Truth is not information, it is an experience.

-Maha Vajra

Maha Vajra Portrait

Mahajrya is a non denominational tradition founded by Maha Vajra, which

adopts insights from many different spiritual practices. One of their foundational
practices includes the releasing of suffering through a process called emotional
integration. This is a practice of bringing conscious awareness to aspects of
ourselves that cause distress. Through observation of our attachments and our
emotions we can take back the power that these feelings can have over our
minds.

This practice requires you to take responsibility for your emotions,

projections and beliefs, allowing you to deeply resolve the core issues which all
egoic behavior stems from. While the premise of the practice is incredibly simple,
it can be extremely difficult for people to sit in their fears and fully face them
without trying to change the past or remove the fear itself. Rather just sit and
observe how it makes us feel.

Maha has a wide array of techniques to help effectively integrate these

emotions over time, though the main principle is that our consciousness created
the illusion of suffering, and therefore it will be through that same consciousness
that we will resolve them.

HAPPY FACING

One of the main components of emotional integration is a technique called

happy facing. This is the practice of feeling, exploring and contemplating
happiness, for no other reason than your decision to do so. The idea behind it is
that we far too often create feelings of suffering because we are focusing on our
suffering, but when we decide to take a few minutes to sit and contemplate
happiness we in turn create more happiness!
 Happy FacingThis exercise is important to know going into emotional
integration, because it balances out the emotional spectrum you will experience.
After diving into the feeling of fear, it is important to balance yourself out by
taking the time to feel happy again, and we do so by focusing on it. To begin, sit in
a comfortable position and breath deeply. You can then imagine as if every cell in
your body is a bright, smiling happy face. Your organs are happy faces, pumping
happy blood cells through your happy veins. Every aspect of you is a shining,
smiling face, all working together to keep you alive and happy. In this meditation,
you are not happy because of the possessions you have or because of your
partner or job, but simply because you are choosing to focus on the feeling of
being happy.

What does happiness feel like? Sit in the feeling of being happy, for no
other reason than you want to, and because you are focusing on it.

Maha explains, if you are happy because of your house, material

possessions or social status; you would experience suffering if these things are
taken away. True happiness comes from an inner peace within all of us, and while
we can still appreciate the material gifts we have in our lives, we can also be
happy after those things leave if our inner happiness was not bound to them.

Once you can hold a space feeling true happiness for no external reason
without getting pulled out of it by other thoughts, you are ready to dive into the
21 masks of the ego.

If you are just beginning this practice, try meditating for 10 20 minutes a
day on each mask, dedicating 3 days per mask, then being sure to practice happy
facing afterwards for the same amount of time.

BEGINNING TO INTEGRATE

What follows are completely transformational practices that can shift your
life and how you interact with the world, if you are willing to truly dedicate
yourself it to. Maha explains that when we look at an upsetting experience, the
more we observe it, the more it turns into nothing but raw information. It loses
its power over us when we shine consciousness onto it, and see it for what it is.
 This negative emotion, experience, or memory is now just information that
we can choose to learn from. When we run from our fears, or shove them in our
mental closet and close the door, these emotions accumulate over time and build
up stress within us. This can then overwhelm us, and dictates how we navigate
the world, our relationships, and our lives.

We are able to free ourselves from these emotional chains, and understand
why they are there simply by taking the time to sit and observe how that
experience made us feel; and then learning from that information.

The 21 masks are split up into sets of 3 and build upon each other, acting as
a ladder that we can climb up or down. The 21 masks dont have to be done in
order, but there is a natural flow to them when practiced in this particular order.

HOW TO INTEGRATE THE MASKS

Similar to happy facing, the process of emotional integration at its essence,

is simply sitting in and observing the emotion itself. Without trying to change the
experience or pass blame for it, we just sit and look at how it made us feel, and
what we can then learn from that experience. This practice is done the same way
for each mask which is listed below.

Masks of the EgoTo begin, get in a comfortable position and breath deeply.
Its suggested that you sit up because lying down can lead to falling asleep, or
relaxing to a point where you stop the process.

Focus on your breath for a few moments, clearing your mind and focusing
your intention on what it is that you are about to do. Then, bring up the emotion
you are integrating. As fear is the first mask, this will be used for the example.
Picture in your mind a situation that caused you to feel afraid. What does it feel
like? What is it exactly that you are running from?

