The Ego and its Importance
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
What we recognize as the ego is that mechanism which perceives us as a single entity, independent of other entities. It is the self-monitoring capacity within us - the part responsible for recognizing and dealing with imbalances in the system and with challenges to its integrity. It is also the stupidest aspect of our existence.
I say this because the ego is utterly reactionary. When faced with a difficult situation, it immediately thinks and thinks and thinks. It figures out one angle after another and is constantly trying to calculate how to get one thing or another. "What if this happens?" "What if that happens?" "If this happens, I'll do that." "If that happens, I'll do this." The ego is always like this. For all its effort, however, every question it ever asks is nothing but a variation on what I call the mantra of stupidity: "What's going to happen to me?"
Different desires arise in us, such as "I want that" or "This one belongs to me." All of them have to do with the image we create of ourselves. In time, as all the things we desire naturally go their own way, we ask ourselves, "What happened over there? That was mine and now its gone. I lost it, it left me, I was rejected, I blew it." Or we might say, "I never had it in the first place" or, "I'm a big shot because I do have this or that and besides, I just became the Highest degree of my magical order."
Whenever we respond to our lives in this way we allow ourselves to become reduced to a trivial level. We try to conceptualize the nature of our experience. We struggle to fit it into some kind of framework because we haven't the composure to live with the alternative - the profound uncertainty that Life really is. There is real pain and anguish in relating to this uncertainty. Rather than facing it, accepting it, opening to it, and allowing the uncertainty to begin to teach us about itself, we close our hearts and minds to it.
We don't recognize that our resistance to this uncertainty causes us to erect boundaries around ourselves. These boundaries encapsulate us in tension. They prevent any higher, finer vibration or joyous experience from penetrating and uplifting us. As we build up an identity - an ego - to protect us from this uncertainty, the ego itself becomes more and more of a prison. The more we are in pain in this prison, the faster, higher and bigger we build the walls.
In the mechanism we are, the ego is simply a given part, just as it is a part of everybody else. It functions to help us structure our experience. Every dynamic event has such a structure, and that is not a problem. Only when we get stuck in the structures set up by the ego do we also get caught in the boundaries it erects. This happens when we take the ego to be the limit of who we are. It happens when we don't see that there is something so much vaster about us that the ego can only appear dense and stupid by comparison.
The ego cannot help in our pursuit of growing. As a reactionary event, the ego itself doesn't grow, just as the mind and emotions don't grow. Indeed, when it comes to spiritual growth, all of these do little except get in the way. Our identification with any of them is nothing but a reaction to a reaction to a reaction.
Our wish to grow, to be authentic, has to translate into action. This is what sustains a unity between our will and its expression. Yet in becoming action, our intention always passes through the filter of ego. In the process, our intention gets refracted, becoming both diffuse and complicated. This, in turn, gives rise to many shadows and distorted perceptions. This filter comes into play particularly as our minds work to maintain a sense of constancy in their perceptions. They are always trying to tell us that we are just as we think we are. We are not.
The organization of images, concepts, and ideas that compose our ego is a fraud we unknowingly perpetuate upon ourselves. The notions by which we evaluate ourselves have no force in any kind of profound reality. What does have force is the power of Life Itself. When we can still our minds and tone down all the distinctions that we arrive at by comparing ourselves to others - or even to our own past performance - we begin to experience just why all these distinctions are beside the point.
Any spiritual practice - indeed, any quest for truth - requires that we let go of all the superficialities instead of building up an identity and then defending it. This idea makes many people uncomfortable. We may find it frightening just to imagine it, or at least extremely disorienting. This is understandable. After all, if we weren't to thrilled about who we thought we were before - and, most likely, that discontent is what originally sent us into the whole building program - then who wants to go back there? And isn't that what it means to let go of all that composes our identity?
Not exactly. This process of letting go includes the identity we weren't happy about in the first place as well. Secondly, "letting go" doesn't leave us a human vacuum or zombie. Rather, it means becoming aware of the much deeper part of ourselves, quickly, simply, and naturally. It means becoming aware of the Life deep inside whatever prison we have made.
What is alive in that prison, and always has been, is the energy of Life Itself. Simply to turn our attention to that takes us into a dimension different from the one we were in when we started the building program. Once we see this, all of that other construction work dissolves and we are left with the most vital, authentic part of who we are.
