After the Ego Phoenesse

What is the endgame of being human? Where are we all heading? What’s the point of life? Our goal is always one thing: to become our Real Self. All the many teachings from the Pathwork Guide are approaching this same task, each coming at it from a different angle. As we work in this direction, it will help if we understand how our inner self, or Real Self, differs from our outer self, or ego. What is the relationship between these two? For many of us, having heard various conflicting theories, we’re in confusion about the function of the ego.




Some postulate the ego is essentially negative and therefore undesirable. So then the goal of spirituality is to get rid of it, right? Other theories—particularly from a psychological point of view—say our ego is important, for we cannot be mentally healthy without an ego.




Which of these viewpoints is correct? Let’s find out. For if our vision on this is not clear, it will be difficult to reach our all-important goal of self-realization.




First, let’s clarify the Real Self and its essence. This is our inner self and it is an integral aspect of nature. As such, we are bound to the laws of nature. And nature is something we can trust. It’s not reasonable then, to not trust ourselves—to not trust our innermost selves. If it seems to us that nature is our enemy, this is only because we don’t understand the natural laws that nature is following.




So our inner self is nature. Our Real Self is life. We are creation. This is a better way to say it than to say we are “a part” of nature, or part of creation. Our Real Self and nature are one and the same thing.




Whenever we function from our Real Self, we are in truth and we are joyful. Our most constructive and creative contributions to life arise from our inner self. So everything that expands life—everything wise and beautiful and generous—comes from here. This is worth contemplating, as it cannot be emphasized too much. It’s essential we understand this truth, not only with our mind—we need to feel this.




If this is so, then what is the function of our outer personality—our ego? This is the part of us that operates on a level we have direct access to. Since we are directly, or consciously, aware of our ego, this is our conscious awareness. This is the part of us that thinks, acts, sorts and makes decisions.




If we have a weak ego, we’ll have a hard time coping with life. If we have an overgrown ego, we’ll be lost from our Real Self. In other words, both extremes of ego-weakness and ego-inflation will result in separation from our inner essence. And this essentially is our problem. All our conflicts in life stem from having too big an ego, or too small an ego.




Most often, it’s not that one person has a big ego and another has too small an ego. Rather, it's that both have an imbalance within themselves. We’re underdeveloped in one area of our personality and overdeveloped in another. So nature will take its course and try to reestablish a balance. Overdevelopment of our ego, then, may be nature’s way of straightening out the disturbance caused by having a weak ego in another area of our lives.




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Read this chapter online: The Function of the Ego in Relationship to the Real Self

Our attempts to find ourselves—to understand who we are, where we belong in the world, and how we can fulfill ourselves—require a certain amount of insight and strength. Whether we lead meaningful and fulfilling lives also depends entirely on the relationship between our ego and our Real Self. If this relationship is in balance, everything falls nicely into place. All of these teachings from the Pathwork Guide are pointing to this same thing. They're prying at it from a multitude of directions to help us open to this truth as our personal experience.




We can also call our Real Self the universal life principle, which manifests in each and every one of us. It is life itself. For it is unending consciousness in both the deepest and the highest sense. It is pleasure supreme and infinite movement all rolled into one. Since it is life, it can never die. It’s the very essence of everything that moves and breathes. It is eternal vibration. It knows everything and since it can only be true to its own nature, it is constantly creating and furthering itself.




Each person—each individual consciousness—is this universal consciousness. We’re not just part of it, for that would imply we are just a little drop of it. No, we actually are universal consciousness. And this original consciousness, or creative life principle, can take many forms. When we each incarnate as those various forms, we forget our connection with the origin. At that point, a disconnection occurs. We continue to exist and we still contain the universal consciousness, but we become oblivious to our own nature. We lose track of basic spiritual laws and we lose sight of our potential. This, in a nutshell, describes the general state of human consciousness.




