The Ego's Cooperation With or Obstruction to The Real Self

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest friends. May blessings, strength, the understanding of truth, and the vital flow of the universal energy fill you and sustain you as you read these words and as you take them with you. Perhaps more as an inner effect on your psychic forces than as an intellectual memory of these words.

Many of my friends on this intensive path of self-realization have come to a crossroads from where they see their old inner landscape, which is filled with fear: the fear of life, the fear of death, the fear of pleasure, the fear of giving up control, the fear of feelings. In other words, the fear of being as such. It takes considerable self-confrontation in order to become aware of these fears. They are usually covered up, but nevertheless they exist. Many of my friends have come to the point where -- to their surprise and dismay -- they suddenly begin to see how they fear all these aspects of life I just mentioned. As the awareness of these fears gradually increases, then one automatically also becomes aware of the effects which these heretofore unconscious fears have on one's life. In other words, what they make you do, how they make you withdraw from living. Then one begins to understand those vague feelings of missing out on life which one usually has without knowing why. Then one begins to realize how much one misses.

My friends, you do miss out on life itself. You miss out on the creative process of living by fearing this creative process. In this lecture I wish to discuss the common denominator of these fears. Then I want to show you how to correct this unnecessary condition of fear, of frustration, and of pain. For even those of you who have not as yet discovered that these fears exist will discover their existence sooner or later, especially when you find yourself dynamically growing and moving on a path of development and of self-realization. Thus, when you become aware of how you were hiding from life due to these fears, then these words -- retrospectively and retroactively -- will become very helpful. They may create a seed in your psychic forces which will come to fruition when the whole of you is ready to see the problem and to resolve it. This is truly your main problem in life.

The nature of all these fears is a misunderstanding of the function of the ego and a lack of understanding of the relationship between the ego and the real self. This is extremely subtle, and therefore difficult to put into words, for, as with all the truth of life, so it is with this truth: it is full of apparent contradictions. But these are contradictions only as long as you find yourself involved in a dualistic way of thinking and in a dualistic way of living. The moment you transcend this dualism, then two opposite -- and apparently mutually exclusive -- aspects become equally true. So it is with the ego in its relationship to the real self. It is true when one says that the ego's predominance -- its exaggerated strength -- is the greatest hindrance to productive living. And it is equally true when one says that a weak ego is incapable of establishing healthy living. These are not opposites or mutually exclusive facts.

Before we go into greater detail about this topic, let me first stress the fact that man's unhappy condition is due primarily to his ignorance about the existence of what we also call the real self. Man is vastly ignorant of it. At best, the more enlightened human beings accept its existence as a philosophical precept. But this is completely different from a living, dynamic experience of its existence. If man were educated with the idea that he contains deep within himself something that is infinitely superior to his ego self, then he would be given the opportunity and the chance, by experimentation and by exploration, to seek a way of communicating with this nucleus of himself. He would become able to reach his true inner being. This would be his goal.

But since this is not the case, then man becomes more limited in his concepts and limited in his goals in this respect. He ignores the fact that there is anything else alive in him but his ego. Even those of you who have formed a concept of the real self -- of the creative substance that enlivens every human being -- in the vast majority of your daily lives still forget that this creative being lives in you and moves in you, and that you live in it and move in it. You forget its existence. Therefore, you do not reach for its wisdom. Instead, you stake all your reliance on your limited ego self. You neglect to open yourself up for the truth and the feelings of your deeper self. You go blindly ahead, as though there really were nothing else in you but your conscious mind, your ego self, with its immediately accessible thinking processes and will force. With that attitude you shortchange yourself greatly.

