The Function Of The Ego In Relationship To The Real Self

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest, dearest friends. Blessings and guidance are extended to everyone of you so that you find your path easier and you reach the goal with less struggle and less resistance.

What is the goal? As far as man is concerned, the goal can only be one thing, and that is becoming his real self. We approach this facet from many areas and from many angles.

In this lecture I wish to discuss the inner self versus the outer self, or the real self versus the ego. What is their mutual relationship with each other? Much confusing theory exists about the function of the ego. There are those who say, or at least imply, that the ego is essentially negative and therefore undesirable, and that hence the spiritual goal is to get rid of the ego. And there are those, particularly in psychoanalytic thinking, who say that the ego is important. The scientific view is that where there is no ego, then there cannot be mental health. These are two entirely opposing views. Which one is correct and which one is false? Perhaps this lecture will shed some light on this important question.

Even if you do not happen to think about such confusions because they do not consciously occur to you, they nevertheless blur your vision and they hinder you from reaching the all-important goal of your self-realization.

Let us briefly recapitulate the essence of the real self. The inner person is an integral part of nature. It is bound to the laws of nature, and therefore to distrust this innermost self is unreasonable, for nature can be wholly trusted. If nature becomes man's enemy, then it is only because man does not understand its laws. The inner self, or the real self, is nature, it is life, it is creation. It is even more correct to state it this way than to say that it is a "part" of nature or creation. The real self and creation, or nature, are one and the same.

When man functions out of his real self, then he is in truth, he is in joy. The most creative and the most constructive contributions to life come from that inner self. Everything that is great, everything that is generous, everything that is life expanding, everything that is beautiful, and everything that is wise comes from the inner or real self. This cannot be emphasized often enough, even in your own meditations. It is essential to try to understand this truth, not only in your mind but in your feelings.

If this is so, then what is the function of the ego, of the outer levels of the personality? These are the levels that are more accessible to you and that you are more acutely aware of. It is that in you which thinks, which acts, which discriminates, and which decides. The person whose ego has not grown sufficiently -- in other words, whose ego is weak -- is incapable not only of mastering life, but of also of coping with life. He whose ego is overgrown, and therefore overemphasized, cannot come to the real self. In other words, either extreme must hinder man from reaching the real self. Man's problems and conflicts are always a result of either too big an ego or too small an ego.

It cannot be said that one person has too big an ego and another too small or too weak an ego. Although this is so at times, as the presentation of an overall picture, more often it happens that an imbalance exists: that one and the same person has an underdevelopment. In this way nature tries to re-establish balance. The overdevelopment may be an attempt on the part of nature to straighten out the disturbance resulting from too weak an ego. The disturbance of harmony does not exist because of the attempt to re-establish it, but rather because of the original overemphasis or the original underemphasis, whatever the case may be.

It is a fact that only when the ego is sufficiently developed can it be adequately dispensed with, whereas as long as it is not developed, then it cannot be dispensed with. This may sound like a contradiction, but it actually is not. For if the ego is underdeveloped, then your not being in possession of a strong and healthy ego, and wanting to make a virtue out of this lack -- out of this weakness -- is an evasion. This evasion can only produce more weakness and therefore more lack. Anything that leads to the abundance that is the true nature of life must happen out of abundance. As long as the ego is not strong enough, then you lack something. You lack that faculty of your outer self that is necessary in order for you to think, to discriminate, to decide, and to act adequately -- as you must when you deal with those dimensions of reality that correspond to the ego.

Anyone who strives to reach his real self, to reach that stage of spiritual development, by pushing away the development of a healthy ego does so out of poverty. He does not yet own his outer self. Perhaps he knows that his outer self, or his ego, is in the last stages of being necessary. So he tries to skip the stage of creating a healthy ego -- either out of laziness or because he finds it difficult to do so -- and therefore he hopes that this vital step can simply be avoided. But this error, like all errors, is very costly. He actually delays reaching the goal. Only when man is fully in possession of his outer self, of his ego, can he dispense with it and reach his real self.

