Transcending the Ego: Death, Free Will, and the Illusion of Self

Ego is an illusion; true self is eternal.

### Transcending the Illusion of Death: Embracing Eternity
* 🧘‍♂️ The speaker, a spiritual teacher, asserts that **true death is an illusion**; the physical body dies, but the self, or ego, never truly existed.
* 🔄  The speaker argues that the ego is a **malleable construct**, constantly changing throughout life, shaped by external factors and experiences from childhood to old age.  
* 👶  Our personalities are formed by external influences, including birthplace, upbringing, social circles, and even puberty, effectively negating the concept of free will.
* 🎭 The speaker illustrates the ego's ever-shifting nature with numerous examples, such as changes driven by puberty, career choices, and even aging. "You are not real, poof-poof."
* 🌱 The speaker emphasizes that all living things, including plants and fungi, possess consciousness and spirit, highlighting the interconnectedness of all existence.
* 🧘 The speaker advocates for recognizing our true self, a non-dual beingness connecting all beings, to achieve immortality and transcend the illusion of death.  
* ♾️  "I can never die because I was never born," the speaker declares, emphasizing that the self is eternal and transcends the physical body.
*  🧘 The speaker concludes that by identifying with the universe rather than the ego, one becomes undefeated and free from the fear of death, achieving a state of flow and oneness with existence.

[Music] Teacher, I see your talents have gone beyond the mere physical level; your skills are now at the point

of spiritual insight. I have several questions. What is the highest technique you hope to achieve? To have no technique. Very good.

What are your thoughts when facing an opponent? There is no opponent. And why is that? Because the word 'I' 

does not exist. Okay. Death is not real. Now, your physical body will die. People always ask about, like, the illusion of death,

and like, you know, when people say, like, 'You'll never die,' you're like, 'That's crazy!' Like this person is

[Music] crazy. But it's not about you being immortal or eternal as far as your physical body;

your physical body has to die; that's the law of nature. But it's all about what you identify

as. If you identify yourself as an individual person—meaning a personality, self, ego—then that for sure will die, but

the personality and ego never existed in the first place. One of the most simple ways to break down, like, the falsehood of the ego

is just looking at how many times you changed. You changed. Think about when you first were born, when you were like a

toddler or a kid. Let's say forget Tyler, 'cause you're just a walking ball of [ __ ] so

that doesn't really count. But once you start forming like a real ego, I would say probably like seven. Like, think about all you cared

about as a kid: watching cartoons, eating cereal and candy, like you probably... And then, depending on where you were born and what you grew up

watching, that's influenced your personality. This is why free will does not exist. Everybody claims to have free

will, but you didn't even get to choose where you were born or who your parents were. Where you were born, location and

Who you were born around creates a great majority of your ego, which you think is yourself, but really you had external

factors acting on your mind, and you took in that information and recorded it and became a person. So, for example, a lot of people, um,

my favorite one to use is, I grew up in a... my watching the Eagles with my grandmother and my grandpop. Like the

Eagles were so important, so now to this day the Eagles are so important. I love the Eagles. If someone talks [badly] about

the Eagles, I will [mess] you up, depending on how I feel. Like, if you're talking too

crazy about the Eagles, I might do something to you, you feel me? Cuz you dis... like you're disrespecting the city, like, and you dis-

respecting me. That's how hard we go for the Eagles. But that was conditioned in me, you know what I'm saying? I wanted to

be a football player. Why? Cuz my older cousin, the closest thing I had to a brother figure, played

football. If he did not move out of the suburbs and stayed in the neighborhood that we grew up in and became a drug

dealer, what you think I probably would have wanted to do [something] like that. So what I'm saying is,

this... your mind comes in unattached to any ideas. You're a child, you're free, you're just doing whatever, then it

gathers a personality. Now watch this. Now you get to middle school. Now you're influenced by a whole another group of

people, the... the kids that you surround yourself with, about what they're doing, what they think is cool. If you grew up in an inner city,

what's cool? Selling drugs, rapping, being cool [stuff] [stuff]. But as Jay-Z said, "Money, cars, hoes."

