I seem to have a different perspective on ego than most spiritually minded people. I have read a lot of texts, from a great variety of spiritual traditions, that urge the reader to transcend the ego, to leave the ego's concerns behind. Well, as I wrote yesterday, I don't choose to leave any part of me behind. That includes my ego.
I grappled for years with low self-esteem and a very heightened sense of self as inappropriate in the world, as not belonging. I felt the pressure to be liked, to conform, to achieve a relative position in the world. These presssures came from my ego. I struggled greatly with all of this through my adolescence, and the decades of my twenties and thirties. Finally, I came to understand, through my teaching work with angry and alienated teenagers, that what we push away and try to avoid comes back three times stronger. I learned that resistance gives energy to the thing resisted. I learned more recently that we cannot leave any part of us behind. So, what do we do about our ego?
I had a conversation with my ego. I highly recommend it. And as with any good conversation, the listening is more important than anything you have to say. I asked my ego to tell me about itself. My ego told me that it is just trying to do its job. Its job is very important, especially in the three dimensional world that we are immersed in. Ego's job is to differentiate self from all that is not self, so as to create a sense of self as separate, and to ascertain self's position relative to everything and everyone else. In a world where getting along with others is a key aspect of our survival, ego's job of ascertaining self's position relative to other selves is essential. Ego has another little job to do also - one involving the growing awareness of oneself as an individual, the differentiation of one's being from all other being. "I am like this and this, whereas this other person is like that."
This might seem counter-productive when we are working so hard to embrace unity consciousness and a sense of the ALL as ONE. But see, we were ALL. We were ONE. We willingly came into an incarnation of consciousness of separation so that the ALL that we ARE could find out what it IS. We came here to become conscious of All-That-Is through being NOT All-That-Is. If that sounds confusing, I apologize. I just don't know of any other way to explain it.
In order to experience Unity, we have to experience separation. Ego specializes in separation. Good job, Ego!
See, that's how I differ in my way of thinking about the ego from some other people. I think that ego has gotten some very bad press over the last century or so. I think ego is doing a great job and after that conversation that I had with ego, I told her so. I said it right out loud, "Good job, Ego!" and I've said it a few times since then. Ego was very glad to hear that. It's not at all a regular occurence for ego to be given any kind of credit for anything. Yet here is ego - part of us, part of the world we inhabit, part of the All-That-Is, sacred and integral and valuable in her own way. I appreciate ego. I really do.
And as it is with everything else in us, so it is with ego. We cannot deny, repress, ignore, fear, hate or vilify any part of us and expect to be able to move forward in love and light. We are that which we seek. To experience a love that is all-inclusive, we must embody such love. To embody such love we must include ALL that we are in our loving embrace. Even ego. Maybe especially ego, because ego is the hard working aspect of self, undervalued, denigrated even, that has tirelessly sought to differentiate our precious individuality and beingness from everyone else's individuality and beingness AND has looked to our physical well-being in the process.
In the 21st century, "Am I accepted by others?" becomes a vain and seemingly narcissistic question. But in the 15th century, when inclusion in a community meant the difference between living and dying, it really wasn't such a vain question at all. And 500 or so years, to an evolving brain and personality shell, isn't a very long time. Let's give our egos the benefit of the doubt and assume that they still have an important job to do.
Again, I turn to my experience as a classroom teacher to provide an analogy. I used to work with children who had never experienced any kind of success or approbation in school. I would tell them that I saw value in them, not in those words, but the message was given. I would give them jobs to do and thank them for doing those jobs. Suddenly the child who felt so unwanted and troubled in school was helping, was valued. It made a huge difference to those children. So it is with us. So it is with our egos. I tell my ego that it is doing a good job and I'm not just saying it. I believe it. You can't lie to ego anymore than you can lie to a child. I mean, you can do it if you want to, but it won't work.
I tell my ego to be in charge of all appearances in public. Ego is in charge of hair styling and selection of outfits. Ego is in charge of 'keeping up appearances' in my home and my car, my footwear and the state of my finances. Ego has a very important job to do! I don't give a toss about my footwear. I really don't. Just so long as my feet are fairly dry and fairly warm in the cold weather.... Ego makes sure that my shoes don't look like something a street kid would be wearing, you know, spray-painted orange and held together with duct tape. I have about as much dress sense as a turtle. I know comfort and safety when I see them and that's pretty much all I care about. Ego makes sure that my hair isn't sticking up funny because I slept on it and then forgot about it. That's important in our society. Still. I could wish it wasn't so, but it is. So I gave that job to ego.
And ego is doing very well with all of this! Now that I have accepted and valued ego, appreciated ego's work and concerns and charged ego with doing all of these things that matter to ego (but not to me), ego has stopped, and I mean completely stopped, bothering me about things that I don't want ego to be bothering me about. For example, ego used to really worry about whether men found me attractive or not. Tiresome! Well, ego is now so busy and happy taking care of my choice of footwear so that people won't think I'm insane (keeping up the appearance of relative normalcy is, for me, ego's chief responsiblity) that ego doesn't go overboard into areas that I do not choose to have ego go into. And that's the other piece of this that I wanted to explain to you.
I'm in charge. I think that one of the things about ego that people have really struggled with is that ego seemed to be so powerful within them, so dominant. It's like the children in the classroom again. When I am in opposition to a child, that child can so dominate my time and attention that the whole class is affected by his or her behaviour and attitudes. When I am able to bring the child into cooperation with me, the situation shifts perceptibly and the child's influence over the class as a whole is greatly diminished. I am in charge. I am the one who gets to choose what will go on in that classroom. I am the one who gets to choose what ego will handle and what I will pay attention to.
Instead of being bombarded by messages that I am not good enough, not pretty enough, not young enough, not rich enough, etc. etc. I am free of those ego concerns. Ego is not 'acting out' to use another classroom analogy. Ego is busy taking care of whether or not my trousers are clean and my hair is combed. Ego is not ruling the roost or sitting in constant judgement of self versus others. And when I do ask questions that concern ego, I consciously enlist ego's help. I am in charge. Ego is doing a good job for me and, perhaps more importantly, I am not pushing any part of myself away, rather I am valuing every part of me, including my ego.
Thus do I celebrate my oh-so-special, very important ego.
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