Metaphysics – Your Ego and Desires do NOT cause suffering.

If you thought The Subconscious was a convoluted and confusing subject, just wait till you dive into The Ego.  Abraham-Hicks is the only source of clarity on the subject of Ego that I have found.

 

A number of highly respected teachers, past and present, have made the same shockingly unenlightened mistake of designating the Ego as the source of suffering of the masses.  Once you get what is really going on, this mistake is dumbfounding.  How could these otherwise informed teachers draw this same erroneous conclusion time after time after time?  Well, in many cases they got part of it right but missed the bigger picture, and, in an effort to expedite the elimination of suffering, gave people a band-aid when they really needed stitches.  That band-aid was “The Ego”.

 

In order to understand what is going on you first have to step back and re-realize that “The Ego” is just a personification.  It isn’t “real”.  It is an analogy/metaphor that has been contrived to assist people in understanding the dynamics of their life situations.  Like so many metaphors, at some point, people begin to forget that it is a fabrication and start assigning it as the cause of something.  If you have studied the psychology of religions you see this all the time – people taking literally what was intended to be an explanatory tool/story/myth.

 

So, it is time to unravel the mystery of the Ego.  The Ego has as many definitions as there are champions of the concept.  Rather than create a comprehensive history of Ego bashing stupidity, I will start with the end effect that all the Ego bashers hope their bashing will achieve – the elimination of suffering.  That is where all this Ego talk goes anyway – find something to blame my suffering on so I can fight against it.  Well here is the first bomb in your shorts – the Ego is a contrivance.  It doesn’t exist so good luck blaming your suffering on something that was a philosophical concept and nothing more.  Bomb number two is this – there is no source of suffering outside what you impose upon yourself.  Now that is a huge one and since it is the kind of statement that would cause many to just stop reading right there I will give you another personification to place blame upon until you can wean yourself of the Ego.  I call that personification “Mal”.

 

Mal is the coalesced coagulation of all the opinions of others that you have been exposed to over the course of your life.  Mal sits in your psyche and offers a continuous barrage of negative comments on what you are doing with your life.  Mal is like a radio station with the call letters KRAP that plays in your head non-stop.  Mal is your acquired secondary guidance system.  Your Ego is your first guidance system.  It is not your Ego or your personal desires that cause you suffering.  It is the contradictions created from trying to reconcile two conflicting guidance systems.  You suffer not because your desires are inappropriate.  You suffer because you know you desire something and then Mal shows up and convinces you that: your desire is inappropriate, your desire is something you should not want, your desire prevents others from getting what they want, your desire is an imposition on others, your desire is impossible to achieve, your desire is evil, blah, blah, blah, blah.

 

So, to make this clear, your Ego and your Desires DO NOT CAUSE SUFFERING!!!  The suffering is caused by you having a legitimate desire (an Egotistical Desire) and then second-guessing yourself by trying to fit Mal’s opinion into the equation.  You are tearing yourself apart trying to satisfy two guidance systems simultaneously and that will cause you a staggering amount of suffering.

 

If you were born into a world with no other humans (and survived) would you have an “Ego”.  Yes, in the sense that you would have your own guidance system and you would follow it.  If you were born into a world with no other humans (and survived) would you have a “Mal”.  No, you would not.  But, you were not born into a world with no other humans.  You were born into the world of billions of other humans with billions of other opinions.  And boy oh boy were they willing to share those opinions with you – especially if those opinions would coerce you into doing something that pleased them.

 

So what do you do?  Well you stop fighting against your “Ego” and accept that your personal desires are legitimate.  It may take you a while to sort out your desires from the opinions of Mal because Mal uses a very crafty trick – he speaks to you in your own voice.  Sneaky isn’t he?  But with time, and a bunch of Anger, you can begin to discern your legitimate personal Egotistical desires from the imposed desires of Mal.  And now that you are no longer blaming your Ego for having inappropriate desires that you have to suppress, you can embrace those desires and relax.  You remember the confusion and tension when someone first explained to you that: “You have this thing called an Ego and it is always wanting things that you are not supposed to want.”.  That whole concept didn’t sit well with you when you first heard it but, with nothing better to work with, you decided to try and make Ego bashing a way of life.  Well, it didn’t work because it was bullshit then and still is.  If you are going to let go of something, let go of the derogatory opinions that others hold of you.  Let go of Mal.