This is a very challenging and often threatening concept for people, strangely enough, often more so for those in the Christian church. One of the things which religious people seek is the preservation of their individual identity for all of eternity.
Sometimes this can lead to more ego, instead of less. First, we must define the term What is meant by the word "ego?" Ego is: selfishness, I, me, mine; the individual as apart from and separate from the group; serving the individual's needs, wants, and desires, at the cost and sacrifice of the needs, wants, and desires of the group.
Ego is the primal sin. For those of you who have read "In The Garden," this is hopefully quite clear. Ego is the separating point between us and the world, between us and our fellow human beings, between us and God.
Often, what happens in the church is an expansion and enhancement of ego. We believe that, sometimes, God has saved us, whatever that might mean, and that this means that we, with our individual personality, will exist forever and ever and ever. We believe that the "I, me, my" will be blessed by God and made immortal. This is not entirely true. You ultimately do not exist. Now how in the world do I attempt to gain this from the death and resurrection of Jesus?
The first thing you must understand, is that when Jesus talks about His disciples, He says that if anyone wants to follow me, he or she must take up his or her cross and follow me into life everlasting. "Taking up the Cross" has been misunderstood for centuries and taken, the majority of the time, to be some kind of affliction, whether it's a pain in the back, or a mother-in-law that we do not particularly like, or a car that does not run right. These silly examples are considered to be the cross we must bare. That has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of the situation. The cross, which we must bare, is the vehicle upon which our ego will be killed. This, too, is quite clear in "In The Garden."
Jesus had His own will in the Garden of Gethsemane, which was separate from God's will. But, the crucial point was that He said, "Not my will but thy will be done."
You can put it in the following phrase, not my way but YHWH. This works. You see Jesus died to Himself. He laid aside His own personal needs, wants, and desires, out of love and obedience for the sake of His disciples, for the sake of the proclamation, for the sake of obeying God's will.
When He did that, He was like the seed which fell into the ground and died. That is His death. The death that He died was not so much a death of the body, although that is absolutely a crucial aspect of the revelation, but the death that He truly died was even more so a death of the self will, a death of ego.
You are called to unite with Jesus. It is not enough to simply believe that He did this or that, or to sing songs, or even write lengthy pamphlets. No, it is essential that you become one with Jesus. As the book of Romans makes so clear, we must be baptized into His death and united with Him in His crucifixion, that our old sin nature might be done away with, so that we might be resurrected to walk with Him in the new perfected light.
That is an essential aspect of the Gospel. No one need follow Napoleon Bonaparte's steps in order to be a disciple of Napoleon. No one has to actually perform the experiments which Alexander Graham Bell performed in order to learn from him. But, if we truly wish to learn anything from Jesus,, then merely studying or thinking or listening or believing is absolutely insufficient.
We must merge with Him entirely. We must become one with Him, so that the life He lived, we live; so that the campaign against sin and ego which He waged, we wage; and, that the death He died and the resurrection which He experienced both become our present experiential reality. This is a merging of self into the higher order. You and your ego and your own self will must become sublimated to the point where you are willing to let God live through you, you are willing to let Jesus live through you.
This is life beyond ego. You must be able to say with Jesus, not my will but thy will be done. I look at this much like a loudspeaker in a stereo system. The world's most perfect loudspeaker has never been invented. The absolutely perfect loudspeaker would reproduce the music absolutely perfectly as it was recorded. But, speakers will add their own coloration. They will maybe make the highs a little bit too shrill. Maybe they're too dim. The bass becomes thicker or lacks bottom end. Spatial separation becomes lost because the two speakers do not work in phase, and so we cannot visually pinpoint within the stereo field exact individual instruments.
I could, of course, go on and on. Every speaker adds its own tiny little personal interpretation of the music. This personal interpretation is undesired. It is a darkening. It is a pollution. It is a decreasing of the original purity of the music. Each human being is the same way. The ideal perfect human being, Christ incarnate, is simply a channel of God's mind, God's presence, God's will. God is, if you will, the music. We are the speakers. We are here not to add in our own coloration, not to distort the sound, not to amplify things that God did not mean to be amplified, but rather to communicate and express exactly what the music intended. This is life beyond ego.
The ego is a funny thing. Just like the Bible says, "Thinking themselves to be wise, they became as fools." As we attempt to hold onto our individual ego, we actually limit ourselves. We think that if we give up, that we will become nothing, that we have to add in our proverbial two cents' worth in order to be a real human being.
