Beyond the Ego...

Getting beyond the ego is not easy because it is so deeply entrenched. “Looking out for number one” is the mantra of the ego. Selfishness is its mission statement. Fear and greed are its motivation or driving force. It is more concerned with appearances that with actual being. Its whole existence is based on the temporal and transitory, a house built on shifting sands.

You could look at the ego as a chunk of ice, an iceberg, floating in the ocean. When it melts, it loses its individual existence and becomes the ocean. It does not see that its source was the ocean and that it is destined to be nothing but ocean again. Emerson understood this when he wrote in The Over-Soul: “We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every particle is equally related; the eternal One.”
If you were to see, with a flash of insight, that your ego was gradually losing its sense of separateness and returning to its original unlimited state, would you try holding on to your iceberg state of separateness, or would you be longing for oneness with the ocean? That is, would you want to go beyond the ego or would you have to be forced to let go of your separateness, kicking and screaming, or would you feel ever-increasing bliss as you gradually made your transition into oneness?

The former is a state of resistance and denial due to unconsciousness. Wanting to get beyond the ego is due to acceptance and longing, due to love. The former is a clinging to the false. The latter is a life of dying to the false self that is fueled by the longing to know the true self–the ocean.

Kicking and screaming doesn’t sound like much fun, but if that is our state of mind, how do we get beyond it, into a state of acceptance, or even to one of longing? It’s a one-word answer: Love. Love is the only experience, the only way to get beyond the ego, to instill the longing for union with the oneness of all life. It is the only experience that seeks oneness.

The more focused the love, the more powerful its effect. Just as a laser beam can cut through steel, focused love can cut through all the layers of ignorance that is required for getting beyond the ego, that which separates the self from the source of its self.

When we approach life holistically, we are seeking oneness and wholeness. It becomes our desire to get beyond the ego. This oneness means oneness with the consciousness that pervades the universe. When we can let down our walls and let go of everything that separates us from the rest of life, we can move towards this experience. That is the beginning of the inner path of love.

This is a principle of affirming the true self. But it is only effective as a principle if we give it our whole-hearted allegiance. Just as an alcoholic cannot recover from alcoholism if he is sober one day and drunk the next, we cannot align our consciousness with true values one day and falsehood the next and expect to get beyond the ego or make any progress on the spiritual journey. You might as well be spinning your wheels in the sand.

Imagine the ego as a surfer one day and the next day a scuba diver. The ego as a surfer lives on the surface of life and sees separateness. He sees differences in the waves of the ocean; He sees good waves and bad waves. A good wave brings excitement and happiness. Bad waves bring boredom. He’s happy when he catches a good wave. Bummed out when he doesn’t.

The next day as a scuba-diver, underneath the surface, the ego experiences oneness. The surfer’s viewpoint was from the surface but now as a diver the viewpoint is from the ocean depths. There is no longer a question of good waves and bad waves. Deep below the surface that is no longer a concern; there is only an all-pervading oneness. On the surface waves come and go. But in the depths is the Ocean’s calm. Storms on the surface are meaningless when you are deep beneath the surface.

On the surface of life things seem to alternate between good and bad, happiness and suffering. But when you can go within, and discover the depth of your being, you will experience peace. You will experience oneness with life. To experience oneness with life is to be beyond the ego.

If you long for peace, if you have had enough of the vicissitudes of life, then you will have to go within. Pray, meditate, walk in nature, journal, do yoga, go to a spiritual retreat center, give a stranger a hug. The key is to get away from the turbulence of the mind, to make space in your consciousness for your heart. Listen to it.

I’ll leave you with the words of one who went beyond the ego — Rumi. Translation by Coleman Barks:

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloud cover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I’m already under
and living within the ocean.

.........Gregory Allen Butler