This involves paying attention to the quality of our effort all the time. In the process, we discover at least two things: first, that making a quality effort is hard, and second, that doing it humbles all of us. When we are really honest with ourselves, we recognize that, on the level of experience, much of what passes for work and effort in the world is made up of incompetence, inefficiency, and laziness. Moreover, we understand that, as personalities, all of us play out some of it. Once we have seen this, it becomes difficult to be as proud and cocky about the person we present to the world. This is one way to begin to go beyond the ego.
We also come to see that this is not where our true experience of success lies. What real success an of us has in our lives comes from a mysterious and subtle place that is difficult to name. We come to know this by being careful in our effort and attentive to doing a good job all the time. When we truly do this, it is also hard to become egotistical.
We make the effort to pay attention to these details within ourselves, to watch our energy and how it manifests in every relationship, and to keep ourselves focused on the subtle balance we hope to establish in each of these relationships. Out of this effort, our intention to grow begins to flow freely into action. This process is what slowly teaches us about our own nature and about the nature of Life. It is, to a great extent, what liberates us from fear, tension, and need and transforms us into a fountain of well-being.
Instead of being frightening, this is a wonderful and joyous process. It is like taking a deep breath on a clear, brisk morning and simply feeling alive. To feel that Life flowing in and around us plucks us right out of our prison and takes us as close to heaven as we can possibly get. We understand that no destruction of the ego is necessary, that no rejection of the ego is required - but that the ego is not the most important part of what we are. Then we find, over time, that our ego assumes its appropriate place and that we no longer have to struggle with it.
By becoming aware of the multiplicity of processes which compose what we call "I," we begin to see things from a perspective that makes the ego and the identity we all try to create for ourselves are both like finding a pile of rabbit pellets in our back yard. Something has been there and left a residue of its presence, but this residue is fundamentally irrelevant. The best we can say for it is that, in a way, it is nice because we know it will make our grass grow greener. But that is about as meaningful as the whole ego event finally is.
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
☉ in 29° ♋ : ☽ in 23° ♐ : Anno IVxviii a.n.
What we recognize as the ego is that mechanism which perceives us as a single entity, independent of other entities. It is the self-monitoring capacity within us - the part responsible for recognizing and dealing with imbalances in the system and with challenges to its integrity. It is also the stupidest aspect of our existence.
I say this because the ego is utterly reactionary. When faced with a difficult situation, it immediately thinks and thinks and thinks. It figures out one angle after another and is constantly trying to calculate how to get one thing or another. "What if this happens?" "What if that happens?" "If this happens, I'll do that." "If that happens, I'll do this." The ego is always like this. For all its effort, however, every question it ever asks is nothing but a variation on what I call the mantra of stupidity: "What's going to happen to me?"
Different desires arise in us, such as "I want that" or "This one belongs to me." All of them have to do with the image we create of ourselves. In time, as all the things we desire naturally go their own way, we ask ourselves, "What happened over there? That was mine and now its gone. I lost it, it left me, I was rejected, I blew it." Or we might say, "I never had it in the first place" or, "I'm a big shot because I do have this or that and besides, I just became the Highest degree of my magical order."
Whenever we respond to our lives in this way we allow ourselves to become reduced to a trivial level. We try to conceptualize the nature of our experience. We struggle to fit it into some kind of framework because we haven't the composure to live with the alternative - the profound uncertainty that Life really is. There is real pain and anguish in relating to this uncertainty. Rather than facing it, accepting it, opening to it, and allowing the uncertainty to begin to teach us about itself, we close our hearts and minds to it.
We don't recognize that our resistance to this uncertainty causes us to erect boundaries around ourselves. These boundaries encapsulate us in tension. They prevent any higher, finer vibration or joyous experience from penetrating and uplifting us. As we build up an identity - an ego - to protect us from this uncertainty, the ego itself becomes more and more of a prison. The more we are in pain in this prison, the faster, higher and bigger we build the walls.
In the mechanism we are, the ego is simply a given part, just as it is a part of everybody else. It functions to help us structure our experience. Every dynamic event has such a structure, and that is not a problem. Only when we get stuck in the structures set up by the ego do we also get caught in the boundaries it erects. This happens when we take the ego to be the limit of who we are. It happens when we don't see that there is something so much vaster about us that the ego can only appear dense and stupid by comparison.
