Why We Suffer: Limited Ego-Self & Emotional "Conveyor Belt"

Oliver Gohari explains two fundamental aspects that create suffering. Human beings face an existential tug of war between a limited egoic sense of self and a free, unlimited spiritual being. In addition, every human being experiences a daily backlog of emotional debris, which Oliver terms the "Emotional Conveyor Belt". This inspiring profound talk helps give you clarity over your own life, and reassurance that your steps towards leading a more spiritually grounded life are great (and necessary)!

Transcript

Life is suffering. Moving through life is painful, And it's painful because the egoic self, The physical self, The limited self, It is always incomplete. It is never enough. It's never big enough, Never strong enough, And it is a concept. It's not actually real. It's an ever-changing narrative, And the egoic mind never feels satisfied. On the other hand, We have the formless aspect to our being, And this formless aspect to our being is complete, Perfect, Whole, Connected. It's totally complete. It's the source of life. So you have this friction between limitation and freedom. This friction is ever-present, And you have it, And I have it, And we all have it, And it's this feeling of the formless aspect of our being understands that there is so much potential, So much openness, But our limited self is so limited in comparison. You take this soul, And you squeeze it into a physical body. You take this unlimited potential, And you pack it into a physical human being. Remember, The phrase human being is comprised of two words, Human being, Human ego, Physical material, Being, Stillness, Serenity, Ever-presence, God, Source, Brahman. So what happens for most of us is that we're born into a conventional human system with schools and jobs and relationships, And this is all part of the material sense of self, The egoic mind, And this is a very limited way to live. It's a very structured, Limited way to live. We never feel enough. We feel incomplete because the ego is hardwired. The egoic mind, The cognitive mind, Is hardwired to never feel satisfied. You could call it a survival mechanism. Maybe it's evolutionary biology. Maybe it's evolutionary psychology, But the ego is always looking for something to complete it. It's always looking for something externally to fix down and to consume. So we move through life, And meanwhile, So we have this friction. In the background, There's something else going on. This something else, I call it the emotional conveyor belt. The emotional conveyor belt is your personal emotional pain that you have to process. So as you move through jobs, As you move through life, This dance, You also have to process the heart's emotions, And it comes through every day of your life in any given moment. You have it right now. I have it right now, And it's this backlog. It's a feed of emotional debris. You could call it ancestral debris. You could also call it ancestral trauma, Previous lifetimes, If you believe in that. Maybe you don't believe in that, Which is fine. But this emotional suffering which comes to the forefront, It's a material. It's something we have to process and see. However, It's heavy work. It's difficult work. So what most of us do, I did this long ago. Almost every human being does it. You try to push this pain away. You try to push it down. And that's because the egoic cognitive mind does not want to experience pain. It wants to push pain to the side, Distract from pain, Swallow pain, Put pain down into the subconscious, Remove pain at all costs. And so what happens then is that this emotional flow is blocked. So some people use food, Some people use alcohol, Some people use drugs, Some people use sex, Some people use shopping, Some people use social validation. The list goes on and on. There are many vices, Many coping mechanisms. I've been there and done it. So I'm not judging anyone. It comes from a place of personal experience and compassion. When we try to maneuver life so that we don't have to experience suffering, What happens is that it's impossible. Eventually this flow has to be processed. And also the spiritual side of your being wants to be free. It wants to be uncontained. So eventually there will likely be a crisis. There will likely be a breakdown where somebody hits rock bottom or they become depressed or they become unhappy or they get addicted or they have a breakdown. I'm sure you can relate to this. What this breakdown does is it usually brings you to insight timer or meditation or yoga or spirituality. This breakdown makes us face spirituality and accept spirituality into our lives as a remedy. And what happens then is we begin a process and I think each of you listening now has begun that process. The process of incorporating your non-physical being into your life. Living with it at the front of your being.