Legacies of the no-self: an antidote to ego

I don’t know just how I’m gonna say what I wanna say today.

I hope you will get a feeling for my intuition, and what I’m trying to be preaching.

I would like to talk a bit about the adaptive value of the ego. Something I have talked about in a previous blog post called ‘shadows in the light’.

Today, I would like to question and challenge the idea that the ego, that which functions as a dimmer upon the art of awareness, has a definite adaptive benefit.

You see, I have stated before that there is a sense, and moreover, an observation, that it is the tough that make it in this world. The ones who do not care about stepping on another man’s toes, about hurting someone else or putting them down. Hell, even poisoning and killing them, blatantly walking over his or her next-door neighbor.

It is an observation we can make, that the more insensitive you are, the more the world is yours.

I have gone religious on this in a number of writings before, and I still believe I am onto something here.

You see, to me, the world is pure intelligence, pure sensitivity.

The flowers in my backyard know when the sun is there and when to open up, and when the skies are grey and dark and when they can close themselves again. You are not going to tell me, that that is not intelligent. You are not going to tell me, that the flowers in my backyard, even if they are just weeds, are not being extremely sensitive and wise.

So my flowers are sensitive and intelligent, and it is not too far sought, to see in many a nature documentary, how animals behave and respond to stimuli from their surroundings in just a similar fashion. The whole of nature has evolved in a manner of sensing and responding, and doing so intelligently.

Only man seems to be something special, and my research and studies have led me to believe that it is the human ego, which sets him apart from the rest of the garden of creation, from which he originates and to which he endlessly belongs.

Man has an ego.

And what is the function of this ego, one might ask.

Well the function is none other than to trade our sensitivity for control.

Lacan suggests that in the mirror stage, when the ego is formed, this happens with the aim of conquering and dominating the original pulsion, which I believe is the being aware itself. Consciousness, the pure version of it, our original self and cosmic identity. Our light and soul.

So the ego comes to darken our light. The shadow it is, it comes to kill our soul.

In so doing, we trade our native and naïve originality for a fabricated and constructed image of who we are. And this image may serve us well.

It will serve us by making us hard and insensitive, deaf, dumb and blind to the observations of the naked truth. It will block the awareness of our creativity and inspiration. It will make us ‘better’ than we truly are.

But are we really better off when we have lost our souls? Are we better off, when we are choosing no longer to be conscious and aware, and to respond with loving and compassionate intelligence?

Taken to the extreme, you can ask yourself this.

If you have a sandwich, and someone else is hungry, are you better off eating your sandwich all alone? Or is there wisdom and truth in sharing it with the needy?

When we look at our human reality, we may say, as so many do, that we have to think only of ourselves. This is even the credo of capitalist economic science, that unbridled egotism is the way for all to prosper. If only we only see ourselves. If only our self-image takes up all of our love and caring awareness.

Just think of yourself!

Think of the money you could be making, building bombs and poisons to kill your human brother. Think of the profits you can gain by charging huge prices for the poor man’s food. Just think of yourself, and everybody will be happy.

And of course, first and foremost, you will be happy.

But, capitalist economics say, the world will be happy as well.

There is really nothing else you need to do, than look after your own self-interest.

So to do this, we keep the voice of our heart down. We may think isn’t it a pity that my brother has no food? We may think isn’t it painful for my sister to be poisoned by my products?

But we cannot think that way!

We should not!

Because what would happen if we shared our sandwich or stopped making profits from manufacturing poisons?!

We would lose our power, we would lose our wealth, we would lose the certainty that we have control and that we are in charge of our destiny.

We might also get a smile from our brother, a thank you from our sister, and share a breath of relief with our mother.

But who cares about the heart?

It is not in the interest of adaptation to reality and our own survival, to pay attention to the whispers of our soul.

It is in our own best interest to be self-absorbed, and only that.

Then we will have fame, then we will have riches, and we will attract the best of possible mates to create our offspring.

Who will be successful too!

But you see, there are some exceptions.

There have been some people who have been selfless, thinking of others first, and caring and giving for their well-being and the prosperity of the whole of their people.

They did not step on others’ toes, they did not walk all over their neighbors.

They chose love, and they chose compassion.

But did they have good mates, you will ask.

Did they create a prosperous offspring?

Did they do well in the human evolutionary race?

To leave a legacy for those coming after them?

I am thinking of course of rare individuals, such as Jesus Christ or Mahatma Ghandi.

They chose love, they did not choose their ego.

They chose compassion, they did not choose to be blind.

They chose their hearts above their image.

And they did not do so well.

If fact, the Christ was crucified, and Ghandi was shot.

But did they leave a legacy!

Did they live on in future generations!

Did they spread their seeds, not only through their mates perhaps, who were attracted to their money and their power, but through the ideals of compassion which they awoke in every heart.

They did not just pour out their semen in their wives, they poured out their hearts into the world.

Guevara could have made good money as a doctor, but he chose to die for freedom.

Buddha could have remained a wealthy prince, instead of becoming a hungry ascetic.

But did they leave a legacy!

Do these souls, these very special souls, who chose not to sell their souls to the devil, but to remain original, not challenge our ideals of infinite self-absorption? Do they not tear down every egotistic ideal we fearfully believe in? Do they not inspire us, to return to the strongest forces of creation?

Awareness, sensitivity, being conscious instead of blind.

Seeing, hearing, feeling.

Knowing.

For every animal benefits from using his senses. From seeing better in the dark, hearing better, sensing more strongly. To every animal, it is a benefit to have sharpness in their senses, and life and light within their spirits.

It is only a belief, perhaps in the end a vile lie of capitalist ideology, that the way forward for mankind is through blindness and obscurity, through losing our senses to the ego and choosing to further remain delusional and utterly mad.

Perhaps people like the Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and mister Guevara can bring some sense back into our senseless and destructive lives. To be positive and creative, and to live for something that can truly be called a legacy.

To leave a gift for the generations to come.

Not the gift of a starved and sickened brother, not the gift of a wounded and poisoned sister, not the gift of a mother we have destroyed, but the gift of love, the gift of caring, the gift of hearing, seeing and sensing what is needed, and to act from our core, to act from the eternal powers in our hearts.

The gift of working with nature, that is so all about sensing and using our intelligence.

I do not believe capitalist ideology to be intelligent, and it is all too clear, in the essence of its progress, that it leaves us with nothing in the end but the death of us all. There will even be no more future generations to carry on our legacy, if we do not start caring and come to our senses. If we do not use our hearts. If we remain stubbornly and infinitely deaf, dumb and blind to the voice within our souls.

To die perhaps for an ideal.

But to have stood for what we believe in.

To go against the current and be authentic.

To be different and original.

I believe we need a revolution, and we need it now.

We need it yesterday, we needed it in 1968.

We need a revolution of love, of caring, of seeing the suffering and hearing the call.

We need to return to our truth. To the simple fact of observation. Meditation.

We cannot forever be better than ourselves, we cannot remain those devils that enforce themselves on their authentic nature.

We must choose the naked truth, and that will be the return, the coming home to paradise.

So bless you.