everything the ego does devolves to one central pathology

All this talk of the Ego and its ensuing widespread calamity may seem overdone. Therefore, allow me another attempt to explain the pervasive nature of its sordidness confronting every human being.

What do the following 10 examples have in common?

(1) the elderly lady, visibly frightened of new information which might threaten her view of a particular god or goddess rescuing her upon transition to the next world;

(2) screaming fans, shouting with hysteria, hoping to touch, or even glimpse, an adored celebrity;

(3) billionaire corporate heads employing new technology to increase surveillance on a populace, thereby diminishing rights to privacy;

(4) national leaders, with big sloppy grins, posing as benefactors to the country’s interests, while undermining civil liberties, the rule of law, and taking to themselves more power;

(5) supervisors or fellow co-workers seeking to deny promotion or commendation, though you’ve earned it and are the best choice for the new position;

(6) social-media platforms which censor free speech because of "misinformation," meaning, it doesn't conform to a totalitarian agenda;

(7) materialistic scientists who repress, ignore, or otherwise vilify the "scientific evidence for the afterlife";

(8) a friend, lover, or family member who insults you, slants a story, attacks you, cheats you, because they disagree with, and are threatened by, your new-found beliefs.

(9) the neo-Postmodernist, the delusional “woke” adherent, occupying the lowest level of consciousness, arrogantly and vacuously proclaiming that rationality itself is part of “white man’s” oppression; that, even to be on time for work is a “white thing”;

(10) the soldier, part of an invasion force against a peaceful people, firing on, murdering, civilians because it’s his “duty” to “follow orders” of his imperialistic superiors.

We could go on listing many more: the gossip in your neighborhood who stands by her window, judging and condemning, trafficking in the mundane details of others; the college instructor who ridicules, and punishes with lower grades, those who disagree with his totalitarian leanings; the so-called news-reporter, piously claiming to have entered her profession to “make a difference,” incessantly offering selective and screened factoids to support a hoped-for Orwellian dystopia; the suicide-bomber, or the mad driver barreling into a crowd of civilians, or the shootist, seeking for publicity, or revenge; the high-school friend, once a confidante, but suddenly counting you an enemy when she veers off into new philosophical moorings; the martinet husband, psychologically, or otherwise, abusing a wife whom he does not love yet will not allow to leave his fiefdom.

What is the common thread?

In each case, a needy ego has identified with some power-structure, some external augmentation, some strong “father figure” to the inner child; an adoption of surrogate life, a face-saving production, a seeking to enhance oneself, to make oneself “more” and “above,” to feel important and a “somebody”, a propping up and bolstering, an assuagement of underlying fears of “not making the grade,” of “I am not enough,” leading to a surrendering of autonomy and critical faculties, a victimhood pathology of linking oneself to some external image of authority or purported salvation.

According to the great psychologists, in its deepest writhings, all of these examples represent the fear of death on display. In each case, a perceived locus of one's life and essence, one’s “center of being,” lies outside oneself, stands subservient to some icon of imagined greater energy, wisdom, or value. In other words, in all this dysfunction there is no sense of having been "made in the image," of “being enough,” no personal view of the limitless "inner riches," one's divine heritage as "spark struck-off from God." As such, this deficit leads to servility, to existential crisis, to forms of insanity. And therefore nearly 100% of the denizens of planet Earth are engaged in some form of the above cultism.

I submit to you, every insult, abuse, affront, contempt, disrespect, misrepresentation, aggression, assailment, invasion, violation, trespass, usurpation, infringement, conflict, and war – in the history of the world, and your own personal history -- have resulted from egos, at the expense of others, attempting to feel better about themselves, pursuing to quash the sense of inner neediness, of “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.”

every ego wants something from you

What does it want?

It wants to use you to feel better about itself, to fill up the emptiness inside. It will attempt to accomplish this make-over by (1) comparing itself to you, finding some metric by which it can judge itself as superior; (2) deriving pleasure from you, an effort to cloak the pain within; (3) ruling over you, power-and-control measures, to enhance and propagandize itself; (4) minimizing, discounting what you represent in order to aggrandize its distorted belief system about how life works; alternatively, if demonizing doesn’t succeed, it will (5) surrender to you, call you a genius or a god, by which subservience it hopes to find security and safety under the protective mantle of a “strong father figure.”

further distillation

Can we, even more, reduce all of the above to common element?

The ego, at a deeper level, is driven to create a perception of itself as “other.” This generalized sense of “otherness” is then leveraged into a “me against them” lens of looking at the world. And it’s not just a contrariness toward other people. If others aren’t around, or even if they are, the ego can make us feel estranged from life itself and, of course, God, as well, as we blame, and set ourselves against, these for perceived unfairness.

Why is this important to the ego? According to ancient Spirit Guides, we come to this world for one primary reason: to individuate, to become persons in our own right; all other aspects of development, for the moment, are secondary.

The ego will reconfigure memories and current sensations to emphasize “otherness.” Much of this reformulation can be very unpleasant to contemplate, but it does accomplish one thing: even though at the quantum level we are connected to all, at the surface of personality “otherness” creates a stand-alone psychological entity that becomes the perception of “I”, which is the very definition of ego.

Editor’s note: Concerning the above “10 examples,” each of these represents a certain unsavory aspect of the dark side of human nature. But this skews the picture. The dysfunctional ego also operates in the arena of heroic service and commendable, stalwart mettle.

I am thinking of the celebrity artist, athlete, singer, politician or other notable who publicly dedicates his or her life to good works as a result of purportedly drawing strength from a patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god. The ensuing good works might be larger-than-life, consummated even in the face of great privation and adversity. All of which is meant to proclaim to the world, “I do all this by the power of my relationship to said patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god.”

But, is this reality? How are we to view such valorous and epic conduct? Does it happen by way of aligning one’s person with an external divinity?

We would do well to recall that any number of non-religious “secular saints” might be brought to our attention who have nobly, in a lion-hearted way, offered charitable service, even to the point of death. One example immediately comes to mind: Dr. Viktor Frankl, in the concentration camps. He accepted the task of encouraging other inmates, despite near-starvation and often-beatings by the guards. He served the contagious typhoid dying, and, more than once, refused opportunity to escape the camp in order to remain with the suffering.

The dysfunctional ego is led by its foundational premise, “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.” As such, it looks for salvation from an outside source. This is pathological and takes us in the wrong direction, far from sacred destiny of living from one’s sacred center, the true self, one’s inner connection to God.

We are not to conduct ourselves as little children, living under the mantle of a “strong father figure,” a patron saint, religious icon, or savior-god.

We are to open our eyes to the inner riches, the innate “made in the image” reservoir of strength, available to all of us as sons and daughters of God.