Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00090)

The Nature of the Ego and Its Termination
Part II
The Ego as an Affirmation of Separateness

The ego is an affirmation of separateness. It takes many forms. It may take
the form of a continued self-conscious memory expressing itself in
recollections – like “I did this and I did that”; “I felt this and I felt
that”; “I thought this and I thought
Ego a hindrance to spiritual emancipationthat.” It also takes the form of
ego-centered hopes for the future expressing themselves through plans – like
“I shall do this and I shall do that”; “I shall feel this and I shall feel
that”; “I shall think this and I shall think that.” Or again in the present,
the ego manifests itself as a strong feeling of being someone in particular
and asserts its distinctness and separateness from all other centers of
consciousness. While provisionally serving a useful purpose as a center of
consciousness, the ego, as an affirmation of separateness, constitutes the
chief hindrance to spiritual emancipation and enlightenment of
consciousness.
The ego affirms its separateness through craving, hate, anger, fear, or
jealousy. When a person craves the company of others, he is keenly conscious
of being separate from them and thus feels his own separate existence
intensely. The feeling of separation from others is most acute where there
is great and unrelieved craving. In hate and anger also, the other person
is, so to speak, thrown out of one’s own being and regarded not only as a
foreigner but as definitely hostile to the thriving of one’s ego. Fear also
is a subtle form of affirming separateness and exists where the
consciousness of duality is unabated.
Ego feeds upon exclusive feelingsFear acts as a thick curtain between the
“I” and the “you.” And it not only nourishes deep distrust of the other but
inevitably brings about a shrinking and withdrawal of consciousness, so as
to exclude the being of another from the context of one’s own life.
Therefore, not only other souls but God should be loved and not feared. To
fear God or His manifestations is to strengthen duality; to love God and His
manifestations is to weaken it.
The feeling of separateness finds most poignant expression in jealousy.
There is a deep and imperative need in the human soul to love and identify
itself with other souls. This is not fulfilled in any instance where there
is craving or hate, anger or fear. In jealousy, in addition to the
nonfulfillment of this deep
Jealousy strengthens egoand imperative need for identification with other
persons, there is a belief that some other soul has successfully identified
itself with the person whom one sought. This creates a standing and
irreconcilable protest against both individuals for developing a
relationship that one really wished to reserve for oneself. All exclusive
feelings like craving, hate, fear, or jealousy bring about a narrowing down
of life and contribute to the limitation and restriction of consciousness.
They become directly instrumental in the affirmation of separateness of the
ego.
Every thought, feeling, or action that springs from the idea of exclusive or
separate existence binds. All experiences (small or great) and all
aspirations (good or bad) create a load of impressions and nourish the sense
of the “I.” The only experience that makes for the slimming down of the ego
is the
Slimming down of ego through loveexperience of love, and the only aspiration
that makes for the alleviation of separateness is the longing to become one
with the Beloved. Craving, hatred, anger, fear, and jealousy are all
exclusive attitudes that create a gulf between oneself and the rest of life.
Love alone is an inclusive attitude, which helps bridge this artificial and
self-created gulf and tends to break through the separative barrier of false
imagination. In true love, the lover also longs, but he longs for union with
the Beloved. When seeking or experiencing union with the Beloved, the sense
of the “I” becomes feeble. In love the “I” does not think of
self-preservation, just as the moth is unafraid of getting burned in the
flame. The ego is the affirmation of being separate from the other, while
love is the affirmation of being one with the other. Hence the ego can be
dissolved only through real love.
The ego is implemented by desires of varied types. Failure to fulfill
desires is a failure of the ego. Success in attaining desired objects is a
success of the ego. Through fulfilled desires as well as through unfulfilled
ones, the ego is accentuated. The ego can even feed upon a comparative lull
Ego made of desiresin the surging of desires and assert its separative
tendency through feeling that it is desireless. When there is a real
cessation of all desires, however, there is a cessation of the desire to
assert separativeness in any form. Therefore real freedom from all desires
brings about the end of the ego. The ego is made of variegated desires, and
the destroying of these desires amounts to the destruction of the ego.
The problem of erasing the ego from consciousness is very complicated,
however, because the roots of the ego are all in the subconscious mind in
the form of latent tendencies; and these latent tendencies are not always
accessible to explicit
Roots of ego in subconscious mindconsciousness. The limited ego of explicit
consciousness is only a small fragment of the total ego. The ego is like an
iceberg floating in the sea. About one-seventh of the iceberg remains above
the surface of the water and is visible to the onlooker, but the major
portion remains submerged and invisible. In the same way, only a small
portion of the real ego becomes manifest in consciousness in the form of an
explicit “I,” and the major portion of the real ego remains submerged in the
dark and inarticulate sanctuaries of the subconscious mind.
The explicit ego, which finds its manifestation in consciousness, is by no
means a harmonious whole; it can and does become an arena for multitudinous
conflicts between opposing tendencies. It has a limited capacity, however,
for allowing simultaneous emergence of conflicting tendencies.
Ego heterogeneous in constitutionTwo persons have to be at least on speaking
terms if they are to enter into articulate wrangling. If they are not on
speaking terms, they cannot bring themselves to quarrel on common ground. In
the same manner, two tendencies that can enter into conscious conflict must
have some common ground. If they are too disparate, they cannot find
admittance into the arena of consciousness – even as conflicting
tendencies – but have to remain submerged in the subconscious mind until
they are both modified through the tension exerted by the diverse activities
connected with the conscious mind.