Allow yourself to go into the feeling and let the experience play out without
trying to hide from it or change how you feel. If you find yourself having a panic
attack or getting scared, observe this reaction and know that you are safe in the
moment; there is no real danger, only the perception of it.
 Your ego will likely try to pull you out of this experience, it will distract you
and try everything it can to stop you from shining your light of awareness on it;
keep pushing through. Bring yourself back with your breath and allow that to be
the anchor that keeps you going. If you feel too overwhelmed, come back to your
breath.

Now let go of the situation or experience that caused you to feel afraid and
just look at the feeling itself, as an observer of it. Do this until the fear itself
becomes information that you can now use to learn from. It is no longer a shadow
of daunting emotion, but a valuable lesson you as a soul needed to experience to
deepen your understanding of love and forgiveness.

Once the situation that caused you to experience fear no longer triggers the
fear response, you have successfully integrated a layer of it. Now, spend the same
amount of time you spent focusing on fear, focused on happiness for no reason.
Balance the emotional spectrum out, and allow yourself to return to joy and bliss.

This is the basics of integration, and really only scratches the surface of
what it means to integrate our experiences. Maha suggests doing this for 3 days
per mask to go deeper into your own subconscious and find the light that may
have been masked by your ego. Integrating the same mask for several days in a
row or for longer periods of time will reveal more layers underneath or even
deeper fears that you many not have even realized were there.

THE 3 DENIALS OF THE EGO

The first 3 masks are called the denials. These are feelings that many
people will deny having, or downplay them because they are either too ashamed,
too fearful, too full of pride to even look at them, or likely a combination of the
three!

Fear is the strongest denial and many of the masks that build on top of it
can be seen as different facets or flavors of fear. It is, at its core, a survival
mechanism that our ego uses to protect us. Fear is an avoidance because we
dont want to suffer.
 Shame is a feeling of humiliation or unworthiness that stems from taking on
other peoples doubt or rejection. If no one told you to feel ashamed for a given
accomplishment, you would not have felt that way. It is because we allow others
to project their negativity towards us that we believe that we should feel shame.
This can also be passed down through family members or picked up through our
peers and environments. It holds an energy of looking down upon yourself
because you accepted the thought that what you were doing was wrong, this self
confliction is shame, and is largely linked with pride.

Pride is an experience of feeling attached to a particular outcome or view

that you have of yourself or others. This can essentially stop you from growing or
learning because it suggests that you already know all there is to know, so why
keep going? We use pride to protect our image and justify our mistakes.

THE 3 EMOTIONS OF THE EGO

The next three masks are called the 3 emotions. It is said that there is only
one emotion, which is emotion itself, and happiness and sadness are just different
points on the spectrum of emotion. Here we look at some of the more difficult
emotions on that spectrum, and address some of the root feelings that cause us
suffering.

Masks of the Ego 2

Abandonment is a huge one thats deeply seeded in many of us. Its the
feeling of something leaving us and we are left by ourselves, all alone either
emotionally, mentally or physically. It can be a physical person, object, job, death
or relationship. Even if you are the one leaving someone, you can still feel
abandoned. It is said that all humanity has a deep rooted abandonment feeling
from God, when we choose to separate from unity and become souls to have this
human experience, we created the first feeling of abandonment. Taking the time
to integrate this experience, knowing that you were never abandoned, you can
find your spiritual faith once again.

Rejection is the experience of pushing something away. This is something

we learn as we grow older. It is very popular to experience in school as we first
discover ourselves and want to feel accepted, but are rejected by our peers.
Where abandonment is the feeling of being alone, rejection can be felt while you
are still close to others because they are not accepting you in the way that you
thought you needed.

Guilt is whether or not others approve of what we have done. We can feel
guilty even when we do something right but are judged for it by others. For
example if you did well on a test but your friends didnt, you may feel guilty for
doing better than they did. Guilt is often closely tied to our denials of shame and
pride. When we can can see through the root level denials, and find the lesson we
needed to learn from these experiences, we can face our darker emotions, and
honor that every step along the way we did what we thought was best, and will
always keep moving forward!

THE 3 ROLES OF THE EGO

These are the three roles we can take on in attempts to alleviate the
suffering that the previous three emotions may cause us. Often this applies in
reverse too, you may have felt abandonment, rejection, or guilt as a result of one
of the roles you were playing.

