The Nature of the Ego and Its Termination – 2
The Ego as an Affirmation of Separateness
Question::
In what ways our ‘ego’ is expressed in our day-to-day lives, knowingly or unknowingly?
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How come ‘ego’ hinders emancipation of consciousness?
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How come ‘craving the company of others’ is an affirmation of ego?
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How come hate, anger, jealousy, fear strengthens ‘ego/separateness’? How do they hinder one’s spiritual progress?
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Why should God be loved, not feared?
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How come ‘love’ is the only way/path to dissolve ego?
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Why ‘separative-existence’ is undesirable on spiritual path?
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How does our emotions like– anger, hatred, jealousy– bind us?
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What is ego made up of? Through what does it get implemented/fed?
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How are desires and ego related? How come ‘desirelessness’ brings about ‘egolessness’?
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What is the REAL-INDICATION that one is completely desireless?
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Why ‘destroying ego’ is a herculean task?
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How are ‘ego’ and ‘sub-conscious-mind’ related?
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What is ‘explicit ego’? What is ‘implicit ego’?
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What is ‘organized ego’? How come it prevents access to our sub-conscious tendencies?
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How does ego live on ‘ignorance’?
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Why ‘conflicts’ arise in our minds? How come solving them brings about harmony?
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What are the steps involved in the process of wiping out of the ego?
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Why ‘ego’ is said to be hydra-headed? Why does it elude ‘intelligent consciousness’?
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How come ‘self-display’ and ‘slandering-others’ are ego-assertive-traits?
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What is ‘spiritual ego”?
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What is the ‘principle of self-perpetuation’?
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It is said that ‘destroying ego’ is kind of a guerrilla-warfare one wages with oneself. How so?
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How come spiritual-aspirants are more prone to ‘egotistic-tendencies’ on the Path?
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When does an aspirant approach a Master?
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What does ‘self-surrender’ amounts to?
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What is the most fruitful measure to slim down one’s ego?
Answer:
(Extracted from Meher Baba’s literature, which is a copyright of Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust (©AMBPPCT), Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, Bharat/India)
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” and
- “I thought this” and “I thought that”.
- 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 crave 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. ‘Fear’ acts as a thick curtain between “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 non-fulfillment of this deep and 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 experience 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 the 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 buried 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 on the comparative lull in 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 sub-conscious-mind in the form of latent tendencies; and these latent tendencies are not always accessible to explicit consciousness. 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 sub-conscious 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.
Two persons have to be atleast 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 sub-conscious 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 sub-conscious mind. The ‘explicit ego’ operates as a formidable whole compared with the isolated sub-conscious 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 sub-conscious mind have to be brought to the surface of consciousness somehow and become parts of the explicit ego, and then 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 sub-conscious 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 handling 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 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 known, 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 by 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 supreme 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 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 up 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– he surrenders to a 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 the Truth– which is the goal of all creation.
– Meher Baba
Source ::
Discourses, Pg:: 166-171
© AMBPPCT, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India/Bharat