Although the entire ego is essentially heterogeneous in its constitution,
the explicit ego of consciousness is less heterogeneous than the implicit
ego of the subconscious mind. The explicit ego operates as a formidable
whole compared with
Explicit ego and implicit egothe isolated subconscious tendencies that seek
to emerge in consciousness. The organized ego of explicit consciousness thus
becomes a repressive barrier that indefinitely prevents several constituents
of the implicit ego from access to consciousness. All the problems of the
ego can be tackled only through intelligent and conscious action. Therefore,
complete annihilation of the ego is possible only when all the constituents
of the ego pass through the fire of intelligent consciousness.
The action of intelligent consciousness on the components of the explicit
ego is important, but in itself it is not sufficient for the desired
results. The components of the implicit ego of the subconscious mind have to
be brought to the surface of consciousness somehow and become parts of the
explicit ego, and
Intensified conflict ends in attaining poise and harmonythen be submitted to
the action of intelligent consciousness. If this is to be achieved, there
has to be a weakening of the explicit ego in such manner as to allow the
emergence into consciousness of those desires and tendencies that could not
hitherto find admittance into the arena of consciousness. This release of
inhibited tendencies naturally brings about additional confusion and
conflict in the explicit ego. Therefore the disappearance of the ego is
often accompanied by intensified conflicts in the arena of the conscious
mind rather than by any comfortable easing of them. However, at the end of
the uncompromising and acute struggle lies the state of true poise and
unassailable harmony that comes after the melting away of the entire iceberg
of the ego.
The digging out of the buried roots of the ego from the deeper layers of the
subconscious and bringing them to the light of consciousness is one
important part of the process of wiping out the ego. The other important
part consists in the intelligent
Ego lives through opposites of experiencehandling of desires after they gain
entrance to the arena of consciousness. The process of dealing with the
components of explicit consciousness is by no means clear and simple, for
the explicit ego has a tendency to live through any one of the opposites of
experience. If it is ousted from one opposite by the intensive operation of
intelligent consciousness, it has a tendency to move to the other extreme
and live through it. Through repeated alternation between the opposites of
experience, the ego eludes the attack of intelligent consciousness and seeks
to perpetuate itself.
The ego is hydra-headed and expresses itself in numberless ways. It lives
upon any type of ignorance. Pride is the specific feeling through which
egoism manifests. A person can be proud of the most unimportant and silly
things. Instances are
Ego is hydra-headedknown, for example, of people developing their nails to
an abnormal length and preserving them, despite much inconvenience to
themselves, for no other reason than to assert separateness from others. The
ego must magnify its attainments in grotesque ways if it is to live in them.
Direct assertion of the ego through self-display in society is very common;
but if such direct assertion is prohibited by the rules of conduct, the ego
has a tendency to seek the same result through the slander of others. To
portray others as evil is to glorify oneself by suggesting a comparison – a
comparison the ego would willingly develop, though it often restrains itself
from doing so.
The ego is activated by the principle of self-perpetuation and has a
tendency to live and grow by any and all means not closed to it. If the ego
faces curtailment in one direction, it seeks compensating expansion in
another. If it is overpowered
Tricks of egoby a flood of spiritual notions and actions, it even tends to
fasten upon this very force, which was originally brought into play for the
ousting of the ego. If a person attempts to cultivate humility in order to
relieve himself of the monstrous weight of the ego and succeeds in doing so,
the ego can, with surprising alacrity, transfer itself to this attribute of
humility. It feeds itself through repeated assertions like “I am spiritual,”
just as in the primary stages it achieved the same task by assertions like
“I am not interested in spirituality.” Thus arises what might be called a
spiritual ego, or an ego that feels its separateness through the attainment
of things considered to be good and highly spiritual. From the truly
spiritual point of view, this type of ego is as binding as the primary and
crude ego, which makes no such pretensions.
In fact, in the more advanced stages of the path, the ego does not seek to
maintain itself through open methods but takes shelter in those very things
that are pursued for the slimming down of the ego. These tactics of the ego
are very much like
Guerrilla warfareguerrilla warfare and are the most difficult to counteract.
The ousting of the ego from consciousness is necessarily an intricate
process and cannot be achieved by exercising a constantly uniform approach.
Since the nature of the ego is very complicated, an equally complicated
treatment is needed to get rid of it. As the ego has almost infinite
possibilities for making its existence secure and creating self-delusion,
the aspirant finds it impossible to cope with the endless cropping up of
fresh forms of the ego. He can hope to deal successfully with the deceptive
tricks of the ego only through the help and grace of a Perfect Master.
In most cases it is only when the aspirant is driven to realize the futility
of all his efforts that he approaches a Master. By himself he can make no
headway toward the goal that he dimly sights and seeks. The stubborn
persistence of the ego exasperates him, and in this clear perception of
helplessness
Master as last resorthe surrenders to the Master as his last and only
resort. The self-surrender amounts to an open admission that the aspirant
now has given up all hope of tackling the problems of the ego by himself and
that he relies solely upon the Master. It is like saying, “I am unable to
end the wretched existence of this ego. I therefore look to you to intervene
and slay it.” This step, however, turns out to be more fruitful than all
other measures that might have been tried for the slimming down and
subsequent annihilation of the ego. When through the grace of the Master the
ignorance that constitutes the ego is dispelled, there is the dawn of
Truth – which is the goal of all creation.