a universal experience.

Over the past 20 centuries, leading Christian figures have written extensively on this inner kingdom of God and their personal experience of it. Here are just a few brief excerpts from a collection of many:

Thomas Merton (1915–1969 • United States)

After completing a masters degree in English at Columbia University in New York, Merton entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane, in Kentucky, as a monk. He was later ordained as a priest. He published more than 15 books of spiritual writings, poetry, fiction, and essays, and participated in movements for social justice and peace. He took great interest in the religions of the East, particularly Zen, for the light they shed on the depth of human consciousness. From the seclusion of the monastery, he exerted a worldwide influence.

In the following passage Merton describes the experience of “contemplation.” He uses the term not in the current sense (thinking intently about something) but in its older sense, to describe the experience of transcending thought:

The utter simplicity and obviousness of the infused light which contemplation pours into our soul suddenly awakens us to a new level of awareness. We enter a region which we had never even suspected, and yet it is this new world which seems familiar and obvious. The old world of our senses is now the one that seems to us strange, remote and unbelievable. . . .

A door opens in the center of our being and we seem to fall through it into immense depths which, although they are infinite, are all accessible to us; all eternity seems to have become ours in this one placid and breathless contact. . . .

You feel as if you were at last fully born. [9]

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361 • France)

Johannes Tauler was one of the most influential German spiritual writers of the 1300s. Martin Luther honored Tauler as a primary influence, and Tauler has exerted a profound influence on religious thought ever since. As one scholar remarked, “Tauler presents the Christian tradition in its purest form.” [5]

The soul has a hidden abyss, untouched by time and space, which is far superior to anything that gives life and movement to the body. Into this noble and wondrous ground, this secret realm, there descends that bliss of which we have spoken. Here the soul has its eternal abode. Here a man becomes so still and essential, so single-minded and withdrawn, so raised up in purity, and more and more removed from all things. . . . This state of the soul cannot be compared to what it has been before, for now it is granted to share in the divine life itself. [6]

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–394 • Turkey)

Gregory of Nyssa, an early Christian theologian, was one of the four great fathers of the Eastern Church and served as Bishop of Nyssa, in the center of modern-day Turkey.

[The soul] leaves all surface appearances, not only those that can be grasped by the senses but also those which the mind itself seems to see, and it keeps on going deeper until by the operation of the spirit it penetrates the invisible and incomprehensible, and it is there that it sees God. The true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge. . . .

The Logos Foundation teaches the internal use of a harmonically consonant resonance, an  object of perception devoid of meaning, which frees the mind to experience the Kingdom within…….an internal Level I experience of no space to navigate, no time, and no thoughts….just infinite silence, or God, our true Identity.

The ego’s mindless perspective has us identified with our body and an external world rather than our true inner absolute reality. To go within, we simply need to transcend, or go beyond the ego’s incessant stream of thoughts. Given the opportunity, the mind will naturally and effortlessly settle into Level I, completely quieting thought. And with regular immersion in Level I, the student’s physiology gradually becomes entrained to sustain a permanent experience of Level I simultaneously with the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of awareness. This experience has been referred to as God, the Kingdom, the Translator and Christ Mind, et. al.

On the next page we will examine the dynamics of quieting the ego thought system with  Resonance Response .