The prosecutor is like a judge, acting on behalf of others to say whats good
or bad. This can manifest as judgement or knowing more than those around you.
This role is similar to pride in that you perceive that your way or viewpoint is best,
and then extends beyond your own internal feeling and is now being projected
towards others. We all have lessons to learn from life and it is our own individual
karma to experience the results of our actions without judgement of others for
how they choose to express their freedom.

The savior wants to help others, whether you want something in return or
not, this specific role is attached to the idea of other people accepting your help
and valuing your insight,and then being hurt if they dont. If your sense of self or
feeling of worthiness only comes from helping others, you could be attached to
playing the savior role and can then experience suffering when someone doesnt
want your help. This is also putting yourself in a position of a martyr, putting
others before yourself in order to save them.

The victim role is simply the act of not taking responsibility for our own
actions in every moment and that the suffering we are experiencing is solely
everyone elses fault, taking no blame for ourselves. This is the part of our ego
that is obsessed with focusing on the negative side of every experience and
making sure that others know how terrible we feel. In every situation we choose
the actions leading up to being where we are now. Whether that was as a soul
choosing to be born with our specific parents or into a specific place where we
experience lessons in this life exactly as we needed to in order to grow and move
beyond.

THE 3 TOOLS OF THE EGO

These are the tools that the ego will use while playing the different roles.
These tools try to influence the free will of others in an attempt to get what we
think we want.

Tools of the EgoPower is an act of imposing ourselves on others to try to

get something that we want. It is the idea that we may not obtain our desires if
we do not act aggressively or forcefully. When we feel powerless internally our
that our efforts are not good enough, the expression of external power may be
the result. This can come as a toddler not getting their toy and throwing a fit, or
as an executive not feeling self worth unless they are dictating the lives of others.

Control is what happens when power or brute force isnt enough for us to
gain what we desire, it becomes more subtle and more manipulative. The
expression that is often used here is relax, nothing is in control. Let go of the
desire to have everything go our way and try to find the silver lining or the beauty
of things as they are.

Manipulation is the next step after control isnt enough. It is the act of
convincing others that they will gain something from doing what we tell them to.
Its sneaky, very subtle and sometimes difficult to see when we are manipulating
others or being manipulated ourselves. In either case these tools are all
manifestations of our own expectations and goals. By moving forward through
these masks you will be able to see the root cause of why you were creating this
experience in the first place.

THE 3 EXPECTATIONS OF THE EGO

The three expectations are our desires of a certain outcome or experience

happening in the way we want it to. This is largely covered by our denials as when
we hold pride within ourselves, claiming that we know it all, we cannot see that
we were expressing false hope or over certainty. The universe is so massive and
the amount of information out there is so vast, to claim that we know it all is a
sure cause of suffering when we are proven wrong. Holding a space of
bewilderment and a childlike awe and wonder for the world around us, being
open to learning new experiences and not claiming that we have all the answers
will help move through our expectations.

False hope is knowing or wanting something to turn out fine, but not seeing
the bigger picture of why it might not. Its like eating processed food everyday,
believing that its good for you when its actually causing you harm. It could also
manifest as believing that some great mystical force will come down from the sky
to fix all of our problems instead of taking the actions in our day to day lives to
improve our situation ourselves.

Over certainty stems from false hope, ensuring us that what we believe is
true even when it might not be. Its having blind faith about something without
looking deeper into the situation first. It can be seen as careless and often takes
everything for granted. Faith itself is necessary for our spirit, however being
closed to other sources of information, claiming that your way is the one and only
way, can be a sure sign that the person is attached to their over certainty.

Egocentrism is focusing all of your attention on yourself. Its thinking that

the importance of a situation is solely about you, and that your feelings come
before everyone elses. Its greedy and doesnt take anyone else into
consideration. We all play incredible roles in each others lives and not
appreciating the impact of others around us will be a cause of suffering. Taking
the time out of our days to help a person in need or to selflessly give a donation
without expecting anything in return are actions we can begin to break free from
being egocentric.

THE 3 NEEDS OF THE EGO

The three needs, or goals of the ego, are the expressions of not being
enough just as ourselves and that we need something more in order to feel
validated, or protected. This can be a physical thing, such as needing more money
to feel better, or even can be something like needing a degree or formal
certificate before you will feel worthy yourself. Not to say that there is anything
wrong with obtaining either such things, but only that the attachment to needing
it for your own gratification becomes a cause of suffering.

