Opening: The Inner Conversation
Consciousness versus ego—the ultimate face-off. This discourse is about the inner conversation that happens within you, between your consciousness and your ego. If you are going through a Kundalini awakening or a spiritual awakening, then throughout your journey—from the very beginning until it completes and you become free—these conversations arise in the inner world. They often lead to brain fog and other brain-related health issues. That is why this discourse is extremely useful, especially if you are going through brain and mental health conditions.
There are many conversations that keep happening inside throughout your journey, and they cannot always be expressed to anyone else. These conversations are like two forces fighting with each other. Since you may not yet be higher in your level of consciousness, you do not know which is right and which is wrong—whether the ego is right or the consciousness is right. These two are like two opposing teams.
Consciousness is the higher energy, the higher frequency of vibration that the brain receives. Ego is the lower vibrational energy that the brain is already acquainted with. If you are living a human life, most of your life you have lived with conditioning, beliefs, knowledge, programming, patterns, tendencies, desires, and your way of viewing life—everything collected from the collective minds of other people. It was never a process of going inside. It was never a process of knowing what is what.
But if you are in your last birth, then since childhood you could see and experience that these beliefs, this conditioning, these inner talks of the ego are confronted by a force from inside. What is that force, and what kind of conflict and confrontation do you face during the entire Kundalini awakening?
How the Dialogues Unfold
Some of the dialogues—or some of the face-offs—you experience during your Kundalini journey I will share in the form of question, answer, or teammates within you. You will be able to identify which egoic patterns and conditioning are running in you. It will be easier for you to recognize that the higher dimensions of perspective come from consciousness, and the lower dimensions come from ego. Then you will be relieved, and your brain will be at peace to follow the instructions of consciousness and no longer follow egoic patterns.
At this stage, when two voices arise within, the brain becomes confused about whose instructions to follow. Understand that your brain can behave like the brain of a dog. When you give instructions to a dog and it does not know whose instruction to follow—imagine two members in the family: one person is calling your dog “Johnny,” and the other person, that is you, is calling your dog “Tommy”—the dog does not know which vibration to capture. Whether to go by “Tommy” or whether to go by “Johnny.” The same is the condition of your brain when two voices are running in your head: one coming from egoic patterns and the other coming from consciousness. Which should it follow? Is it coming from your mind or is it coming from energy? Is it a thought or a feeling?
A series of conversations between Ego and Consciousness—the face-off—I will discuss, and you will gain clarity about where the voice is coming from. If it is coming from consciousness, you should follow it. Go that route. Your brain should follow that decision.
It is feeling versus thinking. But feeling versus thinking sometimes takes the form of addiction. If you are addicted to something, you may say that you “feel” something to do—but that is not feeling; that is addiction driving you. You should be able to discriminate between feeling and thinking.
A Day in the Life: Morning
You get up in the morning and open your eyes.
Ego says: “Oh, it’s too late. I decided to wake up at 7 a.m. but now I’m waking at 9—a two-hour loss. Now I have to hurry for everything. I have to get up and do things faster because I am late for everything. Life is running; I lost, I lost everything. I lost the opportunity to see the morning sun. I couldn’t exercise today.”
The moment this kind of conversation happens in your head in the form of obsessive thinking, know that it is coming from the ego.
Consciousness, on the other hand, says: “Oh, it is such a beautiful morning. I had such a good night’s sleep after such a long time. After so many decades, I slept so well. I am feeling so fresh. The two extra hours of sleep that I got today—I never got that in decades. I will take a leave from work and everything. I will take a break from everything and enjoy this experience of being fresh. I feel so grateful that I could reach my center. Life is here and now. I will celebrate today for getting such a good night’s sleep.”
But the ego is not clear. Ego says: “No. How can you take a break? You are meant to run. I feel restless if I don’t work. If I don’t work like a donkey. My system is designed to always be in the future—to always be in stress and anxiety.”
Consciousness says: “Take a few deep breaths here and now—very slowly. Feel the incoming breath from your nose, slowly, and let it go out from your nose, slowly, slowly, slow. Life is slow. Life is like the tortoise. Life is rhythm. When you take ten such breaths slowly, you will fall into the rhythm of life. You will fall into the vagus nerve. Your brain will say everything is safe.”
Your brain responds, “I do not belong to civilization; I am happy.” It shifts into a parasympathetic breathing mode when it listens to consciousness.
But ego says: “No, no, no, no! How can it happen? How can I be so relaxed so fast? I need to get up and get going—do some activities in the name of achievement. I need to work and show off, talk to colleagues, talk to people, and show how I work. I am so worthy—that releases dopamine in me only when I go and work in the office.”
Consciousness says: “Relax. I feel happy when I am alone. I am not with anyone. I feel the peace of being on my own. Nobody is around me. No one is there to disturb me.”
But the ego wants attention from other people. Ego says: “No, no—how can I feel worthy if people are not attending to me? I need to see how people respond to my leadership, how people respond when I dominate them in the office—my juniors—when I argue with my colleagues about who is right and who is wrong. That gives me real dopamine.”
Consciousness says: “I feel happy when I cook my meal myself. I feel happy when I take care of my body. I take a good bath and I am rejuvenated.”
Whether this is Sunday or a weekday, even if you take a break from work to relax, still your ego does not allow you to relax. This is just a glimpse of a day. Throughout the day, every day, every moment, your ego wants to make you extroverted—take you outward to interact with people. If physical interaction is not possible, your ego connects you to social media, which is another kind of addiction. You interact with strangers on social media just to gain attention. You are never silent. Your brain is always losing its valuable resource—its valuable fuel—and the energy of the brain is drained through leaking attention.
If you keep paying attention to the ego and to the external world, you are constantly using the energy and fuel of the brain, and that depletes the quality of your neural cells. Your cognitive function deteriorates. Your ability to think clearly and make decisions weakens. Your left brain has no connection with your right brain. Both sides are getting damaged—and this is happening because of one factor, one separate identity in you: the ego, created from the conditioning of other people. It does not allow you to relax. Throughout your spiritual awakening journey, if you take a break, the people around you—whose thinking is imposed upon your ego—will cause you to feel guilty. The ego makes you feel guilty if you rest. If you relax, thoughts arise: Why are you resting? You are not allowed to rest. You are not allowed to do nothing. Do something, otherwise your life has stopped. Ego thinks your life has stopped.
What Ego Can Never Know—and What Consciousness Demands
How can ego know about life? It is not the department of ego to know life. Ego lives in a self-created image—the personality, the roles you play, the memories, the knowledge, the garbage you have collected. It belongs to a different dimension. It is not the reality of life.
Consciousness says: “Take a break from everything. Focus your energy on your well-being—on your health, on your relationships, on your wealth, on your career, on your life. Live your life purpose.”
Ego says: “What is life purpose? There is no life purpose. I need money—only money. Whatever I do, I will do for money. I can work for 15–16 hours a day, 100 hours per week or more. For me, money is everything.”
Consciousness says: “Money is everything when it is earned from your energy. When you earn yogic wealth, you become wealthy, and money becomes a derivative of your primary investment—that is, investment in energy, investment in attention, investment in your brain, investment in your health.”
Consciousness is about the long term. Ego is always about insecurity. Consciousness sees an abundance of energy. I just need to channel that energy in the right direction to attract the kind of work I want to do, to create the kind of work I do. I will live my ikigai through which I will offer the best value to the world, and the world will pay for it.
Ego says: “No, I do not trust this. I trust the system created by society, by the matrix, by the world—where the salary is fixed. I will work day and night to get the fixed salary because I cannot live in insecurity about the future. When my salary credits to my bank account, I feel happy. As soon as the money comes, I start spending as if there is no tomorrow. I don’t save. I don’t believe in saving. The desires I have long waited to fulfill can only be fulfilled through this money at the beginning or end of the month. For that, I am ready to trade off life. I cannot wait until tomorrow to fulfill my desire for a car; tomorrow I will grow old and not be able to drive, so I need the car today. Tomorrow I may not be able to have a sexual relationship with a woman, so I need to marry today. I need to do everything today.”
In the rush to do everything today, you become a participant in the rat race created by the matrix.
Consciousness says: “Why so much hurry? The pace of life is gradual, slow, organic. Life was never meant for work; life was meant for living. Where are you living? Let me live this life. Let me be a little relaxed. Let me taste the tea, taste the juice, taste the coffee. Let me go step by step. Let me relax and do everything.”
Your brain agrees with consciousness: “Do not push me into sympathetic mode where I am always in fight, flight, or freeze. I would have to release too much cortisol throughout the day if you keep running like this. I am an engine; I need gradual relaxation to move into rest-and-digest, to eat food, to digest food, to run the system, to produce energy. The millions of cells—my soldiers—I need to take care of them. I need to ensure the body is at the right temperature, the right composition, the right constituents working together. Let me check. Give me a break. I need good sleep. I need lots of oxygen—20%. But the ego exhausts that 20% in fulfilling desires. You are never at rest or in peace when you are operating from ego.”
These conversations keep happening every day for decades.
Why Practice Feels Hard in the Beginning
When you attempt spiritual practice, meditation, or sadhana requiring breathwork, energy, and stillness, your ego-mind will not allow you to sit quietly for long. It will come and disturb you. You cannot go into peace. Your eyes will keep blinking; you cannot be at ease.
If you want to experience peace at this moment, stop rotating your pupils. If your lenses are moving—this, this, this—it means too many thoughts are running in your head. You are always in your mind, not living life. That is when sympathetic breathing is activated.
If you want to move into parasympathetic mode, then right now stop the movement of your lenses. Be still. After some time, close your eyes. Focus your attention on your third eye. Slowly move inward by three to four inches and start looking at the one who is looking at the third eye.
