Abnegation

Adam Wes Bam.

Ariella I can go back to your study.

Who.

But it is…

Settled in. During the space. A couple more minutes for… less peckable. He will not—one team in…

That is my way of saying thank you for being on time. Andrea, we should start. Have a nice day. Welcome, everybody. Jacob, I would love to see your face if you can.

So, I would like to go into the most rigorous depths of enlightened practice today, and talk a little bit about what enlightenment really is. What is the essence of it? I think it is a little hard to find out what the essence of enlightenment is, and why one would seek it. Why is it relevant, I think, to most people, if not everyone? Maybe we will explore that and see if that is true.

One key phrase comes to mind, or a coupling of words: the negation of the self. The abnegation of the self means to live life—and I would say that is perhaps the title today—to live life without self-seeking.

So, what is it? Most human beings, almost everyone we know, is engaged in some form of self-seeking.

Usually, we think of some fanatical yogis on mountaintops who deny the self, right? They go in the other direction for some reason. They deny a big meal. They deny all kinds of things, right? And most fundamentally, they deny the personality as a whole.

But there is a lot of nuance here. You have to do it right; otherwise, it can actually hurt you. So let us talk about this and maybe even discuss it a little bit more. I would love a more dialogic approach—it would be fun.

Let us discuss it, because it takes it deeper. For me, too, I start to pull out the things that I have realized over the years, and they come to the surface in the session here together.

So, the abnegation of the self—that is perhaps an unusual word. Abnegation means to deny, essentially, to hold away. And when I am talking about the self, I am talking about the self that wants things, that wants to be respected, that has needs that are not really needs, like food and shelter, but needs beyond that.

And the enlightened being, the saint, the prophet-like individual is—no yawning, Ariella. You cannot yawn while I am saying that sentence. Let me say it again. The prophet-like individual is—they have this sense, a freedom from any center of self that is clamoring for attention.

A center of self that results in a sort of separate nature. This is where this benevolence comes from. It is almost as if they are so whole, they do not care. They are so confident, they do not care what you think. They are so whole, they do not care what you give them, right?

There is a sense that they have uprooted some aspect of personality, and they stand naked in freedom. One with their true being, whatever that is.

So, in enlightenment, this is very much the center of enlightenment: to deny the sense of self-importance.

Give me a second, I am going to… oh, my window is closed. Give me a second. I have a noisy neighbor.

To be anonymous to themselves. To be nothing. It is to remove the self-reflection. Because you cannot be nothing.

This attitude adjustment, this reorientation, makes you what you are. So when we are free, when there is the abnegation of the self, you act with spontaneity, without personal agenda. Your actions are based on necessity and love, rather than being weighed down by this personality.

And there is an absolute ecstatic bliss that comes with this when you say, I am just over it. I am over being a small person with all these attachments that ultimately cause pain and suffering.

What is amazing about this is that this abnegation of the self makes you a great artist. It makes you very lovable. It makes you empowered, because you are not wasting all your energy in neurotic self-thought.

And so it actually brings you the highest, most beautiful life, but it takes a kind of courage to say, okay. I am not worthy. I do not matter. I have no worth, right?

Think about what that means, to say, I have no worth. Obviously, you have—that means that there is no qualified worth, that everything you are… We all are.

We all are infinitely worthy, or infinitely worthless. There is no differentiator. It is like, you know, Sam has worth because he has cool headphones, Ariella has worth because she has a warm sweater, right? No, there is no difference. Who is warmer? Who is better? Well, Ariella's sweater is more worthy. This is all not love.

Love is… love is unconditional, essentially. Which means there is no element of worthiness, no spectrum of qualification.

So this is a very deep topic to go into, and one of the things I was contemplating myself this week was, what is the essence of enlightenment? What makes the Buddha the Buddha?

And… I feel that one perspective, or one way of looking at it at least, is that it is an individual who has very completely denied the self. Now, this is an art. But you have to understand what that means. It does not mean that you just, you know, jump in front of a train—nobody is jumping in front of a train. It does not mean that at all. It means that you act from a place of self-transcendence; perhaps that is the right word.