This has various inevitable consequences. The first one is the question of identification. When man identifies himself exclusively with the ego, with the outer conscious self -- in other words, when his sense of self is associated predominantly with the functions of the ego -- then he becomes completely unbalanced. Therefore, his life becomes empty of substance and empty of meaning. Since the ego cannot replace, or in any way come near, the resourcefulness of the real self, then it is inevitable that such a person -- and this comprises the majority of human beings -- becomes tremendously frightened and insecure. The individual must feel inadequate and his sense of life -- his sense of living, his sense of self -- must become very flat, and therefore is unenjoyable. Then substitute pleasures are looked for, often frantically. But these false pleasures are hollow. Therefore, they leave him both exhausted and dissatisfied. For the ego cannot produce deep feelings and a deep flavor of living. The ego cannot produce profound and creative wisdom. The ego can only memorize, collect other people's creative knowledge, repeat, and copy. It is equipped to remember, to sort out, to select, to make up the mind, to move toward a certain direction -- outwardly and in inner emphasis and approach. These are its functions. But it is not its function to feel. It is not its function to experience deeply. It is not its function to know experientially. It is not its function to be creative. When I say creative, I do not merely mean artistic creativity. Every simplest act of living can be creative if you live activated by your real self. Conversely, when you are cut off from your real self, then every act is uncreative, no matter how much effort you put into it. In fact, the real self is effortless. Where it manifests effort does exist, but it is always an effortless effort. This, too, may appear like a contradiction.

Let us come back to those fundamental human fears I listed before and consider them in the light of this topic. As I said, these fears come into being as a result of being cut off from the real self as a result of ignorance and of false ideas. Let us begin with the fear of death, since it is this particular fear that casts such a shadow on everyone's life. If man identifies himself predominantly with his ego, then his fear of death is justified, for the ego dies indeed. This may sound like a frightening statement, especially to those who have not yet experienced the truth and the reality of their inner being. It is frightening for the reason I just mentioned, namely that for most people a sense of being, a sense of existing -- a sense of self -- exists only by identifying with their ego. This is why a human being who has activated his real self -- and who therefore experiences it as a daily reality -- is never afraid of death. One first knows of and then feels its immortal nature. One is filled with its eternal quality. It cannot but be a continuum, for this is its inherent nature. This cannot be explained by the logic the ego is used to, for such logic is much too limited to comprehend this.

When the ego is given undue importance in man's sense of being alive, then a vicious circle comes into existence. If one cannot conceive of any other reality of thinking, of feeling, and of being in oneself but the reality of the ego, then one cannot experience the higher faculties and the greater reality of the real self. Therefore, reading that the ego faculties -- which one considers the only real ones -- cease to exist must seem frightening. But for those who have experienced the stark reality of the real self then this statement can never be frightening. Because then you know how inferior, how fleeting, and how insufficient your ego is as compared to the reality of your eternal inner being -- which you will experience as eternal whenever you encounter it. Therefore, when one's sense of self is attached exclusively to the ego, then the fear of death must exist.

I want to add here that an intellectual acceptance of the real self, as I mentioned before, a philosophical precept will not alleviate the fear of death, because it cannot give a sense of reality and a true experience of the existence of the real self. It requires more. It requires the actualization of the faculties of the real self. This necessitates certain definite stages of development which you have to go through. I will say more about this later.

The next fear on the list would be the fear of life. He who fears life must fear death, and he who fears death must fear life, because they are really both the same. This statement can be understood only when one experiences the real self, which reconciles all the apparent opposites. Then one sees that life and death are the sunny side and the shadow side -- if I may put it this way -- of a certain manifestation of consciousness. Nothing more and nothing less.

When one's sense of identification is attached exclusively to the ego, then the fear of death is justified. For the ego's capacity to cope with life -- and therefore to live productively -- is extremely limited. In fact, it is downright insufficient. Therefore, the ego must leave the individual feeling uncertain, feeling insecure, and therefore feeling inadequate. But the real self always has answers; it always has solutions, no matter what the problem; it always makes any experience -- regardless of how unnecessary and how futile it may seem at first -- deeply meaningful and a stepping stone toward further expansion; it increases the experience of life; and it furthers the realization of one's inherent potentials. Therefore it has the capacity to render man more alive, more fulfilled, and growing steadily stronger. All this cannot be said about the ego. The ego is constantly entangled in and ensnared in apparently insoluble situations, problems, and conflicts. The ego is adapted exclusively to the level of duality -- this versus that, right versus wrong, black versus white, good versus bad. This is an inadequate manner of approaching most of life's problems. Apart from the fact that no truth can ever be found if one looks at one side as black and at the other as white, the dimensions of these problems include many other considerations. The ego is incapable of transcending this level and of bringing into harmony the truth of both sides. Therefore, it cannot find solutions. The ego is perpetually trapped and always anxious. Thus, an identification with the ego automatically brings in its wake the fear of life.