Technique 1 — Witnessing the Witness (How to Practice)
- Sit comfortably with your spine long and your chin slightly tucked so the back of your neck is easy.
- Let your gaze soften. For 30–60 seconds, keep the eyeballs still—no darting or scanning. You may blink naturally, but do not rotate the pupils. Notice how thought frequency begins to slow when the eyes become still.
- Gently close your eyes. Place your attention at the bhrumadhya (between the eyebrows).
- Imagine your attention traveling 3–4 inches inward from that point, into the midbrain.
- Now, look at the one who is looking. Turn attention back toward the perceiver—the silent knower behind the eyes.
- Remain here for 10–15 minutes. If thoughts arise, do not fight. Simply return to the sensation of the witness witnessing.
This is called witnessing the witness. Practice this daily for 10–15 minutes. A new level of consciousness will arise in you, and you will be introduced to yourself for the first time. You are the perceiver at the back, at the center of your brain in the subtle body—the one who looks, sees, manifests, and does. When you reach that state, you will be able to witness the object that is your ego—the thoughts in the mind. Every time those thoughts come to speed things up, you will slow down by simply not doing anything.
Technique 2 — The Five-Minute Stillness Reset
The moment you feel like touching your phone—stop.
The moment you feel like running here and there without control over your body and nervous system—stop the movement of your body. Sit still. Sit still for a while. Start with one minute; then five minutes. Sit doing nothing. Notice the difference it makes to your breathing patterns. Belly breathing will start naturally. You will change. Your brain will be at ease. Brain fog will lift.
The Social Pull and the Cost of Attention
Stop listening to the mind—the ego—which keeps telling you to do what others are doing. You may fear missing out when you do not do what the world does, and you may feel like a loser, left out. That is why you go to the party and participate as others do. You become part of the mob and become mediocre—below average. You can become extraordinary only when you focus on your consciousness, develop your brain, and ensure that you can stand alone without any support system. Your brain grows more powerful when you expose yourself to daily life challenges. You do not have to struggle, but you must keep setting challenges for your brain.
Big Life Decisions: Matrix Patterns vs. Consciousness
This one day, and all days, transform into bigger decisions where the ego pushes you into the matrix. The patterns of the matrix are predictable: if one person buys a house, you feel you must buy a house. If many give birth to children, you feel you must have children. Get a job that is secure. These patterns are perpetuated by society.
Ego keeps driving you toward these decisions, and the conflict between consciousness and ego continues. The brain does not know whether to listen to the still-quiet consciousness—still not strong right now—or to follow society and the matrix. In the entire journey, the divine—super-consciousness of the universe—pulls you in one direction, yet the force may not feel enough; and the crabs—the ego, the society, the matrix—pull you down. Your brain is torn in this energetic fight between consciousness and ego.
If you want a healthy brain, you must work in the direction of your energy. Live your energetic reality. That activates intelligence within you to know what to do.
Breaking Patterns (Practical Shifts)
To do this, you must break the old patterns you have been using from egoic conditioning. Break the chain of thoughts by not doing what ego tells you to do. Take a break from life as you know it. Step away from the matrix for a certain duration and see how life functions. Go to the mountains. Go to the islands. Go to an unknown place where nobody knows you. Stay offline—no social media, no connections with anyone you know. Experience life as it is, for the first time.
If you work as a freelancer, that can be the best thing to do in your own space. You can become a digital nomad. This also supports healthy dopamine for your brain, so you do not need to disconnect totally from work and do nothing—your brain needs to feel safe.
I do not suggest you leave your work; I suggest you change the way you work. Stop the patterns. Learn from the pattern.
Technique 3 — Cross-Dominant Training (Left-Hand Practice)
Start using your left hand for basic tasks of life (or your non-dominant hand, if left-handed use the right). Brush your teeth, open doors, stir your tea, write a few lines—slowly. When you perform instinctive functions with the non-dominant hand, both hemispheres of the brain engage. Your entire body participates with more awareness. Automatically you move closer to consciousness. The intelligence of the body awakens. Instinctive intelligence—the reptilian brain, the evolutionary root—activates, bringing the intelligence of evolution to run your life independent of civilization’s conditioning.
Ego was created much after your original evolution. So take the decision to stay away from ego, stop the patterns, and live the life of consciousness. Every time the voice in your heart tells you to do something from feeling—do it.
The Guru and the New Birth
To master all of this, if you need the Guru, then Guru Sanju is here to work with you for the mega transformation that is possible only when you are dedicated enough to transform and take the new birth where everything is possible and you do not have to live by any patterns.
This was just a glimpse of the conflict between ego and consciousness. There are endless conflicts within you—based on your destiny, based on your inner garbage, based on your life. Whatever you have put inside will be experienced by you as conflict. For that, there are multiple ways and techniques that I teach my students so they become blank and operate from consciousness.
Alright, have a great day. Thank you.
