Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

other person’s behavior and body language that reveal
to us what he or she is thinking and feeling?
Is it not obvious that most of this "stuff" is invisible
to introspection, watching our thoughts and emotions
arise and pass away?
If we consider Freud’s model and the
psychoanalytic models that have flowed from his
concepts, staying in the now really only accesses the
conscious mind and preconscious. But mechanisms of
the ego, constructed by the ego, prevent that same
ego, the ‘I,’ the investigator, from ever discovering the
deeply buried stuff, the earliest pains, frustrations,
injuries, and vasanas, which are only brought to light
when they slip through the ego defenses, such as in
dream or free association.
In other words, the ego spends an enormous
amount of energy and time hiding stuff working in the
unconscious and preconscious areas. How then can we
expect the ego, which directs all search and seeking
efforts, to uncover that which it wants to conceal from
the light of awareness?
Therefore staying in the now, the present, in
awareness, can really not take us that far as a method
of liberation. The ego is not going to find that which it
deliberately conceals from consciousness. External
forces are usually needed, such as a guru,