This is a law. It is a logical law, for then man acts out of strength and abundance, not out of weakness, need, and poverty. Only when you are in possession of a strong and healthy ego -- one that is not overgrown, one that is not over-emphasized -- can you then use this ego in order to transcend it. Only when the ego is both healthy and strong can you know that it is not the final answer, the final realm of being. Then you can use it in order to pass it, to transcend it, to reach a further state of consciousness.

To put it in practical terms, in your work on this path you learn -- for instance, through your meditations -- to use the faculties of your ego in order to reach beyond it. What you absorb from the outside must first pass through your ego faculties. You first reach out with your ego faculties. For example, you first use them in order to state truths that you later experience on a deeper level of your consciousness.

There are many human beings who do not realize that there is anything beyond the ego, and therefore whose final goal is to become a strong ego -- whether or not they think about it in those exact terms. This ignorance may lead to the distortion of an overdeveloped ego. This is a dead-end street, for the goal is based on a false assumption. It is much too limited in scope and in possibilities. A person who has set such a goal, instead of transcending and passing by this stage, uses his ego faculties -- which are supposed to help him to transcend his ego -- in the opposite way, namely to overaggrandize his ego.

You have to reach a certain state and then you have to be fully in that state before you can abandon it for a further state. This law is extremely important to understand. It is often overlooked, and even more often totally ignored. The importance of this law has not been made clear enough to mankind in spite of many spiritual and psychological teachings. This is one of the great, important laws for man to first know and then to deeply comprehend.

In a variant form, the essence of this law is closely related to the topic chosen for this lecture: the function of the ego and its relationship to the real self. The real self knows that the universe has no limitations; it knows that in truth and final reality absolute perfection does exist and therefore is attainable for each individual; it knows that the unlimited expansion of one's faculties and forces, in the universe as well as in the individual, makes this perfection possible. When man becomes his real self, his Godself, then he becomes master over all the existing laws. Even if he has never heard of such philosophies, this is the final reality, which he deeply senses and therefore yearns for. His innermost psyche, his innermost self, sends forth this ultimate fate of his life and his being, this potential expansion.

The little child does not yet possess an ego at birth. Without an ego, it is possible to perceive the messages from the real self quite clearly, but the meaning of these messages must be distorted. You have all heard from psychological orientations and teachings -- and you have surely first found and then experienced within yourself -- of the childish striving for perfection, of the childish striving for omnipotence, and of the childish striving for pleasure supreme. In other words, the ultimate bliss that knows no lack, no unfulfillment, no frustration.

When there is no ego, then these strivings are not only unrealistic, but perhaps even destructive. Therefore, you first have to shed these desires or strivings before you can come to them anew and then realize them.

In other words, everyone who is on this path has to come to terms with the fact that he has limitations as a human being before he can perceive that he has an unlimited amount of power at his disposal. You all have to learn to accept both your own imperfections and life's imperfections before you can experience the truth that absolute perfection is your destiny and that you, therefore, must ultimately realize it. But you can come to this only after you have shed the childish distortion of this nowledge, which stems from a lack of ego. You have to learn to let go of the desire for pleasure supreme and to make do with limited pleasure before you can comprehend that absolute pleasure is your ultimate destiny. Making do with less is an acceptance of this reality, of this dimension. And this is a function of the ego faculties. Only when your ego deals adequately with the realm in which your personality -- your body -- lives now can you deeply comprehend your real faculties, your real potentials, and your real possibilities.

When I speak of the ultimate aim of perfection, of limitless power, of pleasure supreme, I do not mean that this realization will occur in a distant future when you no longer possess a body. I do not speak of this state in terms of time but in terms of quality. It could happen at any moment, at the moment you awaken to the truth. Awakening to the truth is possible only when you have first found and then let go of the childish distortion of the real self's message of your utter perfection, of your utter power, and of your utter pleasure. In the underdeveloped ego, these desires are not only illusory, they are selfish and destructive. Therefore, they have to be abandoned first before they can be attained later.

This is the same law that stipulates that working out of abundance produces more abundance, whereas working out of poverty and out of need only produces more poverty and more need. The weak ego considers itself annihilated when its wish for omnipotence remains unfulfilled. Therefore, the wish is negative. The healthy and strong ego knows the reality of being. Therefore, it understands that this state may not yet be realizable because of existing obstructions to the real self. The weak ego will clutch at its own laws and at its own conditions, and thereby will distort the greater laws. Out of need and weakness it forgoes the strength and the fullness that come only when the ego faculties deal adequately with the immediate now, and thereby transcend this immediate now.

My dearest friends, this lecture is of great importance to all of you. It may be an important key not only to clear away the confusion regarding apparent contradictions in philosophical ideas about life, but, what is even more important, you may find it an essential key to your development. It may facilitate a letting go that can happen only when there is trust in this innermost self as an integral part of such a trustworthy nature and creation.

When you feel and experience this, then you will no longer fear, and therefore you will no longer overemphasize, your ego faculties. Nor will you leave important underdeveloped ego faculties to slumber untended.

Are there any questions, first regarding this topic?

QUESTION: Am I right in thinking that to be in a state of reality would be eventually an equivalent to being in a state of godhood?

ANSWER: Yes, of course. But when this state is sought artificially, because the task of developing the ego seems to become too great, then it is an erroneous way. The ego must be mastered. When I say "the ego," I mean everything that it has to deal with. Let us take an example. In a distorted view, the life of the outer man is often hard. Man has to work hard, he has to struggle for his subsistence and he has to struggle for his survival. Distortion and misconception have brought man to this stage unnecessarily. At the same time man dreams of a state -- one which he will eventually find -- where struggle no longer exists, a state where only bliss exists. An attempt to escape your daily struggle would be an erroneous way to strive for this state. For the struggle corresponds to the ego. Only after the struggle has been positively accepted will it prove superfluous, and then work and pleasure will truly become one. Evading work because of the struggle involved in it leaves important potentials in the psyche and in the ego untended, and therefore unexplored. After such acceptance, an individual discovers the truth of the end of tediousness in daily survival relatively quickly. It is then that he realizes the God-like state to some degree, at least regarding his daily struggle.

QUESTION: About the over-developed and under-developed parts of the ego: Would over-activity be a result of an over-developed ego, while passivity, in an unhealthy manner, would be a result of an under-developed ego?

ANSWER: Yes, that is correct. The functions of the ego further the state of becoming, whereas the real self is the state of being. From man's vantage point there is the common misunderstanding that the state of being means no activity, whereas in fact activity is within the state of being. In the state of being both activity and passivity blend as one harmonious cosmic movement.

QUESTION: Where I am unable to let go of my selfwill and therefore trust in God, that is where my ego is over-developed. Where I fear self-responsibility that is where my ego is under-developed. Is that correct?

ANSWER: Indeed. Where you do not dare to make your own decisions -- in other words, where you lean on ready-made rules -- there your ego is not sufficiently developed. Here you have a very good illustration of what I spoke of in this lecture: Because of one distortion, an opposite distortion is created. Because your ego is under-developed in those areas, something in you tries to attain the selfhood that you simultaneously deny when you refuse self-choice and self-responsibility. Since this entire process occurs in blindness, in lack of awareness, then you choose the wrong way of attaining selfhood, namely that of the selfwill. Concomitantly, your deep psyche feels that there should be a loosening up, and the clutching becomes a strain. You seek this loosening up in the wrong way, namely by not taking hold of your ego in making your decisions. Rather, you choose to do what you are told in blind obedience to rules.

QUESTION: I find it very difficult to let go of the dependency that I feel toward any person, possibly representing my father and my mother. I have been quite aware of this. But what you said about the reluctance of letting go, the childish desire for omnipotence, the dream for pleasure supreme -- all this seems to me to be an important factor. I don't think I realized this sufficiently until now. Could you explain to me how these two act together making it difficult for me to let go?

ANSWER: It is important that in your work you find specifically in what areas you do not wish to give up omnipotence, in what areas you do not wish to give up pleasure supreme, in what areas you do not wish to give up the ease which the spirit longs for. It is a state where hardship does not exist, with all its apparent difficulty of assuming responsibility because it still seems a burden to you. In a hidden corner of your being you believe that the childish state -- one with no adult responsibilities -- can be maintained simply by insisting that your parents continue to care for you. During your self-observation you must find in what specific ways this desire manifests in your emotional reactions.

This voice is something deep inside of you that constantly clamors to have all of its childish wishes fulfilled immediately. You do not want to give up any of these wishes, not comprehending on that level that in this form the wishes are totally unfulfillable. At the same time, on an equally deep inner level you fear the consequences of this weakness and of the dependency that results from it. Therefore, as a weak person -- and therefore as a dependent one -- how can you afford to inwardly let go? The only way in which you appear strong in your concept of yourself is by stubbornly insisting. That is, by not giving in and letting go. The weakness creates fear and the fear generates distrust. Therefore, you cannot let go and give yourself up to the universal flow that will bring you into that state where the higher self attains these wishes on a different level. Therefore, you must first determine to become a strong, self-responsible ego that is mature enough on all levels and you must determine to give up the childish version of essentially realizable wishes. I emphasize that I am speaking of this inner level and not of you as an outer person, for there are many levels where you are mature and self-responsible. Beware of the feeling of resignation that says that you can never have any of that. Know that you can! You will come to realize that when you give up the perfect dream, then even what you have now will be much better, much more pleasurable. Meditate and pronounce the words that you truly wish to give in -- but without resignation -- in a positive spirit that accepts the fact that many good possibilities are waiting for you, even though the rigid, childish version of the wish has been abandoned.

Part of this maturing process lies in establishing -- clearly and specifically -- in what way you yourself have caused a specific hardship or a particular difficulty in your life. When meditation such as this is used, then you will see that you become strong. Then you will trust yourself. As you do, then this innermost self becomes a reality. Since you are a part of life and of creation, then you will trust them. Your distrust prevents you from giving yourself up and from letting yourself be. Realize that you must distrust yourself if you refuse to become a strong enough ego that deals adequately with the immediate issues around you. Do you understand the connection now?

QUESTION: I understand it, it is very clear. But isn't it a long way that one has to go? One wants a certain experience, a certain pleasure, or a certain power. Must I accommodate myself to the present circumstances, or can I reach out for whatever I want?

ANSWER: Yes, you can, and you certainly should reach out for it. But you can reach out for it adequately only if you first trust that it can happen and if you then let it happen. But you want to do it with your outer ego deficiencies. That is where the ego cannot adequately serve you. This is a gross misunderstanding regarding the functions of the ego. You use your ego where it cannot serve you and you refuse to use it where it must serve you. In other words, you want to attain that pleasure with the limited scope and the limited vision of the ego, with its limited possibilities, rather than through letting nature, life, creation bring it to you in its own way. But you do not trust it because you do not let go. And you can let go of this part of your ego only when you have understood these things and only when you use the ego faculties in their proper way. For example, in stepping aside and claiming that different higher functions fulfill their role for you. When this interplay is first learned and then lived with, then self-trust grows, and therefore a positive chain reaction between the ego and the real self -- the universal forces -- is set in motion.

When you reach into the ego world with your ego faculties alone, then you limit yourself. The reaching out into the universe must be done upon a decision of the ego, but not with the limitations of the ego. This is where you must first abandon the ego and then reach into another realm. This was the essence of this lecture. This giving up of the ego can happen only when you fully possess it.

QUESTION: Isn't the ego connnected with selfwill?