The ego cannot help in our pursuit of growing. As a reactionary event, the ego itself doesn't grow, just as the mind and emotions don't grow. Indeed, when it comes to spiritual growth, all of these do little except get in the way. Our identification with any of them is nothing but a reaction to a reaction to a reaction.
Our wish to grow, to be authentic, has to translate into action. This is what sustains a unity between our will and its expression. Yet in becoming action, our intention always passes through the filter of ego. In the process, our intention gets refracted, becoming both diffuse and complicated. This, in turn, gives rise to many shadows and distorted perceptions. This filter comes into play particularly as our minds work to maintain a sense of constancy in their perceptions. They are always trying to tell us that we are just as we think we are. We are not.
The organization of images, concepts, and ideas that compose our ego is a fraud we unknowingly perpetuate upon ourselves. The notions by which we evaluate ourselves have no force in any kind of profound reality. What does have force is the power of Life Itself. When we can still our minds and tone down all the distinctions that we arrive at by comparing ourselves to others - or even to our own past performance - we begin to experience just why all these distinctions are beside the point.
Any spiritual practice - indeed, any quest for truth - requires that we let go of all the superficialities instead of building up an identity and then defending it. This idea makes many people uncomfortable. We may find it frightening just to imagine it, or at least extremely disorienting. This is understandable. After all, if we weren't to thrilled about who we thought we were before - and, most likely, that discontent is what originally sent us into the whole building program - then who wants to go back there? And isn't that what it means to let go of all that composes our identity?
Not exactly. This process of letting go includes the identity we weren't happy about in the first place as well. Secondly, "letting go" doesn't leave us a human vacuum or zombie. Rather, it means becoming aware of the much deeper part of ourselves, quickly, simply, and naturally. It means becoming aware of the Life deep inside whatever prison we have made.
What is alive in that prison, and always has been, is the energy of Life Itself. Simply to turn our attention to that takes us into a dimension different from the one we were in when we started the building program. Once we see this, all of that other construction work dissolves and we are left with the most vital, authentic part of who we are.
This involves paying attention to the quality of our effort all the time. In the process, we discover at least two things: first, that making a quality effort is hard, and second, that doing it humbles all of us. When we are really honest with ourselves, we recognize that, on the level of experience, much of what passes for work and effort in the world is made up of incompetence, inefficiency, and laziness. Moreover, we understand that, as personalities, all of us play out some of it. Once we have seen this, it becomes difficult to be as proud and cocky about the person we present to the world. This is one way to begin to go beyond the ego.
We also come to see that this is not where our true experience of success lies. What real success an of us has in our lives comes from a mysterious and subtle place that is difficult to name. We come to know this by being careful in our effort and attentive to doing a good job all the time. When we truly do this, it is also hard to become egotistical.
We make the effort to pay attention to these details within ourselves, to watch our energy and how it manifests in every relationship, and to keep ourselves focused on the subtle balance we hope to establish in each of these relationships. Out of this effort, our intention to grow begins to flow freely into action. This process is what slowly teaches us about our own nature and about the nature of Life. It is, to a great extent, what liberates us from fear, tension, and need and transforms us into a fountain of well-being.
Instead of being frightening, this is a wonderful and joyous process. It is like taking a deep breath on a clear, brisk morning and simply feeling alive. To feel that Life flowing in and around us plucks us right out of our prison and takes us as close to heaven as we can possibly get. We understand that no destruction of the ego is necessary, that no rejection of the ego is required - but that the ego is not the most important part of what we are. Then we find, over time, that our ego assumes its appropriate place and that we no longer have to struggle with it.
By becoming aware of the multiplicity of processes which compose what we call "I," we begin to see things from a perspective that makes the ego and the identity we all try to create for ourselves are both like finding a pile of rabbit pellets in our back yard. Something has been there and left a residue of its presence, but this residue is fundamentally irrelevant. The best we can say for it is that, in a way, it is nice because we know it will make our grass grow greener. But that is about as meaningful as the whole ego event finally is.
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
☉ in 29° ♋ : ☽ in 23° ♐ : Anno IVxviii a.n.