Acquiring is getting something that we need or want, but is usually

something that we want more than actually need. This mask is also called
Obtain and is the energy that we need something external in order to feel safe
or to be seen as worthy in the eyes of others. Its usually physical in nature, like
material possessions that we can hold onto.

Accumulation is getting more, more, more! Even when you already have
enough. It is like a feeling of wanting that can never be satisfied, no matter how
much you have or buy.

Attainment is the process of trying to reach an objective, something like

social status or reputation. It is usually led by self-infatuation in order to make
yourself feel good about where you are in life. This can be expressed by saying Ill
be happy when ____ happens or Only after ____ will things be better. The way
that we can find peace here is by finding happiness in the moment where we are
now, and moving forward without the need for any attachments.

THE 3 ATTACHMENTS OF THE EGO

The next three masks are the final three, and they are called our
attachments. These are things that we tell ourselves we need, and without them
we will suffer. The premise here is to find balance enjoying what we have when
its there, and letting things go when its time. When we live in this state of
allowing what is and what is not, we can truly transcend suffering. If you are
attached to your possessions, to your friends and family, or to your ideas of what
others think of you, eventually you will realize that all these gifts can cause
suffering if we are attached to keeping them. Love truly and strongly all the
wondrous things in your life, and be willing to keep moving forward even if they
get taken away. Eventually, in the next 500 years, youll lose your job! -Maha
Vajra. So love life now without attachment to the past or future!

Physical AttachmentsPhysical attachments can include our possessions,

things we buy and own like clothes, houses, cars and money, but can also include
our physical bodies. We are attached to how we feel physically, if we feel pain or
pleasure. Many of us are attached to existing in a state of only feeling good and
therefore will not eat foods we dont like or not exercise because of the pain we
experience. By losing our attachments, we can start to eat the food that is best
for us, and begin acting in ways that are conducive to health. If we believe that we
need these physical sensations to be happy, we have put our power into the
material items, and they can cause us suffering.

Emotional attachment is predominantly about being attached to our

feelings and relationships with other people, or the idea of them. When we feel
like we need someone else to complete us, we have emotionally attached
ourselves to that experience and can undergo suffering if that person or feeling
goes away. Having feelings is a very important part of our human experience,
however, being attached to always feeling one specific way is not. As humans we
will experience a full range of emotions, these feelings are there to teach us
lessons and help us find the strength we need to transcend this reality. To do so,
we must first become completely unattached to any specific emotional outcome
and express love in all situations. Happiness for no reason!

Mental attachments are the very thoughts that all too often run rampant
through our minds. Try thinking no thoughts for an hour and see how attached
you are to having thoughts and opinions. Our minds are there to help us translate
our experiences, but all too often we try to always rationalize the present
moment as opposed to stepping back and just experiencing it. This mask is related
to our identities and personalities. Its who we think we are, who our ego tells us
to be rather than just letting what is be all that is. Free yourself of all judgement
and expectations and a clear mind will follow.

TRANSFORMATION FROM WITHIN

The essence of these practices is taking the time to observe all your past
experiences and learning from them. Surely you can think of a moment in your
past where each and every one of these 21 masks were triggered, therefore you
can either learn from the lessons of the past, or continue to create more of the
same experiences in your future. If you want to create more love and happiness in
your future, you must take the time to learn from your past. Send love and
forgiveness to yourself and all those in your life who taught you lessons, no
matter how painful the lesson was.

The more we look at these masks and our past experiences, the more we
can learn from them and transcend the suffering we caused ourselves. With time
and practice, as you go through and forgive everyone that has ever caused you
pain, accepting the experience as a learning opportunity for your soul, you will
reach a state of inner peace that could be described as enlightenment. It is an
open state of allowing, an ebb and flow of energy passing through you that you
do not hold on to, you just learn from it and see yourself in those around you.

The practice of consciously observing our suffering allows for our higher
love to be shined onto our darkest depths until we can truly be at peace within
ourselves.

Remember: Take the time to bring your focus back to your happiness after
any integration. Of all the feelings and emotions you could experience at any
moment, why not choose to feel happy?