The next on the list is the fear of pleasure. For those whose self-exploration is still not very deep such a statement may sound absolutely incredible -- just as the fear of happiness would. Then you would say to yourself: "This has no application to me." But let me tell you that to the degree you feel unhappy, to the degree you feel unfulfilled, and to the degree you feel empty, to that degree you fear happiness and pleasure -- no matter how much you yearn for it on the conscious level, and therefore strain frantically toward it. It must be so, it is the equation that must come out even. Your life demonstrates this fact, for your life is never a product of circumstances beyond your control, or of causes which are beyond those which you yourself have inwardly set in motion. Your life is always a product of your own inner consciousness. Some of you know this in theory, while others know it in practice as well. At least those of you who have made some self-discoveries and who have come to see that you yourself have somehow created -- and are continuing to create -- whatever is amiss. Do not ever forget this.

The fear of pleasure, of happiness, of fulfillment is a reality applicable to all human beings. So it is a question of connecting consciously with this fear. When you do, then you will understand why your life does not yield to you what another part of you so ardently wishes. The more your ego cramps up in order to get what you consciously want, forgetting that it is not the ego alone that can attain it, the less will fulfillment be possible. Yet it is not necessarily the conscious ego that obstructs what you consciously want, but another part of your being. This part of you is neither your conscious ego nor your real self. Often the conscious ego is blindly driven to act in a way that the unconscious fearful, life-refusing part in you dictates. Then this is either rationalized or explained away. Even when one pays allegiance only to the active ego self -- with its consciousness -- even then the ego self is no more than an obeying agent, whether man knows it or not. The question is only whether the ego follows and obeys erroneous destructive drives or whether it is activated by the real self.

Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you be open to your inner reactions which shrink back from happiness, from pleasure. In order to understand this in the context of this lecture, I should like to say this: If the individual derives his sense of self only from the ego faculties, then giving up his ego must seem terribly frightening to him. And right here is where you are caught in a conflict that seems insoluble as long as you remain caught in it. Unfoldment, pleasure, delight, creative living, fulfillment, and happiness can exist only when your real self is activated. In other words, only when you no longer identify yourself exclusively with your ego, but when you are connected to and you begin to identify with your real self. In other words, with the eternal creative substance of your being. This necessitates letting go of the direct control of your ego. It requires both trust and courage to surrender to an inner movement that is not responsive to the faculty of outer thinking and to the faculty of outer willing. It is easy to ascertain the truth of this statement when you ponder for a minute over the heightened moments in your life. Whatever was truly pleasurable, truly inspired, truly effortless, truly fearless, truly creative, and deeply joyful was due to this letting go and being animated by something other than the usual faculties which are under the direct determination of the outer self. Then happiness is not only possible, but it is a natural byproduct. You cannot be your real self without being happy and you cannot be happy unless you are integrated with and enlivened by your real self. This is the kind of happiness that knows no fear of ending, that knows no fear of being lost, that does not fear unwelcome byproducts. It is the kind of happiness that is both dynamic, stimulating, exciting, vibrantly alive and yet peaceful. In other words, there is no longer any split, which comes from separating these concepts and making them mutually exclusive. This is what the dualistic ego always does. In this split way of experiencing life, peacefulness excludes excitement -- and therefore brings boredom -- while excitement excludes peace -- and therefore brings anxiety and tension. As in so many other instances, man is confronted with a choice -- a choice that is no longer necessary when he enters the realm of his unified real self.

How can you fearlessly embrace a state that must dispense with the ego faculties when your sense of being alive comes exclusively from these same ego faculties? This is where you are trapped. Unless you see your fear of happiness in this light, then you will not be able to find your way out of this trap. You will constantly vacillate. On the one hand you will be terrified of letting go of your ego and on the other hand you will be constantly in a state of hopelessness. It is a feeling of missing your life, of missing something essential because that which is necessary in order to alleviate this condition cannot come about as long as you cannot let go of your ego's predominance.

This brings me to the next fear on the list, and that is the fear of letting go. If one's sense of self derives exclusively from the ego, then the personality is unable to let go. For then letting go would mean annihilation. But to him who has gradually begun to see the truth and the reality of the real self, then letting go will not only be no danger, but it will be life itself.

