A different dimension of being starts opening up when this verb ego is allowed to run down. Just by watching, we can start to see that nothing that arises has an egoic or “me” nature. A thought arising is just a thought arising. If a feeling arises, it has no “me” nature and no self nature. If confusion arises, there is no “me” nature in the arising. Just by watching, we see that everything arises spontaneously, and nothing has an inherent nature of “me” in it. Egoic nature comes only in the afterthought.
As soon as that afterthought is believed, then we have a whole world view happening—”I’m angry; I’m confused; I’m anxious; I’m so happy; I’m depressed; I’m unenlightened” or, worse yet, ”I’m enlightened.” Suddenly this I-thought belief colors everything we see, everything we do, and every single experience that happens. People think that spirituality is an altered state, but this delusion is the altered state. Spirituality is about waking up, not about states.
– Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing