by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
When I was young I read a lot of science fiction. I enjoyed this genre in part because it was really many genres depending on the author and the book. It might be rollicking space adventure, but it could explore psychological, environmental, political themes. Essentially any time, place, theme, or idea was a potential subject.
One theme that was implicitly, and sometimes explicitly addressed, was the age old question of man’s true nature. At the end of the day, or century, are we “good” or “bad”? Will we destroy ourselves and/or the planet, or learn to live in harmony and peace? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
This discussion is echoed in psychological terms in how we think about the ego. Does it save us from our animal self (id) and thus perform a necessary and heroic role? or does it distract us from our spiritual self (soul) and thus is something to be removed, outgrown, or deconstructed?
Much of western society is based on the idea that we need the ego, and by extension discipline, education, religion, and constant vigilance, to live a civilized (Dr. Jekyll) life, rather than a barbaric (Mr. Hyde) life. If the ego falls, we are thought to be subject to passions that will shortly cause us to do all sorts of horrible things.
In much of spiritual practice and tradition the focus is more on the ways in which the ego limits our ability to progress and realize our high aspects, weighing us down with distracting concerns and emotions. Freeing ourselves from this ego is a path towards realizing the divine, learning to live from the soul as brothers and sisters in love and peace.
Like much in the dual relative world, it all depends on perspective. If we lump the ego with the id, as against the soul, it seems negative, and freeing ourselves is a glorious spiritual pursuit. If we lump the ego with the soul, as against the id, it seems positive, and we need to train it as hard as we can.
In fact, as human beings we are all three (ego, id, and soul), comprising body, emotions, mind and spirit. We are here to learn to weave all three together. It is true that we can rise into light as spirit, but then we are not human and there is no reason to be present on the earth. Dropping deep into ourselves does not (contrary to many early psychiatrists and western theologians) lead to ever blacker darkness, but if we make it through the layers of pain and fear we find the light again.
We are often scared of our inner world, because it does have uncomfortable, and scary things in it. There are other things that we have judged in many different ways as negative. In the middle of the last century psychologists began to realize that even in pain there is life, and by giving it space to be we can find the light in the darkness.
This may be a slow and challenging process, but it does move always towards wholeness. We all know the way home somewhere deep inside. While we may carry dark and scary pieces, when we bring compassion to them, give them space to be, they do not destroy us or our life, but unfold themselves in a healing process that allows us to be more fully alive. By accepting all of who we are we find our way back to light and life.
The ego only holds back the shadow side of the id because we have not brought in the soul to heal it yet. We have learned to fear ourselves as we have come to fear our world. But the truth is that our core, our essence, is not dark, but brilliantly bright. As we move through the shadowed places and create space for the soul to enter, the ego becomes something clearer, something that serves to manifest the soul through the personality. As the ego relaxes we naturally find our way to clearing, integrating.
We are not meant to choose among our different aspects, but to learn to unite them all, to create living temples for spirit to manifest on earth. We are not meant to do this by caging or cutting away whole levels of our being, or to choose the material or the spiritual but through compassion to heal them and integrate all. Just as man walks between heaven and earth uniting them in the dance of existence, the ego walks between the spirit and the id, weaving them together in a single divine expression of what it is to be fully human.
Remembering that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, be joyful for the future is bright.
(© 1/2009)
