What is ego...

[Guest guest]

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!

 

Namaste dear sisters and brothers!!

 

(this was posted on other Amma list too...)

 

was reading thru some of the media's coverage of Amma, ending with the

What is Enlightenment's interview with Her, on Ego, which was

deliciously Amma...i had read it before but it was a nice

reread....then i wandered further into that online issue of WIE...and

it was very interesting, all these interviews with various folks on

the ego...one that i REALLY liked was with an Eastern Orthodox

Christian Monk...

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The Enemy Within

 

An Interview with Archmandrite Dionysios

 

(this is just a part of the interview that i copied and pasted...i

particularly liked his description of the "perfected" man...or

woman...

i could see Amma in every word!!!)

 

 

 

WIE: The writings of the Christian fathers speak of the goal of the

spiritual journey as a transfiguration of the human being into an

entirely different order of human existence—one in which the ego is

killed and we are, in a sense, reborn. What does it mean for the ego

to die? And

in what sense are we reborn?

 

AD: The Lord calls us to transform. He wants to give us our

reality, our real self, which we have lost. And in spiritual life,

especially in the monastic life, this ego really can transform,

just as when the disciples, having followed Christ to the top of

Mount Tabor, witnessed his body transformed into light. Many fathers

used to explain that the transfiguration didn't actually happen to the

body of Christ but to the eyes of his students. Because at that

moment, their eyes transformed and they could see what Christ had

always been—shining, full of light. Through their humility, through

following Christ, they were brought to the top of this mountain to

enjoy this

reality. And every one of us can receive this blessing. Our nature can

be transformed. This transfiguration is our real progress, our real

growth.

It's not a matter of using our spiritual life in Christ to become

better, to become more clever, to know more things, to have more

friends, to influence others, to have authority and power, to have

money, good health, a good name and a

good face. It's only a matter of what's inside our heart. The

important thing is that in daily practice there cannot be any seed of

ego in the field of our heart. Because when temptation comes, it can

destroy the quality of life and of the relationships between people.

The Lord taught us to be awake all the time and to pray to him, to

say, "Protect us and don't let us enter into temptation." Through this

protection from temptation, we can come to see very clearly

into our hearts. And by following the simplest, normal life, we can

purify ourselves, our spirit and our mind. It's very easy after that

for the Holy Spirit to come. It's like in the

Eucharist, we are ready all together in the church with the bread

and the wine. We pray, and the Holy Spirit comes and makes the bread

and the wine into the body and blood of Christ. In the same way, we

can purify ourselves, and the

Holy Spirit comes and transforms us in all the ways we have read

about in books and brings us many more experiences that all the books

of the world cannot contain.

 

WIE: In the Orthodox tradition there has been a longstanding

lineage of illumined spiritual fathers, great individuals who have

demonstrated with their own lives the possibility of destroying the

ego and discovering a new life in God. What are the marks of one who

has won the spiritual battle? How does the expression of the

personality

change in one who has truly gone beyond the ego?

 

AD: He's ready for everything always. He never is or says orfeels

that he's tired. He has joy. He's always ready to give. He exists only

for others. He's ready to serve everybody. He

does not judge anybody, including the deepest sinner. He's there as a

child, but as a child of a king. Who can touch the son of a king? Who

can touch a newborn lion knowing that the mother lion is nearby? Being

this way, you're like a small lamb among the wolves, but you're not

afraid. You're there offering, receiving everybody, loving, serving,

praying for everybody and being ready to die in each moment, and in

that, you're totally and completely free. All these are fruits

of love because we become the source of love. So is a man without

ego. This is the transformation. It's like we are a wild old tree and

we need something to come into us and transform this tree into a good

fruitful tree. A man without ego is a man with God, is a man with the

Holy Spirit.

When you are ready to die for everybody in each moment, when you

love, when you respect, when you

prostrate to the other, it's like you prepare him to be ready for an

operation; but it's not that you judge the other or feel that he

needs something from you. When you are perfect

before Him—and we can be perfect; in fact, we have to be perfect; it's

the principal need—then right away people need it, know it, understand

it. Very quickly everybody comes to take a seat in front of such a

person, in front of a spiritual son or a spiritual father.

 

WIE: Is it also your experience that a spiritual father who has

truly gone beyond the ego not only inspires ;people to reach for their

highest potential but also presents the ultimate challenge to the ego

of those who come to see

him?

 

AD: Absolutely. In fact, in the presence of such a person, the

devil comes out straightaway. And you can see very clearly how the

devil makes people crazy or angry or disrespectful when you haven't

even said anything. Just because you are there, they explode. And you

can see terrible things in people where otherwise you would see only

kind people with ties and gold jewelry. When someone appears who

embodies the spirit of God, there you can see what you could see when

Jesus was walking in the streets.

 

The devils who were in the people said, "Whoa, who are you? You came

here to put us in trouble." Some were scandalized by him, others were

thinking about how to kill him, and still others were thinking things

against him. He was speaking not to what they said but to what they

were thinking. And the same Holy Spirit exists in the spiritual

fathers, and it can also create this kind of confrontation.

This happens because the other person understands that he cannot

play with this man. He cannot hide from this man.

 

WIE: In Christian writings, the enemy of the spiritual path is

often referred to in dramatic terms as Satan, Lucifer, the devil. Is

Satan simply a metaphor for the human ego? Or is

it something independent of us?

 

AD: Satan is the teacher. And the ego is the means by which we

fulfill his theory. Living from our ego is like burning incense to

him. When he smells it, he comes. It is familiar to him; it's his

relative, his tongue, his dialect. He likes it. So he comes, and then

he starts to open company with our ego. Then he starts to be related

to us.

 

WIE: So would you say that Satan exists in this sense as an

impersonal force of evil that operates within each of us as the ego?