When we start becoming aware of this Real Self, we realize that in fact it’s always been there. We just haven’t noticed it because we were under the impression we were cut off from it. So it’s not quite right to say our Real Self “manifests.” More correctly, we begin to notice it. We may pick up on its energy or its self-directing consciousness. Of course our separated ego also comes bundled with energy and consciousness, but the intelligence of the ego alone is far inferior to the universal intelligence at our disposal. The same is true for the energy.




These two things—consciousness and energy—are not separate aspects of the Real Self. They are one. But some of us tend to be more receptive to consciousness while others are more receptive to energy. Nonetheless, they are both part of the experience of self-realization.




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Read: What Blocks the Ego from Connecting with the Real Self

As we make our way along our path of self-realization, these words can act like a spiritual bulldozer for each obstruction we encounter in our psyche. For at some point, we will come to a crossroads. What we are now facing is a very old inner landscape that is littered with our fears: fear of death, fear of life, fear of pleasure, fear of feelings, fear of giving up control, fear of being real, and the like. It’s already taken some genuine fortitude to come this far and see that this is what we’ve been covering up. Such fears have been hiding all along in the darkness of our psyche.




To our surprise and dismay, this is where we’re at. And now that we’re more aware of our many fears, we automatically start to feel the effect they are having on our life: What they make us do and how they make us pull back from life. No wonder we have this vague feeling we’re missing out on life. We are. We literally fear the creative process of living and therefore we miss out on it.




It’s time we find the common denominator behind all our fears so we can start unwinding the unnecessary cycles of fear, frustration and pain. If we have embarked on a path of self-discovery but haven’t yet found our fears, don’t worry, it will happen. It must. Then, when we see how we’ve been hiding from life because of our fears, we can apply these words retroactively to smooth the way. Let them plant a seed now that will bear fruit when the whole of your being is ready to see and resolve the problems in your life. And make no mistake, coping with our fears is the main problem we all face in life.




The nature of all our fears is that we misunderstand the function of our ego and how it relates to our Real Self. The problem we face in sorting out this relationship is that it’s extremely subtle and therefore hard to put into words. What’s more, as with all truths in life, it’s chock full of apparent contradictions. That is, at least as long as we are steeped in duality. Once we get over the hump of thinking and living in a dualistic way, then two opposites can become equally true. And as we’ll see, this applies to the ego and its relationship to the Real Self.




For example, it’s true to say that the ego’s exaggerated strength is the biggest hurdle to living a productive life. It’s also true to say that a weak ego can’t possibly create a healthy life. These are not opposites, people. They are both true.




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Read: The Ego’s Cooperation With or Obstruction of the Real Self

We have been looking at the relationship between our ego-consciousness and universal intelligence. When we are primarily functioning from our ego, we are going to be out of balance and mired in problems. We can also turn this around and state that if we have inner problems, we will inevitably be unbalanced and enmeshed in outer conflicts. No matter which direction we come at this from, it always adds up the same. The ego has to learn to let go of itself. So let’s talk about surrendering.




A boatload of intellectual knowledge about the role the limited ego plays relative to the Real Self won’t help us much. We must find a new approach inside ourselves that makes it possible to let go in a healthy, harmonious way. Let’s shed some new light on this important topic.




Why the Ego Must Learn to Let Go



When the ego operates in a vacuum, without replenishing itself at the inner source where our life force flows freely, it dries up, starves and withers. Literally, if left to handle the business of living without the benefit of support from the Real Self, the ego dies off. This shines a new light on the process of death, looking at it from this point of view.




This source of life is the universal self that dwells at the heart of every soul. When we incarnate, our spiritual being condenses into the coarse matter that makes up this material world. Such a condensation into matter happens because a separated part of the overall consciousness—the part we call the ego—is disconnected from the whole, from the universal self. This disconnectedness causes the ego state, which in turn results in this material life. And that is how we come to this experience of the cycles of life and death.




If any of us overcomes separation, we release ourselves from the process of dying. When we no longer fear letting go of ourselves—from our ego—a reconnection with the universal forces becomes possible. This is not something to hope for in the hereafter. It can take place at any time, in any place, since it’s a question of our state of consciousness.




