LOVE AND EGO

It is nice and Sunny out, but cool barely above freezing, still a very nice March day. I would like to see the snow go faster, but I need to consider the people downstream that may get flooded. The melt has been perfect considering everything.

Lately I feel like I have been wrestling with an octopus, you know, many armed and slippery. I am speaking of my ego. I made a commitment to choose love in every moment and I reinforce the idea several times during the day. It should be easy, right?

The trouble is, I am a reactor and more pointedly a blurter, that is a person who has a tendency to say the first thing that crosses the mind. It is actually a positive thing much of the time, but when we make a commitment to be loving in every moment our egos are eager to take up the challenge. The ego is afraid if we choose love we will embrace oneness and give up separation. The ego thrives on separation. We created the ego to protect us when we decided to dwell in fragile bodies cut off from each other.

We are in a paradox. We need to reassure our egos that they won't die if we choose oneness, yet every time we choose fear we reinforce the egos belief and every time we choose love we scare the bejesus out of them.

And we need to be reassured that our egos can't win. They can't. Just as in the global picture the anti-love force has no power of its own, as its only power is what we give it, the ego has only the power we award it. We award it every time we choose fear.

If we lived in an ashram or monastery it might take only repetition for the ego to give up its claim to dominance. However, most of us live with folks with all different kinds of needs and demands. There might be a lot going on in our moments. We may live with people with dysfunctions or special needs and we ourselves need to see our limitations.

Our egos are clever they can masquerade as guidance or intuition and we might not see that what is coming from our mouths is judgement. We know the difference, we can see it upon refection, however we would just as soon not be in error in the first place. Here is a clue; the ego often speaks first and loudly. The voice for God [or your true self] speaks in a quiet voice. When we are fully in the moment the ego is unable to do the worst of its undermining as it depends on the use of the past or future fears.

Our egos are not bad. We don't need to compound the problem by judging them. We needed them. They protected us. They kept us safe. However, when we went through the extreme separation from each other, which is now waning, they interpreted the 'other' as dangerous and it fit with how society behaved. They began to retard our development by resisting our wish for oneness. We have need to ignore our egos to achieve full intimacy with another and when we fall-in-love. Little children are so precious because their egos are still in bud.

I am not a fearful person, but my struggle with my ego had to do with subtle fear thoughts. It is a new situation for, me that I may expand on later, but I kept making the choice for fear of future problems and not making the most loving choice in the moment. There was also the unwillingness to give the problem up to a loving universe and I hung unto the idea that I had to be the healer or at least governor. It was like wrestling with an octopus, boy they are slippery devils and smart too, and wow, watch for those arms.

It is reassuring to know we can't lose. If we stay in the moment, we will figure it out. The ego may try to confuse us in our discerning love from fear, but we won't be fooled for long and when we quit giving the ego a fear feast it will lose its power.

When we are in our peaceful place, we can thank our egos for all the help they have given us. We can see them as small tantrummy children that need to be consoled and reassured that they won't be abandoned. We may not need them anymore, but we can cuddle them to us like an old toy.

Happy Monday! Happy Spring!

Love and Peace, Gregg