The process of becoming acclimatized to the new condition, to the new climate, to the new vibrations, and to the new ways of functioning of the real self is a gradual one. But this is not incompatible with living in a body on this earth sphere. It means the harmonious interaction between the ego and the real self. It means knowing the ego's functions, knowing the ego's limitations, and knowing the ego's powers. I shall return to this question.

When one fears the real self, then one must also fear life, one must fear death, one must fear pleasure, one must fear fulfillment, one must fear happiness, one must fear unfoldment, one must fear one's feelings. In other words, one must fear the creative process itself. You know that your feelings cannot be controlled by your ego. Whoever attempts this merely deceives himself. He superimposes fake feelings. Therefore, he kills the spontaneity and the freedom of his real self. This is why feelings can never respond to any command -- to any "you must" -- issued either by other people or by the self. They come about indirectly. Your feelings seem to have their own independent life, their own laws, their own inner logic, their own wisdom. Man should first explore and then seek to understand these laws and this wisdom, rather than to deny them and to superimpose over them his puny ego's logic, his puny ego's law, and his puny ego's wisdom. For feelings are an expression of the creative process itself. This process cannot be forced either. It can only be either encouraged or discouraged, just as your feelings can. Feelings and the creative process are inner movements, which I have also termed soul movements. They have their own messages and their own signs. They cannot be sufficiently heeded if the individual is to affect his self-realization and to establish contact with his real self.

The real self exudes and transmits a vital flow of energy that consists of many subdivisions of specific kinds of energy. It is what I usually call the life force. This life force is both a tremendous power and a consciousness. It contains deep wisdom and inexorable lawfulness which is eternal and immutable. It is necessary to first explore and then to understand these laws. Doing so enriches life in a most wondrous manner, to a degree that as yet you cannot imagine.

Denying the intense ecstasy of this life force, which manifests on all levels of existence and in all facets of living -- in some areas more intensely than in others -- means courting various degrees of death. Conversely, embracing this life force means living deathlessly. Death is the denial of the supreme pleasure of life. The fact that the ego came into existence means that death came into existence. I cannot go into details about this now, for this would lead us too far afield. It suffices to say that the ego is a split-off particle of the Vaster Consciousness that still remains in all people. Unless this split-off part is integrated with its origin, then it dies off. Therefore, splitting off and dying are related and interdependent, just as re-unification and living are related and interdependent. Ego existence, pleasurelessness, and death are directly connected, just as the real self, pleasure supreme, and life are directly connected. Therefore he who fears letting go of the ego, he who fears pleasure -- and who therefore denies pleasure because of this fear -- must court death. This is the true meaning of death. It is a denial of the original kernel of life.

All this may lead to the misunderstanding, to the false belief, that the ego should be dispensed with. Unfortunately many spiritual teachings have made this error, and therefore have brought confusion to their adherents. Nothing could be further from the truthful way than either to disregard the ego or to neglect the ego. For doing this would merely lead to the opposite extreme. And both extremes are always equally wrong, equally damaging, and equally dangerous.

The person who throughout a lifetime -- and often during several lifetimes -- has over-emphasized his ego, as a result of the mistaken idea that this is not only safety but life itself, becomes tired. The reason he becomes tired is because every wrong soul movement -- one that is based on misconceptions -- is exhausting. It makes him cramp up in order to desperately hang on.

Whatever the various false ways of relief from a cramped ego are, they always mean the weakening of the ego. If the ego is too strong on the one hand, then it must inevitably be too weak on the other hand. I put this in practical terms for you who are working on this path. To the extent that you are frightened of letting go of ego control -- as a result of the false idea that this makes you lose your strength -- to that extent you are unable to assert yourself because you are afraid. Conversely, the more capable you are of self-surrender -- to your feelings, to the creative process, to the unknown qualities of life itself, to a mate -- then the stronger you must be. Then you will not fear to make decisions, you will not fear to make mistakes, you will not fear to meet your difficulties. Instead, you will rely on your own resources, you will have the integrity of your own views, you will pay the price for your selfhood, and you will assert your rights as you fulfill your obligations freely and willingly. In other words, not out of a fear of the authorities or out of the fear of the consequences of their disapproval of you. The ego strength of such healthy self-assertion will make self-surrender possible. Conversely, the weakness of an ego that fears self-responsibility makes self-surrender -- and thus pleasure -- impossible. The person who habitually overcharges, and therefore exhausts, his ego faculties then seeks false relief.