But, it's only to the extent that stereo does not add in its coloration, that it becomes truly worthwhile. If we could ever find that perfect stereo that had no distortion or coloration of any kind, people would worship that sound. The speakers which add in their own interpretation, so to speak, our worthless. The more they put in their own interpretation, the less value they are. So, too, with the ego. The more ego centered we are, the more we seek our own will and pathway, the less value we have.
If you look at Jesus, there is something remarkable about Him. This man is worshipped by many, yet He said He was nothing. "Why do you call me good?" "God alone is good."
"Father, I thank you that you have worked through me." He saw Himself merely as a conduit of God's healing power, of God's resurrection glory. He claimed no personal authority, but only that which God had given Him. "The words I speak," He said "were given to me by God." And this man, who in His egolessness sought only to declare the glory of God, winds up being worshipped by millions.
That speaker system, if we ever find it, that perfectly delivers the music will be worshipped by audiophiles around the world, simply because it does not do its own thing. It is purely egoless; therefore, it expresses only the music. It is a perfect conduit for the higher message, for the source, for the music of the Son, for God.
That is why I say that the ego is a fool, pretending to be wise and haughty and puffed up, and is truly nothing. Now, life beyond ego, to most people, seems to be impossible. But, there is a verse in the Bible which I keep coming back to constantly. Galatians 2 starting in verse 20, where Paul says, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
Paul said that he didn't exist. Paul started out as a murderer. He was out to kill Christians and do whatever he could to block their lives. If a confessed, repentant murderer can, through his life of faith and devotion to Christ, come to the point that he recognizes that he does not exist, then so too you can come to the point where your ego is likewise slain.
I think the Bible is very clear on this because the temptation would be too easy to say that, well this or that was easy for Jesus, because He was the Son of God. But, I'm not the Son of God; therefore, I cannot be expected to do these things.
Ah, but the Bible says this is not the case. Jesus was the son of God, but St. Paul was just a murderous sinner, who through devotion, concentration, and faith, came to an awareness of the power and glory of the perfectly egoless state.
St. Paul's name is emblazoned in every one of the hundreds of millions of Bibles on this earth, simply because he attempted to bypass his own thinking and declare simply the truth of God--to be the best mouthpiece that he could. Life beyond ego is possible.
I wish to give you another indication that you ultimately exist, not in the way you think you do. The Bible tells us in 1st Corinthians, that eventually we will know everything about God that He knows about us. That's in 1st Corinthians 12.
But, 1st Corinthians chapter 5 also tells us that nothing and no one can understand God except the mind of God, the mind of Christ. Just as no one can understand you and your thoughts except you and your mind, so too, no one can understand God and His thoughts except for God. And if I could transplant my brain into you, then you would know everything about me that I knew. That is the only way that you could gain that information.
In exactly the same way, the Bible says, since in the promised day we are going to know as much about God as He knows about us, and He knows everything about us, how is this going to happen? Well, the only thing that can know anything about God is the mind of God. Therefore, in the glorious day of perfection, God's mind will understand God perfectly. That is a startling statement, but it is quite clear from the Biblical record.
We are promised that we will understand everything about God, but we are told that the only thing that can understand God is God's mind Himself. That's why St. Paul says we have the mind of Christ. Eventually, that mind of Christ will grow and blossom inside of us, so that we will be able to say, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and eventually will blossom to the point that we see and know, with all of the angels, the height and the depth of God. We will know everything about God that there is to know. In so doing, the only mechanism that will be able to do that is the mind of God itself. Where then is ego? Where do you fit into the picture?
Obviously, this is a very high mystical type of a revelation which the Bible is giving to us, but the Bible is clear in other places, to say that we live in God, we move in God, we exist inside of God. Everything comes from Him, moves through Him, and returns to Him. Therefore, you as a little ego, are a temporary blip on the screen of infinite Godliness. And, once you, because it is you and your ego which controls your ego, allow yourself to become open to the grace of God, once you take up your cross and follow Jesus, once you become united with Him in His death, then you will be raised with Him to a glorious resurrection. That resurrection is one of absolute egolessness, wherein you flow in perfect harmony with the God of the Universe.
This is possible. There is life beyond ego, and it is the glorious fulfillment of the ages
...............from Godswebsite.com
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