Money, cash, hoes. Money, cash, hoes. Money, cash, hoes. That's what you start to do and be around, cuz that's what's

Around now, obviously sometimes you can, you know, I mean, block out that influence and not take on too much of it, but

you're going to take some of that influence on, and you still think you had free will. Oh, this is what I'm on, no.

That's not what you're on; that's what everyone else was on.  Humans are social animals; AKA, humans are influenced by others.

So, more than likely, you start to be influenced by everything around you, but you are a completely different person. You could say every human has

multiple personality disorder because the personality isn't real and it's always emerging and changing depending on the circumstances and dependent on if

you have principles and, uh, you know, I mean, a strong belief system or not. Let's say you grew up in a church, like

me. I used to think I was a Christian because it was forced on me, so I had no choice but to say I'm a Christian, even

though I didn't believe it because that's what they told me as a kid. You go to church every day; you're listening to the

story. You're like, "Oh, damn, all right, this is cool." But then watch this now: you leave middle school, you go to high

school, you change again. Watch this: puberty. Once you start being attracted to the opposite sex, you change completely. It was a video of like middle

school girls back in the day, and like they always liked dressing like kids, like how kids are supposed to dress—like, really

awkward and goofy, not sexual at all, bro. If you look at these kids nowadays, they're over-sexualizing themselves at a

younger age because that's what everybody is doing. So, even men, if you look at men nowadays, before

like, dudes weren't doing steroids and human growth hormones in like high school. Like, some dudes were, but they were

like the weirdos. That's like, you're too hyped. Now it's a bunch of kids trying to

be on testosterone or Tren or human growth hormone, cuz they're trying to compete at such a young age because the social

media is making everybody grow up fast. That was a tangent, but what I meant to say was because you

hit puberty, you start to do things that's uncharacteristic. Once you start being attracted to the opposite sex,

before you were cool with just having fun with your friends, watching cartoons, doing stupid [ __ ] whatever you really

felt joy doing; that's what you started to do. Then once you hit puberty—not me, but most dudes—you start to conform to

what you think women like, cuz you're trying to get in their good graces. On the flip side, women, once they start hitting

puberty and they start wanting to attract men, they even—they start trying to be sexy; they're wearing tighter clothes,

they're wearing more revealing clothes, they're wearing makeup to the extreme; they're getting surgeries

and lip fillers. You are not real, poof-poof. In reality, you're not real; you are an

instrument of the universe for reproduction and fun. That's the reality of it. That's why women, they get so mad

at men; they say, "Oh well, we've got to do this and do that to attract y'all," and we

you really don't. If you wanted to, you could be a dirty ass, ugly ass [ __ ] and

just walk out the house naked with no makeup, no fancy clothes, none of that. You don't have to try to get men, but it's so

ingrained in your biology because you're an animal; you're an NPC, like most people, and the NPC for women is to try their

best to attract a mate because you don't have free will, like I said; free will doesn't exist, even

Men do dumb things, like trying to take risks, like selling drugs or being a killer, to gain a rep just to attract women. You're not a real person; you're an instrument being controlled by external, uh, metaphysical

forces. And until you find the self, the reality of the universe, you're always going to be a puppet of the

universe. Now, you're always a puppet, but enlightenment is realizing and seeing through the strings and deciding, whoa, I

don't want to act on that string. I can see the string being plucked and pulled, but I don't want to act on

it. So that's a long way to say, once again, you transform your personality, always changing. So from middle

school, you want to have fun; you're doing little kid things. Then puberty happens; that's a psychological

personality shift. You start doing what you think is cool to attract women, or women to attract men. Now, and then watch this: unless you

grew up in super struggle, you probably didn't have to work and pay your—and feed yourself and pay your own bills. So

until you really, like, have to fend for yourself—now, I understand some people got to work earlier than others because

their parents aren't really doing anything for them, so they grow up faster than the average person. But for the average

person who gets to live and stay with their parents for a long time, once you realize that they're not helping you, or

you realize you've got to pay your own bills, that's another personality shift. Now you can be more—that's why kids in

the hood grow up fast, because their parents are failures. Most parents in general, but especially in the hood, are failures; they

failed their children, so their children can't even be children. They've got to grow into an aggressive man because already at

At the age of 13, 15, you're the man of the house and you've got to earn money to help your

mother because of her mistakes. You see what I'm saying? But for the average healthy...

average, it's what I learned is rare that you have healthy families that grow up together and prepare the child right.