Such false relief can take many forms. One of the more crass forms is insanity, where the ego is completely disabled. In less crass cases it takes the form of neurotic manifestations, where the ego is unable to use its faculties of strength, of selfhood, of self-responsibility, etc. Or it can take the form of alcoholism, the form of drug addiction, and of all the other artificial ways of obtaining relief from an overly tense ego that is deprived of pleasure because it is too frightened to surrender to the creative process.

Therefore, it is of primary importance to comprehend what the ego's faculties are, to know how to use them, and to know what the ego's limitations are. We shall go into greater detail in the future about this. At the moment all I want to say is this: The ego must know that it is only a servant to the greater being within. Its main function is to consciously and deliberately seek contact with the greater self within. It must know its position. It must know its strength. It must know of its possibilities. It must know that its function is to seek this contact. In other words, it must know that its task is to decide to request help from the greater self and then to permanently establish contact with it. Moreover, it must know that its own task is limited. The realization always comes from within, from the real self, but it comes as a response to the ego's desire to first comprehend and then to change falseness, destructiveness, and error. In other words, the ego's task is to formulate the thought, the intent, the desire, and to make the decision. But its limitation is in the execution of the thought, of the intent, of the desire. After its task of deciding to pay the price of truthfulness, of integrity, of honesty, of effort, and of good will is fulfilled, then the ego must step aside and it must allow the real self to come forth with its intuition and its inspiration -- which then set the pace and direct the individual path.

The ego must decide first to take and then to steadily follow this way of development. It must be willing to learn from within. It must be willing to comprehend the deeper language of the unconscious -- which at first is obscure, but which becomes increasingly more obvious. It must learn how to interpret the messages of the destructive unconscious, as well as those of the still deeper unconscious real self -- with all of its wonderful creativity and its constructiveness. The ego must lend its wholehearted support, its one-pointed effort, its most constructive attitude, and its undivided attention to the inner path. The ego must know its limitations. The ego must tune into the deep wisdom and to the individual rhythm of the path. The ego must know the timing. The ego must summon the strength to persevere during the difficult times. In other words, it must call upon the unlimited resources of the real self. The ego must develop a finesse in order to sense the subtle interplay between the ego and the increasingly more manifest real self. The ego must learn when to be strong and assertive and when to step aside in a more passive, listening, and learning attitude. The ego can be likened to arms that move toward the source of life, but which then must stop moving when their function is no longer anything else but to receive.

May you all truly profit by this lecture. May you study it deeply, may you meditate on it. Study it sentence by sentence and see how it applies to you. Meditate on it with the wish to make use of it. In other words, not only by understanding it theoretically, but also by using it so as to seek that part of yourself that is eternal, that is truly adequate, and that is always in wonderful, ecstatic delight. The price is the expenditure of some time and of some effort in overcoming your laziness, your resistance, and your false safety devices.

This also means exploring the conditions which make a connection with the real self possible. The ego self must be compatible with the real self. Since the real self transcends the flat laws of outer morality, you must have the courage to be in your own truth, as opposed to paying allegiance to public opinion, to an authority, or to society at large. Such submission only happens out of fear, out of greed, out of cowardice, and out of opportunism. Thus the outer morality is not necessarily a sign of real morality, of inner morality. However, the real self has extremely exacting standards of real morality. They are of a far deeper nature than the former kind. You must see where selfishness exists in your soul, where cruelty exists in your soul, where self-centeredness exists in your soul, where greed exists in your soul, and where dishonesty exists in your soul -- even if only in minute form. Every such particle, no matter how much it may be diluted by genuine goodness, stands in your way -- particularly when it is not recognized, when it is denied, or when it is excused. If you cheat yourself by trying to cheat life, then you make yourself incompatible with the laws and with the powers of your innermost creative being. So discover all the areas where you cheat. They may be hidden, but they always exist -- to the extent of your unhappiness and of your discontent, hence to the extent that you are separated from your real self. Be in peace, be blessed, be in God.

December 8, 1967