What is the ego?

The ego is almost everything we know and consider to be real. It is:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and nearly everything in-between

It seems that life without all of this is no life at all. Or at best, it is life in a meaningless void. These words—no life at all, and meaningless void—are a perfect description of the ego’s idea of what exists beyond itself.

It is true that what most humans seek as God, truth, Heaven, Nirvana, etcetera does not exist, but that is because we are currently limited to the ego’s point of view. In order to discover what truth really is, we need to let go of:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and everything in-between

Where do we start?

Most of us start with what causes our own suffering. It’s the easiest place to start. When we feel a twinge or stab of pain, we can look at our own ideas in the moment and find a piece of ego waiting to be let go. But eventually we will learn that in order to transcend the self and realize ultimate truth, we must let go of more than our suffering. We need to let go of anything that isn’t true—anything and everything that comes and goes—in order to realize the one eternal reality, which is the only actual truth.

This is well stated in A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 189, paragraph 7:

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

I can be free of suffering today

“Be glad today! Be glad!” Gladness is the best way to walk this path. It is also possible to drag one’s feet and cling to the unreal as if it is a prized possession, but that will not change the fact that you are on the journey to truth now. It will only make the journey longer and harder.

Be glad! Choose the easy path of joyously letting go of anything that you recognize as ego. In the words of Peace Pilgrim, make it a “quick relinquishment.”

The faster you let go of something, the easier awakening is. The longer you hold onto something, the more it hurts. In that way, awakening is like a great big game of Hot Potato.

Interestingly, even though awakening can be fairly easy, most people choose to make it hard. That is simply because of the value we put on that which has no value at all.

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What is the Ego?

Our special theme says:

The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God … of sorrow and of suffering … of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack… the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws, and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails… crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.

Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever…

The path of awakening is a passage through all that is not true in order to arrive at the destination of truth. As Sister Bernadette so eloquently put it:

I had learned long ago that the essence of life’s movement was not contentment or security; rather it was growth, change, and challenge, wherein the external circumstances of life merely reflected the needs of each moment in the thrust of life’s flow. … We never know the time or place where our destiny will catch up with us…”

In other words, we have to face the darkness if we want to reach the light, but we are not in charge of when, where or how our opportunities to face the darkness will come.

A lot of false believing has occurred, and a lot of it is much darker than our imagination would like to believe. We will face harsh hatred that is directed both outward and inward, deep—seemingly bottomless—guilt, stark terror, and even what feels like the edge of insanity. We will face everything imagined so we may see that it was only imagination and never, ever, anything more than that. All of this imagination is part of the ego.

The way to face the darkness when it comes is to keep one eye on unaffected presence. It would be good if one could keep both eyes on that presence, and maybe some have been successful in doing so, but I have always experienced some split in eyesight when going through extreme darkness. Part of me is watching the passing darkness and part of me is aware of the silent, present unaffected Self.

One thing that is interesting about the unaffected Self during great trials of darkness is that it isn’t doing anything. It isn’t like the hero in the movies who dives in at the last moment with a shiny sword to battle the darkness and win the fight. The unaffected Self does nothing. It stays out of the fight. It doesn’t participate. It’s simply present, being itself, as it always is.

This may not seem like much of a hero from the ego’s point of view, but this uninvolved, silent presence that is way in the back of our awareness is our savior, and all we have to do to let it save us is keep one eye, or at least a portion of an eye, on it as the darkness comes and passes through.

We may experience some of our purification in meditation. Maybe if we were like Buddha and we did nothing but meditate, we would experience all of our purification through meditation. However, since most of us are not destined to 12 hours of meditation per day for years on end, some of our darkness will arise in the throes of everyday life, which means we need to learn to keep an eye on the unaffected Self in the midst of moving about in what at times may seem to be a very dark world.

Keeping one eye, or at least a portion of one eye, on the unaffected Self is the “one lily of forgiveness” that changes “the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself.”

I will receive whatever I request.

We think we want joy, but what we don’t always see is that we want a shortcut to joy, which is false joy. If we don’t walk through the darkness, we don’t get to the light.

This is why we need to investigate deeply to discover what we really want. Do we want true and everlasting joy, and are we willing to walk the journey that one must walk to that final reward, or do we prefer to piddle around in a pale comparison and call it joy, because we are afraid of the journey?

“Everyone will receive what he requests.”

What do I truly want?

Am I ready and trusting?

We are ready to the degree that we trust. If we need more time to build more trust, it will be given naturally. We do not have to hold back in fear. We can move forward with whatever little trust we have. The process knows how to lead us forward; it knows what we need and it will give that.

Here are two quotes to contemplate today:

The purpose of these verses is to again assure you that there is nothing to fear. The four angels who are holding back the winds represent the holding back of the end of perception. The end of perception is held back…it does not come to you to be looked at and let go…until you are ready and call it forth in your mind. ~ NTI Revelation, Chapter 7

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ~ Jesus at Matthew 7:7-11

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