That there is no separativity. Let us see. Any questions? Let us make this a little more of a dialogue today. Because if you are really considering what I am saying, there should be a lot of things inside pushing back. Right, because this is, like—wait, what about my dreams, or what about if nobody likes me? We are so conditioned around this.

And do not think of this as, you know, Adam talked for 20 minutes and that was it. This is a very deep contemplation; you have to discover it for yourself. Not just intellectually, but feel the truth of it. And I think that is what makes the Muhammad the Muhammad, and the Jesus the Jesus, and the great rabbi the great rabbi, you know? They have come to know something inside that makes them so completely free.

Adam Wes Let me say one more thing. This connects deeply to devotion, because when you do this, you are giving everything away. You are saying, “God, make me as you like. I trust you. I accept myself.” There are truly profound implications in the abnegation of the self.

There comes a point where one experiences enough suffering, induced by the personality, that they want this. You could wait until you suffer enough to make that choice, or perhaps you can make it based on understanding—which is probably better. Or you could simply do it without understanding or suffering; that is the path of trust.

I think that is what many of the great prophets and teachers do for us. They show us an example, and we might think, “Okay, I will try that.” I do not have to fully understand it, because that could take a lifetime. And I do not have to suffer, because that is unnecessary suffering. Right.

I have experienced it through suffering quite a bit. It came through a kind of longing to be free and to abide in the cosmic source—to be free of the chains of selfhood.

So, as I said, this is a deep conversation today. Come on, someone… do I have to call on people? Anyone? Okay, Andrea, hi! I knew it was you.

Andrea P Yes, I have this thing that if someone asks and no one answers, I feel the need to jump in. Actually, I have been listening to someone who was talking a little about this, and also in my Buddhist conversations.

So, what I want to understand is: if you let go of your ego—like, I am Andrea, right? I am this person, and this person has all of these dreams and ideas. But when you understand you are more than that, you lose that part of yourself, you let it go. You are not just Andrea; you are something more. You are part of a bigger entity, you are part of the light, you are part of the cosmos.

Adam Wes And then…

Andrea P You stop thinking about those small things, like, “Oh, I want a car,” or “I want a new phone,” and you start—not longing, but understanding—that what you are needing is too small, because your purpose is bigger, because you are part of something bigger.

Adam Wes Hmm.

Andrea P That is a little bit of how I understand it, or I am trying to. I do not know. It is complex, as you said. But it is just, like, it is not you. It is not your… yes, it is not your ego.

Adam Wes So, you might say, “Oh, I have to have something, I just have to have it.” And what if you were to… Most people try to fulfill their attachments. What if you do not fulfill your attachments? Most people try to get away from pain. What if you do not try to get away from pain? It denies the center of self.

And you can become absorbed in a state of Being unknown to yourself. It is like… So, a great machine has many parts. Each part still acts accordingly, right? If we look at a beautiful airplane—it has parts, right? Those parts can be anonymous to themselves in the sense that they are simply being what they are. But they also know that they are part of a greater whole.

I am trying not to quote my teacher here, trying to use my own metaphors. He says, you are like a drop in the ocean, and you become aware as the entire ocean. But I think what I am referencing most here today is a technique—the technique of denying egoic attachments to erase the part of the self that causes suffering. We do not need so many of the things we think we need.

It is like… I mean, some things you do need. But drawing a line between the real need and the imagined need is important.

Let me pause for a moment to meditate and get really clear. I did not actually prepare a sermon today. I have been a little busy, but I was thinking about this, so I thought we would talk about it. I do have some notes I would like to reference.

Hmm. So what I wrote in my notes was to stop acting on behalf of the self. To stop seeking and planning and living in that realm of agenda.

