Beyond Within

Until I figure out how to get a caption under an image: Image used in this post is “Undecided,” © Stefano Bonazzi. Used with permission.

The ego gets a bad rap in most spiritual circles.

When I began exploring various spiritual traditions and started hearing so much about how the ego was supposedly the source of all my woes, I recognized that before I would be able to figure out what to do with this part of myself, it would probably be a good idea to try and reach a more clear understanding of what the ego actually IS, and what its functions are. Far too many times I have been down the road of trying to get rid of part of myself that I felt was the source of problems, only to later realize I was only doing damage to something that had legitimate, vital functions. This never ends well, and I have long since abandoned that approach. If part of myself isn’t functioning in a way that I consider healthy or beneficial, I don’t try to cut off the part — I simply have it release whatever it’s doing that I find detrimental, and give it some healthier functions to operate with. This basically sums up my approach toward the ego.

So what IS the ego?

My views on this question stem from an odd situation I found myself in early on: my ego wasn’t always functional, much less tyrannical as it’s usually portrayed. I had very little sense of self. Few, if any, personal boundaries. Very little definition to my sense of personality or identity. My mind was “quiet” most of the time, though it would probably be more accurate to say that my thought process consisted more of abstract concepts and impressions, than words or pictures. I had a very difficult time translating thoughts into words in order to communicate with others. I had very little desire to do anything other than “go with the flow” and seldom made judgments about anything or anybody — I simply wasn’t very attached to anything going on outside myself. When I came across the idea of universal oneness, I had no problem accepting it, because I had very little concept of “me” as an individual to begin with! From all descriptions of “enlightenment” that I’ve come across — you might say I was enlightened before I started “seeking” anything. Be that as it may, it wasn’t a state I was happy to remain in, and I eventually found out why.

The cause of all this was major, verifiable damage to my energetic anatomy — the spiritual equivalent to a debilitating physical injury.

Namely, my throat chakra was completely disconnected from my other chakras. In other words, it was isolated, and unable to exchange energy and information with the ones above or below it (and by extension, any of the others). After fixing those connections, the changes resulted in a flood of information on what a functioning ego is supposed to look like.

The throat chakra is the seat of self-expression, communication, and by extension, our concept of individual personality. It serves the dual role of processing and interpreting information taken in by the other chakras and physical senses. More recently I have found that it also does a lot of “data storage” — i.e. it holds all the data that makes up our self-concept. To the extent that absorbed information from one’s outward experiences and interactions gets retained in the subconscious mind in the form of socialization, conditioning and belief, it creates our definition of who we believe ourselves to be. It apparently does not take in much information on its own however; those functions are tied into other chakras and sensory organs. Being isolated in this way, the part of myself that was supposed to be interfacing with the physical world was largely unable to do so, and existed in a state of detachment and sensory deprivation.

After repairing the damage to this part of my energy body, and paying attention to the specific and rather dramatic changes it quickly brought about, I would have to conclude that what most people are referring to with the word “ego,” is an integral part of our basic anatomy. It is the part that interfaces the physical with the spiritual; the inner with the outer. Its functions, and physical location, are heavily tied into the throat chakra.

But the ego is still bad! My guru, religion and/or some guy who wanted me to hand over my personal sovereignty said so!

Granted, the ego inevitably takes on a lot of strange, distorted and demonstrably false beliefs about who “I” am. It tends to attach to things that are fleeting; trying to find a stable sense of identity in temporary states that aren’t likely to last throughout a single lifetime, and will definitely be left behind at death. It creates a rigid sense of itself and then dumps most of your energy into maintaining it, against the flow of an ever-changing sea of probability that is the universe in which we exist. But is the problem the ego per se, or its false beliefs and bad habits?

Blaming the ego for its beliefs and habits, and using this as a valid reason to do away with the ego itself, makes about as much sense as observing that fingers are prone to hangnails, and concluding that we’d all be much better off without fingers.

When I reconnected my throat chakra I at least had the advantage of knowing already that “I” am not any of the transitory constructs, circumstances and relationships that the ego typically identifies “me” with. I was also excited to finally have use of all these functions that I had been trying to live without (and not doing a very good job of it) before then. Was I to then say to this aspect of myself “yeah, sorry about all the mangling and sensory deprivation — but now that you’re able to function, I have to kill you.”? Are we to become whole by doing away with a part of the whole?

I realize that most approaches toward dissolving the ego are a lot more passive than what I have described here. As it has been explained to me, once everything falls away that can fall away, you’re “supposed” to find that there is nothing left at the core. The implication is that “you” and “I” don’t exist.

This has simply not been my experience. I have stripped away aspects of myself, shut down other aspects, experimented with changing everything about myself that it’s possible to change, and spent years without a functioning ego. At the end of it I found myself with a lot of fragmented and damaged aspects who did not cease to exist; they were just waiting around somewhere in the astral (literally) for me to pull my head out of my arse, stop trying pretend there is no “I” and start reintegrating them. Hypothetically, I could have probably continued along that path until there was nothing left of this conscious self, leaving me an empty shell that would eventually die and be no more. But from what I’ve seen, those parts I stripped away would simply go off on their own evolutionary track, and the higher self that this incarnation is part of would continue to exist, probably saying to himself “damn, lost another one to that whole “enlightenment” fad.”

When I got my ego back up and running, I found a pre-existing core “essence” that flourishes and successfully coexists with others when I’m true to myself, and protests loudly when I engage in self-betrayal. It has preferences, desires, goals, ambitions — and finds the process of figuring out how to achieve them as fun as the end result is gratifying, before transitioning on to a new adventure. I’m free to experience what I want without feeling like I’m “suffering” if I don’t get it, because I view life as a game, and one that I don’t take particularly seriously at that; it’s all just experience. One of my guides (I use that term for familiarity, but I prefer “nonphysical allies”) once half-jokingly referred to the popular notion that “desire” itself is a problem to overcome, as “Sour Grapes Syndrome.” I would have to agree with this assessment.

Given my experiences, it’s not surprising to me that “enlightenment,” and with it the extinction of the ego, is traditionally achieved in silence and isolation. Without much external stimulation, input or interaction with others, the perception of individual self-hood, and the parts of our anatomy that sustain it, atrophy and disconnect. If that’s what you’re seeking, I could save you the trouble by pointing out that you could achieve the same effect much quicker by cutting connections and walling off your throat chakra until its health declines beyond your ability to repair it — but I wouldn’t recommend it.

To each their own. My preferred approach to my ego is to get rid of my socialization and conditioning — a collection of usually conflicting and mostly dysfunctional constructs imposed from without that I did not choose — and turn what’s left into my own creation. I am in the process of releasing everything I may have believed myself to be, and replacing it with whatever I choose to be. Far from losing my sense of self, if anything I am gaining one that is self directed, co-created, fluid, evolving and ever-expanding. In a word: free.

In my next post I’ll explore the three primary errors of the ego that we are conditioned from birth to accept and identify with — and become trapped in.

–Palehorse

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