Once that child eventually leaves the parent, let's say they go to college or they go to school or whatever, that's

another personality shift, because now you have to be independent. So you separate from the childish, uh, mindset of, 'I look

to my parents for everything.' Then even, let's talk about like, uh, on a small scale, not a big

shift, but a small shift. Let's say you really think you know how to sing. I don't know why people think they know

how to sing, like they really can't hear that they sound [ __ ] up, but think

about people that do American Idol all their life, because they lived in a small bubble, [ __ ] town where nobody knows, so

everybody thinks that this person knows how to sing. So they keep telling them, 'Oh, you know how to sing, you're a great singer.'

Then they go on American Idol and they say, '[ __ ] you suck! That [ __ ] is

terrible to my ears!' But they break down, start crying. But another identity shift, because I always thought I knew how to sing.

So what I'm saying is your personality takes shape so many different times. It's not concrete; it doesn't have a solid

foundation. That's why it's not real. The thing you call... I think about this: what if you got a

perception of, 'Oh, I'm a tough guy, I'm a gangster,' yeah, until jail comes now.

You're crying now. Now you're transitioning to be a Muslim because you're scared, or I'm a tough guy, I'm a gangster,

until somebody beats you the hell up. Now you don't want to do that crap anymore.

You know what I'm saying? Personality shifts and changes. It's not real, it's... or you get older, you feel me? You get real.

Old, like, on some... you gotta have a walker, your personality's going to change again. So if the thing you call 'I'

can change at someone calling you ugly or poor or brute, it can make you second-guess yourself. It can't be real, because it's

always fluctuating and changing. The thing you call 'I,' this is me. One of the ways that happened for me

was in football. I always played football, always trying to strive to be an athlete, but when I realized it wasn't working,

and I'm pretty sure this happens to a lot of athletes, you're like, 'Damn, who am I?' My whole identity was structured on

trying to play this game and trying to achieve this dream, and I don't have it anymore, and I feel

lost. That happens a lot to athletes, I feel like. Or even college kids. Think about college kids, high school kids, that

they were the man in high school, they were the man in college. Then once you leave that artificial environment, that small

I can never die because I was never born, break free from the Illusion of death and embrace eternity

Madhusudhana

The illusion of death and the concept of 'I'

The highest technique is to have no technique, implying transcendence beyond ego.

There is no opponent because the concept of 'I' doesn't exist.

Death of the physical body is inevitable, but the 'I' never truly existed.

Identifying with the ego leads to the belief in death; the ego is not permanent.

The ever-changing nature of personality and the lack of free will

Personality changes throughout life, from childhood to adulthood.

Free will is an illusion; birth circumstances greatly influence personality.

Personality is shaped by external factors and social influences.

Humans are social animals and constantly influenced by their environment.

Puberty is a significant personality shift, influenced by societal pressures.

The individual as an instrument of the universe

Humans are puppets of the universe until they achieve self-realization.

Enlightenment involves recognizing and choosing not to act on external forces.

Major life events like independence and financial responsibility cause shifts.

Personality is not concrete; it's constantly changing and therefore not real.

Immortality through self-realization and the nature of consciousness

Immortality is achieved by transcending the ego and connecting with the self.

The substratum of the universe is the self, a non-dual beingness.

All living things possess essence, spirit, and consciousness.

Attachment to the ego leads to suffering; focusing on the self brings immortality.

The physical body is temporary, but the essence that animates it is eternal.

Flow state and the dissolution of the ego

Flow state is achieved by transcending the ego and merging with the present moment.

Examples of flow state include peak athletic performance and moments of effortless action.

The ego subsides during moments of unconscious action, such as sleep driving.

Complete merging with existence can lead to confusion and loss of self.

Psychedelic drugs can dissolve the ego and facilitate merging with the environment.

Reincarnation and the consequences of belief

Reincarnation only occurs if one identifies with a person; true dissolution avoids it.

Beliefs about the afterlife shape the experience of death.

Realizing the unreality of the ego leads to detachment and acceptance.

The ego exists to prevent complete merging with everything, protecting the individual.

Life is a cycle, the ego strengthens and weakens over time.