But when you stop, what is left? Well, there is this sort of freedom that you can be. You can be spontaneity itself, happening from being anonymous to yourself—not thinking, “Oh, I am so-and-so dancing on the dance floor.” Right? You are very self-conscious, right? But what if you were nobody dancing on the dance floor? You are just dancing, you are simply there.

This is the ending of self-seeking, the ending of the need to understand anything. People message me all the time, saying, “I have to understand the universe!” You know, because I am in the science, mathematics, spiritual intersection.

But the real understanding of the universe is to go beyond all questions and be the universe. And then there are no questions anymore.

You might say, “Oh yes, but all these fractals, and I saw this thing in the galaxies, and in the cells,” but no. You simply become completely absorbed in the unknown. That means there is no thought—not even the thought of no thought. There is nobody there.

Yes, and you can do this in your daily lives. Thank you, Mandy. In your daily lives, there is this sense of moving through life untethered to personality. And we can cultivate that.

You might think, “Oh, I have to have this much money,” or “I have to have this respect,” or “I have to have these designer jeans,” or whatever it is, right? To feel good. But really, to deny those things is to give away the things that form a kind of bondage.

It is very Buddhist, actually, what I am talking about here. Right? Right, Andrea? And Andrea is into Buddhism. I love Buddhism. I love yoga and Buddhism—they are closely related. And Zen.

Now, this is not to say that you might not be the head of a Fortune 500 company. But you will not be you. You will simply be a conduit of the universe running the company. And you will do it with love, because it will not be self-serving. You will be an instrument of God, an instrument of truth, an instrument of service—a true expression of what you are.

Adam Wes And you do not really get to choose whether or not you are going to be Steve Jobs. Right? Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs. He had to be Steve Jobs. That is what he was designed to be. I actually think he was very much on his path.

Yeah, so that humility, that freedom, comes largely from turning around and saying, "No, I am not going to stay on this rat race, this hamster wheel of fulfilling myself and gratifying myself and getting what I think I need." You end it.

And then you can abide in freedom, and there is a sense of, "Oh, thank goodness, it is over. I get to just be what I am."

So it is good to look and see what are those things that are looming over you that do not need to be there. They are usually self-imposed, subtle attitudes—just a sense of self-importance.

And meditation is a very powerful way to do this, because in a way, meditation is the abnegation of the self. You sit there and you listen. And if you listen, there is no self. You are listening because you are not thinking. You are observing.

Listening means, if Sam says something to me, if I am really listening to Sam, I am not constantly filtering it through my own thoughts: "Is he respecting me? Am I getting what I want? Am I saying the right thing? Did I respond? Did I get what he is saying?" I am just listening, with an open conduit of listening.

So meditation is like that. It is listening, it is being what you are without the imposition, the superimposition of selfhood—which is just an idea. This is the funny thing. People think they have to have personalities. No, they do not.

Trees are not like that. Your separate organs are not like that; they just do their job. You can be like that in the world, beyond agency, beyond the sense of self-importance.

So this denial is very much—let me see if I can connect with the feeling here. There is a type of benevolent maturity and freedom in enlightenment.

And it feels like—let me try to connect with the feeling and speak from it—it feels like the end of self-seeking. That is what it feels like. That is the bold choice.

If you really want enlightenment, what is the boldest choice?

What is the thing that you can do? Start denying the self. And that is not to say you are not true to yourself. It actually means you will be true to yourself.

See, this is where the paradox gets a little dangerous, because you have to be true to yourself. But what actually prevents us from being true to ourselves is our self-concern.

Hmm. Maybe that is not very clear.

If you are on that dance floor, you can be true to yourself. But that is because you do not care what everybody thinks. You do not care if your dancing gets you the girl, or whatever it is, right? You just dance, because you are not thinking of yourself—you are just being true to yourself. Yes, I think that is a good explanation.

Does that make sense? The dance floor example works, because I think most of us have experienced not being able to dance on the dance floor.

I want to see what Mandy said. I am so glad you are here! Happy birthday!

Mandy Wes Thanks, Ed!

You are welcome, man.

Well, so… There has to be a paradigmatic orientation. You have to—no, you have to know what it means to be true to yourself. Understand who you are.

But there is a subtle distinction here. I am talking about something very healthy.

So, just to respond to Mandy—she is making a nice point—she said, but an ego seems necessary to be healthy, to relate to society.

So this is where you look and ask, okay, do I have to know that I am the one dancing? Do I have to think of myself to dance, and dance my way? Does it mean there is no self if I am dancing in my unique style? Not at all.

But you are abnegating the reward mechanism—the sense of "I am important, I need this, I need that"—and just being what you are.

Because we cannot really control what comes to us.

The most efficient thing we can do is be what we are, and set our life up in such a way that we have to respect the freedom of others, right? So we cannot really control—we are like a flower that gives off a perfume and pollen, and the bees come. But the flower does not have a little leash on the bees. That would be wrong. It would not be kind to the bees, right?

So, does that mean that in order to respect the freedom of others, the most optimal thing is to be without the ego, but be true to yourself, and let others come to you in a sort of intrinsic mutual collaboration.

I do not know, Andrea, what do you think? Have I said anything cohesive here?

Andrea P But I am thinking that—or I understand it as two different things. One is how you reflect in others. That is why, I think, you want—or we would like to—not that you do not care, but a reflection of what we think of ourselves in front of others.

Because the example you gave, when you are dancing and you care who is seeing and what they are thinking, that involves other people and what they think of you. And that is a part of the ego.

But I also think there is another part that is what I was talking about at the beginning. When you meditate, you dissolve. And that does not have anything to do with other people, but with your connection with the cause, with the source, or with something bigger.

So I think it goes two ways, or I understand it in two parts.

Adam Wes You know, you are helping me remember a very important word in yoga, which is the ahamkara. And this essentially means the created self.

But it is different than the ego. This ahamkara is important, because we need to understand life. If you do not understand life, there is a sort of pathological mental quality. You have to know, "I am so-and-so in this place, and I am part of this world, and there is time and space, and it makes sense to me."

Adam Wes Otherwise, you know, there are people who have a problem with their mind—they start to lose their sense of reality. So you have to have your ahamkara.

But the humility can be there, right? The ego says, "I need these things, I want these things, I need people to recognize me, I need this, I need that." Those are not helpful. That is not the created self.

Or, "I need to have something I cannot have right now." For example, "I need that car," or "I need this much money in my bank account for savings," but maybe you simply cannot have that at the moment. So, what are you going to do? Just fight against it? Or accept it? Resisting it will not help, because it is not there. Right?

So there is this sort of abnegation of the self—not trying to be special. There are other aspects to it as well.

A lot of people seek ambition, they seek to be special, they seek to be loved, they seek to be all kinds of things. But that seeking—I am not saying one might not have those things—but the seeking itself is a burden and takes you away from the gift of what you are.

So, essentially, in spirituality, we abide in the spirit of ourselves—that part of ourself that we cannot gain or lose. It cannot be added to or taken away from. That is the freedom.

You might not want this, but if you want freedom from the personality, there is benefit there. To be free of selfhood is to lift a giant burden that almost every human being carries.

It goes beyond life and death in a way, because you are going above or below creation. There is a— and this is where Nirvana is. And then, you do not lose your body, you do not lose your ahamkara either. You are still that person in the world, but you are yoking your awareness to eternity.

So, this gives us a kind of freedom and love. Without this, I would argue, just mathematically, Sam, that love is not possible. Love is directly proportional, or mutually exclusive, to the ego. Love equals one divided by ego. Love times ego equals one.

Well, if you think about it, love means that I am not separate from you. There is no sense of self-importance, and that only happens when there is no sense of self. When one feels that we are all infinitely valuable.

But yes, Mandy, I think you bring up a really important point—this is part of the danger zone, the distinction that needs to be made. I appreciate that you are presenting that, just to bring extra clarity about what the difference is. And perhaps I touched on it correctly, and what you meant.

