Ego's Bad Rep

In spiritual circles, ego has a bad rep. It's something one is supposed to get rid of. "If I could only control my ego, I'd be enlightened," people often think. And so there are numerous strategies to do this.

This seems to me to put the cart before the horse. Ego, after all, is trying to make us bigger -- trying to make us as big as we really are, that is to say. And how big is that? Infinite!. But it doesn't know how to go about its project. It's looking at you from the outside and imagining if others admire you, that will mean you've  made it.

People struggle and struggle to deny the ego's ingenious strategies to make us bigger. But what really solves the problem is discovering how big we already are -- how big our true selves are, not just the image the ego is concerned with. When we discover this, the goals of ego seem shallow and not that interesting. It doesn't mean that ego goes away necessarily; it just doesn't matter that much anymore.

Metaphorical language and spiritual beliefs

Over the holidays I went to a sing-along Messiah.  For those who haven't ever done this, it is a performance of Handel's Messiah, with the audience singing the choruses.  If you love to sing, it's both challenging and a lot of fun. I hadn't done it in years.

This performance was put on at the local Mormon church, and it was my first time there -- maybe the first time in a Mormon church at all.  The solo singers were wonderful, and they enunciated clearly as well, so I had ample opportunity to take in the words.  And I thought, "My, what a weird religion Christianity is! What is all this supposed to mean?  No wonder I never could believe my childhood religion!" 

But I was also moved.  And it is that ability to move that Handel, and the Bible verses he used, were aiming to elicit.  The doctrine itself is meant to be non-rational, because ultimate truth is beyond rationality, beyond the mind.  And the deeper the spirituality, the more that is true. 

I think about the assumptions behind non-dual spirituality, of which there are plenty, and realize that these too, to those who haven't experienced what they point to, don't make sense. Religious ideas arise as a way to describe the ineffable.  They just point to a truth that can't be spoken. 

So, then, are all religions equally true?  I wouldn't go that far.  And I do think different religions stress different aspects of truth.  But it's important to keep in mind that I was called to the path I have been on in this life not because it is in any way "truer" but because the language that is used to describe ultimate truth is language that made intuitive sense to me as well as moved me.  When we are looking for a path, it's important for both of these elements to be there. 

What IS spiritual, anyway?

I caught a bit of an old talk by Alan Watts on the radio yesterday.  He was re-defining spirituality in an interesting way.  We usually think of abstractions as more "spiritual" than concrete reality, but he says it is just the opposite.  Abstractions are nothing but thoughts -- attempts to pin things down and define them.  And when we label our physical world or physical events, that too is a way of limiting.  We think once we have found a label to attach, we "understand" something, but the label, of course, doesn't capture the physical object or event at all.  But if we set the label aside, then we can see that the physical world is that which can never be limited or understood. It is, in fact, all of those things that we sometimes think of God or Spirit as being.  The world itself is plenty spiritual enough as it really is, if we can experience it as it really is.