Mask off

true self - ego - on ne change pas - inner child - authenticity

Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious.

―Rumi

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

― Ram Dass

I think we've lost touch with our child minds. Inside of us is a child yearning to be free that's cosplaying as an adult. I think we, over time, build our personality, we get told what we can and can't do. We wear certain clothes, they're just costumes if you really think about it.

Investing for a Higher Purpose - Colossus

Yet the ego is just a very sophisticated mask. It is a mask that is worn by individuated expressions of the universal self to create an illusion of selfhood and individuality that is separate from everything and everyone else. In this sense, the ego has an extraordinarily difficult job: it must convince God (the universal self) that it is not God.

Martin W. Ball • Entheogenic Liberation: Unraveling the Enigma of Nonduality with 5-MeO-DMT Energetic Therapy (The Entheogenic Evolution Book 8)

The ego is constantly in flux. Once you’re onto it—once you’ve discovered it in one aspect of your being—it will disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. It is very cunning, very subtle. In fact, as I see it, the ego’s illusion is one of the most impressive forces in all of nature.

Adyashanti • The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment

When your thoughts become your identity that is called ego. Ego is a case of mistaken identity. You believe that the illusory thoughts that come and go are your true self. Your true self is the dimension of you that does not come and go.

Dicken Bettinger • Coming Home: Uncovering the Foundations of Psychological Well-being

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