I would like to define—I'm trying to see what Sam is writing, but there is an icon over it. Okay, there. I like that: structural invariant to the universe. Nice. Which is actually what I am—you could interpret it the same way. Sam says, love is a structural invariant of the universe, using math terminology.

So, when we deny the self, we become what we are. That is why it has a kind of ontological alignment. What we think we are is not what we are. What we are is awareness. Thoughts can happen inside of it, like the ocean is not made of wave patterns, it is made of water. The waves are on the water; they are formations in the water.

So, essentially today, maybe just one thing to contemplate is: what can I give away? In what ways can I deny the self and find a greater degree of freedom? And is that healthy? Would that be right? It does not mean— I mean, this is— it does not mean, Ariella, you do not do your writing. That is actually the opposite of what it means.

It means you do not care what anyone thinks. I mean, you are already doing this very well. She does not care what anybody thinks; she continues to be herself and do her writing anyway. That is what it means.

Yeah. Alright, shall we meditate? Thank you, everybody. Here? Let us really bring attention to the heart.

So, when you are ready, you can bring attention to the heart, to the moment. Listening to the moment. We can begin the meditation.

Thanks, Mom. Would you like to share? Are you able to meditate? Are you there? Colleen?

All right, how about you, Ariella? Would you like to share? Did anything interesting happen in your meditation? You are muted.

Ariella There we go, okay. This was an amazing meditation. One of the things you had said, you know, that we are part of the whole… and that is what this meditation felt like to me. Bell Slack, for me, was dissolving into the whole.

Adam Wes Beautiful.

And I think—yes, I mean, I was not thinking, I was just experiencing it. You know, we are part of—we are droplets or waves, part of the ocean.

You do not have to think about what you are to be what you are.

Ariella Yes.

Adam Wes In The Matrix, he says, "Stop trying to hit me and hit me." There is a scene in The Matrix where he cannot hit the guy because they are fighting, and then he is like, just do it! Beautiful, Ariella. Thank you. Oh, thanks for bringing the talk into the meditation.

Ariella Yes, it really opened me to a most incredible meditation. Thank you.

Adam Wes Good, good, good, good. I am so glad. Thanks for bringing your wonderful energy and being here. Namaste.

Adam Wes Dad. Talk to you later. Namaste, Ariella. Andrea, would you like to share? And then Sam and I will…

Andrea P No, I did not have a great meditation. I could not dissolve, and I fell asleep at one moment. It usually does not happen, but I woke up very scared. Like, it was—I do not know, for a second, and I was dreaming.

Adam Wes Oh, yes. You know what, Matt?

Andrea P Cheers.

Adam Wes With meditation, it is all about consistency. You will have good sessions and bad ones, but sticking with it keeps deepening your average experience, your moving average.

It also primes you to just drop right in. The fact that you did it, the fact that you are here—that matters. Maybe it is just the energy today. I am not feeling my best myself, so maybe we are all feeling it.

Andrea P Yes.

Adam Wes Well, namaste, Andrea. Thank you. How about you, Sam?

Eslam Omar The talk was with me during the meditation. There was balance, and I think that is a healthy way to look at enlightenment—a balance between having a healthy, functional ego and an enlightened spirit.

In the meditation, I was feeling, but at the same time, I was thinking. That was somewhat amusing. I had these thoughts coming in, like, "You are doing a good job thinking about not thinking," in my head.

But aside from that, it felt great. There was peace, ease, and gratitude.

Adam Wes Nice. Well, thank you for being here.

I will see you all next time. I created a Substack—I am not sure if you know what that is. Andrea, did you see that I created it?

Andrea P I got a notification about it. You posted something about humility.

Adam Wes Yes, so I will put sermons up there as well, so you can see them, and it is a good space to collect all my writing. Ariella, thank you so much—I saw that you subscribed. I appreciate that; it was very kind of you. Wonderful.

Colleen Thank you, Adam. I have figured it out now. Thank you very much.

