Facets of Vanity
There are at least three facets of vanity. These are quite
broad and within each one there may be several other facets.
These three broad facets are: physical, intellectual
and mystical.
This post focuses on the physical facet of vanity.
Primary Concern of Vanity
The primary concern of vanity is what others think of me.
The goal of vanity is to impress the thoughts of others.
Vanity’s Success
Vanity in general achieves success when it believes it has
captured the attention, amazement, astonishment or fascination of others. In
the case of physical vanity, its success is when it has captured the attention
(this includes amazement, be-wonderment, curiosity, admiration, infatuation
etc.) of others with its physical appearance or physical abilities or physical
possessions.
Thoughts
For example there is the thought “I look so good in this
jacket” or there could be the thought “I
look horrible in this jacket”. Both are thoughts projected by the “I” of
physical vanity.
Continuing on from the thought “I look so good in this
jacket” there is the feeling and the very subtle belief and thought of
something similar to, that “with this jacket I will conquer the world, impress
people everywhere, win admirer’s everywhere, that I look the best, etc.”
This my dear friends, is the illusion at the heart of
vanity. If we break this illusion we deliver vanity a very mortal blow. The
next few sections of this blog are dedicated to breaking this illusion.
Illusion
A very critical step is to notice or become aware of this
illusion. This illusion is like a bubble that we actually live inside, that is,
until we stop being identified with it.
This bubble is maintained by the belief in the thought that
we look great or are really great, or are something special and mysterious.
It is easy to find out when we are in this bubble because
our major concern is to maintain the way we look and maintain the image of
ourselves that we think is so good and others are impressed with. Once we are
able to see it in ourselves we can easily see when others are also in that
bubble.
We have to burst the bubble of vanity by realising that that
thought is an illusion, that is, it is not true and we therefore we should stop
believing in it.
This illusion of physical vanity is the hypnotic grip that
vanity has on us. When we stop believing in its projected illusion we have
advanced greatly in its dissolution. In fact we have acquired the power to
isolate it from our human machine.
The following sections are dedicated to exposing certain
truths that break the hypnotic grip of this “I” of physical vanity.
Physical Appearance, Abilities and Possessions are All Relative.
It is very important to know that everything in the physical
world is relative. We may think that we look good but to another person we
don’t. We may arouse interest some people but not in others.
So we can’t believe those thoughts of vanity that say “we
look great, we look just like those people that are awed and admired etc.”.
Because for very good reason it is not really true, some may agree but others
will not, so we can’t really say that we look great or like this and that.
The truth is that we look the way other’s see us and that is
something that we can not control. We may look to others as ugly and that will
be the way they see us and to some others we may look ‘ok’ and so they will see
us as ‘ok’. In some way, vanity wishes to control the reactions or impressions
of others to be in our favour.
The truth is really that we look the way we look, and we may
look good to ourselves and that is ok, but to go further and believe that we
look good is the problem. Because there we create the illusion and the mere perception
of ourselves looking good gets turned into something bigger in our minds. The
trick is not to believe that we look good, because we may not to other people.
For example, we may be wearing a good jacket. It may look
good on us and it may be good quality, but to believe that we are looking good
is another story. We can’t allow ourselves to believe that, because we will
encounter a case or person that says we don’t look good and if we believe it we
will defend ourselves and get hurt.
The key is not to
believe!
Physical Things are Temporary
Our looks change so much and we look differently to every
person at each time of the day and night. Even the great truth lies in front us
that our good looks will disappear and we will be old and ugly.
This is something that should break the bubble or illusion
of vanity, we are mortal just like every other person that vanity sees as ugly
and that we are going to lose whatever it is that we have and we are going to
get old and die.
The Body is a Vehicle and I am an Essence
The body is something mortal, it is born in time and dies in
time but we are an essence, which is something immortal.
Furthermore we are not the body, we are the essence or the
consciousness. Comprehending and experiencing this profoundly will help us to
separate from vanity. We will fill complete and not lacking anything that
vanity is there to compensate for.
Logic of the “I” of Vanity
Each thought of vanity comes from a projector and the
projector is the “I” of vanity. The thoughts of vanity are projected according
to the logic of the projector.
It is so necessary and useful; to know the logic of the ego.
If we know the logic of the “I” we can really hit the projector and dissolve
the effect its thoughts have on us.
The logic is that “I will impress others, they will be
amazed or taken or fascinated or hooked by my looks, abilities, possessions and
they will think that I am mysteriously gifted or special, and because of that I
am somehow better off than them, and they are very ordinary with ordinary
abilities”.
Fixed Mental Pictures
Vanity works on the untransformed impressions that we have
in our mind. When we receive impressions from others we either get impressed
(strong acceptance) or we are put off (disinterest or rejection).
These impressions if we do not transform them get burnt into
our minds and taken by the ego of vanity. So what the ego of physical vanity
does, is to try to look or be the same as the impression. It tries to reproduce
the impression that was received in the past. Vanity does not mind whether
others are receiving the same impression that we received in the past but they
we to ourselves are giving off or are the same as the impression that we received
in the past.
All these untransformed mental pictures is what keeps vanity
alive and striving to reach its goal. These are the goals of vanity. So if we
find those pictures that we have in our mind and transform them and remove
them, then vanity is goalless and the motivation for it to use the human
machine is less and less, almost nothing. Vanity is on its way to die.
Vanity works or operates on those mental pictures. Plus what
is worse we make our identity using them. We make a very false identity out of one
of those pictures. We come to identify with them and come to believe that they
are our identity, that they are who we are.
Break the Small Bottles
Regarding the elimination of the ego of physical vanity, the
best thing to do is to concentrate on the projector of it. But it is so very
helpful to us to break all those small bottles, which are those mental pictures,
the various illusions, the bubbles and the very small facets of physical
vanity. Like to do with makeup, with jewellery, a part of the body, car we drive,
etc.
Elimination of
The best thing to do when it comes to the death of physical
vanity is break the small bottles and ask the Divine Mother to eliminate them and
to concentrate on the “I” of physical; vanity which is the defect that projects
the Illusion.
Concentrate on each centre chanting the mantram KRIM and
begging the Divine Mother to make that defect to die in us.
What Keeps Physical Vanity Alive?
The egos behind vanity are what really keep it alive. The
more we look into this point the more we see some egos behind it, using vanity
to gets it long term goal. The “I’s” of lust are very important to look into
here. Lust uses physical vanity to look very elegant so to be able to attract a
person of the opposite sex.
Pride may use vanity to reaffirm the belief that it is
better than most people.
Conclusion
The very first step in dissolving vanity, is to become aware
of its hypnotic grip. Once you have found the arguments that belong to its
hypnotic grip you need to question them one by one and dissolve them using the
truth. We have given guidance in this post to help with that labour.
Dissolving physical vanity will take attention beyond the
form and into the essence and will give you much light allowing you to destroy
your false image and take up the real self-image which is the conscious
experience of the Being.
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