Your Ego is Not Your Amigo. But it Could Be.
In a recent gathering with another healer, I saw my ego rear its head yet again. Perhaps you, too, have a common refrain that comes alive when comparison is present. My nastiest one is envy: Envy of another’s following, transmissions, reach, connections with others. It is so ugly and such an impediment. It is so true that comparison is the thief of joy. But community is also the crucible where I can see the roots of my ego’s habitual refrain. In our journey with our higher power (for me, Great Spirit or The Beloved), we allowed all that we wanted to release to go onto an imaginary a white board. This imagining beautifully de-identified us with the struggles and worn-out stories we carry. I turned over to Great Spirit / the Beloved my illness. I turned over my ardent striving and desire to reunite with the one with whom I am in love. As I imagined these flowing from my body up to the imaginary whiteboard, I received the wisdom deeply that:
THESE STORIES NO LONGER BELONG TO YOU.
THIS ILLNESS NO LONGER BELONGS TO YOU.
NONE OF THIS IS YOUR WORK TO DO. NONE OF THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CARRY ANY STORY ANY LONGER.
And as I looked at that imaginary white board of everything I wanted to release, I also saw, plain as day, my karmic inheritance and my ego identity:
In countless past lifetimes, my identity was about others’ salvation and healing. I sacrificed myself to save others. I defined myself and my value based on their wellbeing, not my own. Mother, wife, nursemaid, nun, soldier, knight, martyr - I was esteemed by others and by myself based on how much I put others’ needs before my own. The more I sacrificed and even suffered, the “closer I was to God". Conditional love and community acceptance was dependent on sacrifice and sublimation of myself and my desires.
”No más,” I say to Great Spirit. “I want to release these patterns, so, so old and so, so known.”
But my ego thrives on being the hero, the one who tries to change and heal from the karma, over and over again. With this karmic inheritance, it makes sense that my ego would slingshot to the other end, wanting to be the “chosen one,” wanting to be the center of attention, envious of others’ apparent success. But this kind of “center” and chosenness is still oriented to validation from the outside and wrapped up in comparison. This attempt by the ego to rebalance the karma of the past only carves the circle of its pattern deeper.
The center of attention that is truly desired by the heart is spacious and unconditional. It is an abiding, a re-membering in the body, of the attention and witnessing that is already here and omnipresent. It is an attention, love, and acceptance that is unconditional, receiving and embracing the unique form of this self. It is effortless. It is the connection with and inseparability from all living things.
The ego says, “THIS IS TOO EASY.”
The ego says, “I am the one who rights the wrongs of the past.”
The ego says, “I will be the one who is praised above all others.”
The ego says, “I am owed for all I have inherited, all I went through in the past, in this life and in past lifetimes. I am owed freedom.”
The heart says, “I am already free.”
The ego says, “I am the one. I am the one. I am the one… the one to vanquish, fight, break through, overcome, transform. I am the hero.” But the heart carries none of these stories. The heart is the space where stories pass through, where stories are born, come alive, become conflated with self, and die.
The ego will never go away entirely, nor would we want it to. It is the actor that shows us our addictions and attachments, our identities, our karmic loops, and our stories. Planetary karma cannot be transmuted nor released without the egos of living beings.
These groups, these communities I have found or that have found me, show me where my ego is gnawing, fighting for its stories and identity. This is a good thing. It is the knowing of the ego that transcends, not the obliteration of the ego.
Do not aspire to transcend the ego.
This is impossible.
And efforts to transcend or abandon or kill the ego only serve to further entrench it into craftier disguiss and spiritual materialism.
Instead, seek to witness the karma the ego is re-enacting. Seek to let go into this present moment, in the doorway of the heart, to the compassion that abounds as the ego runs another lap on the track. Can you be moved, to laughter or to tears, to quiet reverence or to celebration, by the stage play the ego is performing for you? Can you relax into the freedom that is already here for you, the freedom you did nothing to deserve, the freedom you did not fight for, the freedom that has been yours all along?