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Read: How Unconscious Negativity Stops the Ego from Surrendering

Unhappiness is an indication of sickness. Usually, though, we interpret unhappiness the wrong way, causing us to fight whatever we think is making us unhappy. In our distorted thinking, we think whatever is manifesting is itself the sickness. Yet if we were living completely in harmony with our Real Self and its universal forces, we would not be sick or unhappy. So disharmony and sickness—really any discontentment—are an indicator of our inner health. As we’ll see, there’s also a connection between health and being selfish, which we will get to in a minute.




When we are unhappy, it is our Real Self—our spirit being—that’s talking to us. It's sending the ego, or outer personality, the message that we should change something. We are going about things the wrong way. This message arises from a desire to return to health, where we will be happy and in a state of well-being.




Being truthful in life is the same as feeling good in the deepest and best possible way, without reservation, and with security and self-liking. If we’re moving through life in a way that is consistent with such a state, our innermost self will be content. So then, any neurosis—any stress, depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior—or unhappiness is a deeper sign that points to the reestablishment of health.




The more free our Real Self is the more clearly such a message will register with the ego. Some may call such an experience, “having a conscience”. For a less developed person, whose Real Self is hidden and crusted over, such signs will register less with them. Such individuals can go for a very long time—perhaps many incarnations—without feeling their inner discontent. Their qualms, anxieties, doubts and pains about how they deviate from the truth at their core don’t make it to the surface. When they violate their own integrity, they don’t register any unhappiness. They might even feel a certain satisfaction at having given in to their destructiveness.




Neurosis then is not a problem. Rather, it's a signal coming from a healthy spirit that’s rebelling against the person’s mismanagement of their soul. In our confusion, we combat the nonverbal language of the healthy spirit, thinking that’s what is sick. We then try to adjust to an unhealthy life condition, assuming that to rebel against “reality” is to be immature, unrealistic and neurotic.




People who live in such an unrealistic way also tend to flee from self-responsibility. They deny any kind of frustration, and hope to give nothing but get it all. These are the decisions a person has made, and they need to face and change their choices.






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Read: Living with Polar Opposites and Finding the Good in Being Selfish

Now let’s look at consciousness from a different angle. We humans have a hard time understanding that consciousness is something that permeates all of creation. Our human minds are geared to think of it as being exclusively related to the human form, associated with the brain and a byproduct of our personality. This is not so.




Consciousness does not need to be attached to a fixed form, so it’s everywhere. It’s also in everything, including of course every particle of matter. In inanimate matter, consciousness is solidified, the same way energy is petrified in an inanimate object. These two things—consciousness and energy—are not the same thing, but rather related aspects of manifestations of life.




As evolution follows its course, energy and consciousness become more and more mobile and vibrant, so things move faster. In the case of consciousness, it gains in awareness. For energy, it gains greater creativity to make forms and move about.




Over much time, consciousness has gone through separation. The process by which this has happened is impossible to spell out with words. The result though is that aspects of consciousness now float around in the universe, so to speak. Every trait we can think of, every attitude known to mankind, every personality trait we can imagine is a manifestation of consciousness. And each particle of consciousness that is not yet integrated in the whole needs to be synthesized and unified with all that is, to create one harmonious whole.




We’ll need to use our imaginations here to be able to follow along. For example, can we imagine that some familiar personality trait could exist separate from a person? That a trait is not the person per se, but a free-floating particle of overall consciousness?




It doesn’t matter if the trait is good or evil. It could be any of these: love, perseverance, laziness, impatience, sloth, stubbornness, kindness or malice. Each must be incorporated into manifesting personalities. For that’s the only way for each to be harmonized and purified, enriching the consciousness that’s manifesting and creating the conditions for the unification of consciousness as evolution unfolds.




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Read: Self-Identification Through the Stages of Awakening Consciousness