Or would it be more accurate to say that the ego is already there in

us and Satan is the voice of temptation to which the ego listens?

 

AD: The second. He doesn't have the authority to work through our

ego. We're free all the time to decide.

 

WIE: There are many spiritual authorities in the modern West who

are attempting to bring the ideas of Western psychology to bear on the

spiritual path. In fact, it is now commonly held that in order to

withstand the difficulties of the spiritual path, one has to first

develop a strong ego, a strong sense of self. One statement that has

become almost a credo in many spiritual circles is: "You have to

become somebody before you can be nobody." What do you think of this

idea?

 

AD: That's like saying, "We first have to be the head of the

Mafia and then we can become president." Or, "I will first work

together with the devil; I shall make common company with him so that

he will give me whatever I need, but because I am more clever than he

is, I will then use my

power for good."

It's good to send children out to study, to learn to sing, to

learn athletics, to be well educated, to have an economic basis from

which to start their life. But how often do we see

that the dreams of all the rich men and their children are broken? The

Bible says that "if the builders are working very hard to build a

tower that the Lord does not bless, they have worked for nothing."

This ego is the modern god of the twentieth century and the

twenty-first century. And the idea you referred to in your question is

the modern religion. But we know thistemptation. Ego means, "I don't

believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit does not

exist." But this is a lie. The Holy Spirit guides the world and

blessed are they who want it, who see it, who breathe in it, who move

in it, who inspire through it, who love it, who are uniting with it.

 

WIE: There are also many spiritual authorities today who insist

that the ego is an inherent and irreversible fact of our humanity and

that any attempt to give up the ego, to

transcend our lower nature in pursuit of perfection, is itself an

expression of the greatest hubris. Jungian psychologist Marion Woodman

goes so far as to say that the very notion of perfection "rapes the

soul." How would you respond to those who assert that we are, by

nature, flawed and incapable of reaching perfection?

 

AD: Christ said, "Be perfect. Become perfect. And when you will be

and you will do everything perfectly, saying within yourself and

believing that you are miserable, terrible lost sinners, servants,

there you will find humility and glory." It's possible to be perfect

because He is perfect, because He received our nature. So if He did

this, we can do it; we can be with Him. It's possible to be perfect

because of this gift. And it's possible to not be perfect because we

have the authority to refuse the gift, to refuse the love. And when we

refuse it, then we need theology, then we need philosophy, then we

need to create new books and new theories that say that the ego cannot

be transcended.

It is possible to be free of the ego. It has to be. It's

necessary. It's only because people don't know of this possibility,

don't want this possibility, and don't permit this possibility to

exist that they need to create all these ideas.

But they know that they are speaking lies. This is the craziest thing

we can hear. What doctor says to a sick man, "Look, sickness is a part

of our nature. We have to be with it. So we don't have to cut our

nails. We don't need to wash our face, because we shall be dead

tomorrow anyway"? What kind of teaching is this? Yes, it is possible

to be free of the ego, but it's a mystery.

 

WIE: The ascetic practices of Orthodoxy place a strong emphasis on

the need to suppress our instinctual drives. Impulses like lust,

hunger, thirst and even the desire for sleep are often held at bay for

long periods in extreme acts

of renunciation. What is the role of ascetic practice in attaining

freedom from the ego?

 

AD: Asceticism is a means to get where we want to go. It is a

railway on which the train can run. Many people feel that asceticism

means following a set of rules, but it's not a law that is imposed on

us. In football, for example, it's not that

the rules of the game are hard, but that they help the game to come

out perfectly. And so it is with ascetic life. The special periods and

rules of fasting, vigil and prayer serve as mystical ways or means. We

follow these mystery ways, these divine commitments, these divine

orders. And outside of the general rules, there are also personal

rules that are given in the communication between spiritual father and

son, special vocations for each individual. We see saints

who spend much time in the caves or in the forest or in the desert.

And they don't go there with plans to come back; when they go there,

they go forever. And the Lord guides them then.

When Christ went to the desert after his baptism, he went to

face the devil. He didn't think in his mind, "After forty days I will

return." He just went there. He came out of the Jordan River, baptized

by Saint John the Baptist, and he went to the desert. From one point

of view, he lost time being alone there. He didn't go to his people to

give them food, to bless them, to guide them, to give the Holy Spirit

to them. No. He went to the desert.

 

And he said to the devil,"My friend, look, until now you were playing

with the people. You started with Eve in paradise, and now you are

finishing

with me. I am here alone. I'm not eating. I'm not drinking. And the

cold in my bones in the night in the desert is terrible. I suffer. But

I don't play games. I'm here. Alone. And you come to me and you tell

me to turn stones into bread.

You tell me to prostrate to you. You? To give you the authority of my

people? Go now. We have seen each other. I know who you are and you

know who I am." And in that moment the devil gave up everything.

 

So the ascetic life is necessary. To be ready in each moment to

die, in front of everybody for everything—this is the desert, this is

the ascetic life. And it brings the Holy Spirit. And if we go, the

Lord will guide us.

 

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darling sisters and brothers, wasn't that a wonderful Christian

parallel to the work we, ourselves, with the help of our Beloved

SatGuru, and Mother, Amma, are daily involved in?

 

Sadhana seems to be universal...as the "enemy" is the same all over

the world..."ego"...

 

i hope we all enjoyed this little offering...there are some more quite

good interviews on the subject of ego at the What is enlightenment

web-page...below given:

 

http://www.wie.org/j17/j17.asp

 

enjoy!!!i just "wasted" a couple hours there...it was fascinating.

especially Amma's interview, on the reread...and the differences She

has with some of the others is interesting...

 

In our Mother's Love

and in Her Service

 

as ever

Your Own Self,

 

visvanathan

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!