Adam Wes What did you figure out?

Colleen Just on my phone, it is different, so I… I do not really know how to do it.

Adam Wes How was your meditation? Would you like to share?

Colleen It was nice. I also, like Andrea, drifted into a little bit of sleep, and a bit of a dream, and then came out of it. But that is not totally unusual for me.

Adam Wes Okay. Well, you have your astral dreams. You do not just dream—you go and dance with elves. You do interesting things. Wonderful, Mom, namaste. Did you see your light?

Colleen I did, yes.

Adam Wes Good, good, good, good.

Colleen Hearing us.

Adam Wes Yes.

Colleen Okay.

Adam Wes No mistake.

Colleen Namaste, thanks, Ed.

Adam Wes And Ariella, you were about to say something? You were saying something, but it was muted. Was it about the writing?

Ariella Oh, yes, I read your writing on humility. It really resonated with me, and I signed up.

Adam Wes Oh, thank you. You are my first subscriber!

Ariella Oh, wow!

Adam Wes I will celebrate that. Just so everyone knows, the way Substack works is there is a free section, a paid subscriber section, and a supporters section. I am going to offer a lot of it for free, but there are different tiers. It is about $7 a month.

Hopefully, I will be able to spend more time writing and support myself that way. I am very excited about it.

Sam, I feel like you should take a look. I think you will enjoy it. I know you and I connect on the writing front. You appreciate the words, too. You are like me.

All right, and VIN, nice to see you. Namaste, VIN. All right, everyone, thank you. Bye, Ariella. Bye, everyone. Andrea, thanks for—

Ariella Thank you, thank you.

Enlightenment as the abnegation of the self: ending self-seeking and self-importance so life can be lived from spontaneity, love, and freedom.

• The lesson framed enlightenment as the negation/abnegation of the self: living life without self-seeking.
• The “self” being denied was the center that clamors for attention: the self that wants respect, recognition, specialness, and imagined needs beyond basic needs.
• This is nuanced and “you have to do it right”; it is not self-harm or rejecting life, but acting from self-transcendence without separativity.
• Abnegation of the self is described as anonymity to oneself: removing self-reflection and self-conscious filtering so action can be spontaneous and necessary.
• When self-seeking drops, actions come from necessity and love rather than personal agenda, and there can be “absolute ecstatic bliss” in being “over” attachment.
• Love was emphasized as unconditional, without a spectrum of worthiness or qualification; self-importance interferes with love.
• A key practice distinction was made between a healthy created self (ahamkara) needed for functioning in the world and egoic craving/neediness that creates bondage.
• Much suffering is induced by personality; one can come to this choice through suffering, through understanding, or through trust.
• Meditation was presented as a direct expression of abnegation: listening without filtering through “Am I respected? Am I getting what I want?”
• Being true to yourself was held as compatible with denying self-importance: like dancing freely because you do not care what others think.
• The contemplation offered was simple: look at what is looming over you that does not need to be there—often subtle, self-imposed attitudes of self-importance.

Carry a quiet inquiry through the week: where is life being lived “on behalf of the self,” and what might happen if, in one small place, you give that away—letting yourself be anonymous to yourself, trusting God, and allowing action to come from love rather than agenda.

• Notice self-seeking as it arises: the need to be respected, recognized, special, or seen a certain way.
• Gently distinguish real needs from imagined needs.
• Experiment with not fulfilling one attachment and not trying to get away from one discomfort, and see what it reveals about the “center of self.”
• Bring attention to the heart and practice “listening to the moment” in meditation.
• Practice listening to others without filtering their words through self-concern.
• Let yourself do what you do (your work, your art, your path) without needing it to secure approval or reward.
• Stay consistent with meditation, allowing good sessions and bad sessions to be part of the deepening.

• What is one “looming” self-imposed pressure I can set down, even briefly?
• Where do I feel the difference between being true to myself and being self-conscious?
• What does “listening” feel like when there is no inner commentary about me?