ANSWER: Indeed. False ideas and selfwill are a result of the ego world and not of the real self. But it is also the faculty of the ego to give up both. Only the ego can do so. The ego is necessary in order to change its own mind and its own intent. It is necessary in order to understand that it does have a false idea, to understand that it does not have to operate on selfwill. It is up to the ego either to maintain or to abandon these destructive facets. Only the ego is capable of exchanging a false idea for a truthful one. This means letting go of a tense, anxious selfwill and replacing it with a relaxed, free-flowing, flexible inner will which is based on a discriminating reasoning power. And it means calling upon the intuitive levels of the self to make the choice for the higher guidance of the real self.

QUESTION: I cannot visualize how the law of karma and heredity work and how the process of birth takes place. The baby, being born, and the soul -- does the soul exist before the baby is born? How does that work?

ANSWER: Perhaps the best way for you to perceive these principles would be to think that the human body is a direct result of the personality, which exists prior to the baby's birth. The personality's thinking, attitudes, emotions, and actions. All of these have their results, their effects. The body, its environment, the life, the life situations, and the personal fate are all effects of the mentality, of the personality, and of the character. Both your body and your life conditions are a result of what you are. If you look at the question from this point of view, then you will avoid a great deal of confusion. Then karmic law, heredity, and the specific conditions of birth are no longer a problem. Now you may perceive that the body is built by forces outside the personality. This perception creates confusion because such thinking occurs in a spirit of duality rather than in a spirit of unity, where you would perceive that you -- as well as your body, your country, and every other factor in your life -- are an immediate result of yourself.

QUESTION: It is difficult to feel that.

ANSWER: Of course. You must not try to force such a feeling. It will come by itself if you shelve this problem now as far as feeling it is concerned. The more you comprehend cause and effect in your immediate life -- in those areas where you may still be blind in this respect -- the more must the scope of the inner experience of the real self as the central cause of its life extend. Eventually it will prevail.

All of my friends still overlook the immediate links of cause and effect. In other words, how you forfeit the results you wish through the patterns and the attitudes that create certain undesirable conditions in your immediate life. As long as there is a veil over these specific links between cause and effect, then it is impossible to feel the identical law governing wider time span on a larger scale.

QUESTION: I suffer from occasional heart palpitations that have no organic cause. I have found in my work that this is due to repressed guilt. Is there self-punishment involved?

ANSWER: Yes, it is self-punishment, it is the fear of punishment. At the same time, it is the fear of and the resistance to giving up that which causes the guilt in the first place. You have made good progress in your work. Now you need to uncover a level in which you do not want to give up any of the facets that create your guilt. When you do, then you will experience your basic problem, and therefore you will have a profound understanding of it. Self-punishment is often a poor substitute for not wanting to give up your guilt-producing attitudes. You unconsciously believe that by by punishing yourself it is possible to maintain or retain these negative attitudes and to absolve yourself through the guilt you feel. Therefore, you go on punishing yourself, flagellating yourself, and you believe that this somehow makes up for not being willing to give up your destructive patterns. If you say often enough how bad you are -- in other words, if you suffer enough from your guilt -- then you feel that you are still a nice person, in spite of stubbornly maintaining what in actuality is of no conceivable advantage either to you or to others. The realization of this destructive level will come to the degree that you truly wish to find it. Your ego faculties will help you to shed your guilt-producing patterns. Even if something in you doubts, you may relinquish them in the understanding that you have the right to reassume them at any time, should you so desire. This assurance will strengthen your ego, and therefore you will succeed. You will no longer be a helpless prey, but you will take hold of yourself by using your ego in the proper way.

Bring your personal problems to the question and answer session where we can go into them more deeply. You will surely profit from such participation, my friends.

All the blessings are extended to every one of you. These blessings are a reality that transcends you and that envelopes you. They are the universal love, responding to your valiant efforts of self-exposure. Be in peace, be in God.

March 19, 1965