Transcending the Ego
We have discussed more than once that the autonomous structure of the personality is a necessary condition for the survival of an individual flow of mind just as the body is necessary for its manifestation. That separateness that arises when an individual flow of mind becomes distinct is a necessary and inevitable stage of its actualization.
In other words, all non-autonomous streams of consciousness that were separated from its unified fabric did not survive, just as bodies that failed to struggle for survival did not. And just as at the level of beings we observe competition, struggle, and predation, at the level of flows of mind we must acknowledge their marked selfishness.
I‑motivation, reliance on selfhood, is the most enduring driving force for all movements and actualizations at every level of manifestation of individual flows of mind.
Even when embarking on the Way, we typically strive for achievements “for ourselves,” development of “ourselves,” liberation of “ourselves.” Meanwhile, the “altruism” promoted by many Schools, Lines, and religions is merely “inverted selfishness,” a swing of the pendulum to the opposite extreme which, as we must understand, only reinforces the dual system.
At the level of bodies and matter, attempts to transcend selfish drives usually end up motivating people to “make this world better for our children,” which, of course, is just another disguise, a sublimation of selfhood and its projection onto one’s “genetic continuation.”
All attempts to “get rid of the ego,” to “cast it off,” on closer inspection, turn out to be either a deception or a shift to a subtler level of selfhood, where the “I” takes pleasure in its own “non-selfishness.”
However, the very meaning of manifested existence, the very meaning of “physical reality,” is precisely to, having manifested one’s separateness, transcend it — not to deny it, not to fight it, but to use it as an instrument of individuality.
On one hand, we should acknowledge the obvious fact that all bodies in all universes are interconnected by the simple circulation of atoms: the atoms that compose my body today were in other organisms or in the soil yesterday, earlier in the depths of stars, and later will pass into other bodies and spaces. Accordingly, at the level of matter, the universe is fundamentally one, interconnected, and mutually dependent.
On the other hand, at the level of mind we can easily discover the same unity of spirit manifesting in countless streams of consciousness — personalities, subpersonalities, egregores, and so forth.
Yet just as a body has no chance of survival until it recognizes its separateness and otherwise remains a mere accidental fluctuation of materiality, a stream of consciousness that has not disclosed its personality cannot feel its non-separateness from the Universal.
That is precisely why separate embodied beings arise: to transcend it, separateness must first be fully manifested. Only after that can the binary “original fullness” – “actual differentiation” be integrated into the pleroma unity.
The shift in mind that each of us must make sooner or later (if not in this life, then in the next, or through a thousand existences) consists precisely in moving beyond ego-motivation, beyond the ego-centeredness of the stream of consciousness. This is a fundamentally different level of functioning, having nothing to do with striving for “personal development” or “self-improvement,” although it often arises out of them. Even the concept of karma or “retribution,” when tinged with personal hues, is a misconception and an impediment to real development: our actions undoubtedly have consequences, but those consequences will be reaped by another personality, even if arising from the same stream of consciousness. Therefore, from an ego-based perspective, it is impossible to find a “karmic” motivation for non-destructive actions; such motivation can be found only in the sense of the fundamental unity of mind. As the Buddhists say, each being over countless rebirths and permutations was once the mother of every other being, and thus all are connected to all by a bond of mutual birth. And this, of course, is true, yet the real unity is even deeper and closer.
“I do this for others” is a misguided motivation almost to the same degree as “I do this for myself,” since both variants assume an emphasis on the reality of “I” and a feeling of alienation. Therefore the great Masters often spoke of themselves in the third person, implying the futility of applying a personal pronoun to the stream of consciousness expressed in them.
But simply beginning to “speak” of oneself in the third person is, of course, no solution. The solution is to begin to think of oneself, one’s personality, one’s body, one’s stream of consciousness — as something valuable, unique, irreplaceable, and yet inseparable from the others, an equal element whose well-being can be considered only in relation to the common well-being, and whose achievements can be seen only in the light of universal achievement.
Magic as a Way that allows one to discover, identify, and fully realize one’s individuality is paradoxically also the Way to transcending separateness: it is impossible, having experienced and felt in one’s own experience that absolute interconnectedness and interdependence of all elements across all times and universes that Magical practice reveals, to remain in error about the true nature of one’s self.
Absolutely. It helps me a lot. Your explanation.
It is unlikely anyone could accurately know what will happen somewhere when all the banners are executed and all our causations close. And this will most likely happen ‘not with us.’ Will what we value and love slip through the eye of the needle of the Pleroma, Nirvana, or Heaven? And if it doesn’t, why strive for something like that? How will such an event differ, say, from the explosion of a supernova somewhere in a neighboring Galaxy? Speaking of something that stands outside the persona, we will always forge this ‘outside’ in the image and likeness of ourselves. Always, ‘transpersonal’ will be a compiled entity from understandable and most often pleasant words to our personality. At the very core of discussions about the possibility of anything transpersonal, there is, as I see it, a huge self-deception. We are all somehow driven by time and death, literally burning from birth and flying towards the abyss. And if we do not strive to preserve what we love, value, and understand – what sense does this burned path have?
Beyond the ego, consciousness does not end or collapse. There is a big difference between love and clinging. Love is the feeling of undeniable non-separation, it doesn’t need to be ‘pushed’ or dragged. The focus is on the fact that everything a personality strives for will devalue with the collapse of the personality, that is – in a few decades. But what is in the very nature of consciousness will always remain in it and even amid incarnations will flow through lives.
I don’t know how to describe it accurately, but I have the feeling that in the modern, shall we say, spiritual world, the eastern, Buddhist view of the Path and life cycles is completely and irrevocably winning. Indeed, in Western traditions, it was possible to trace the search for personal immortality – creating various talismans and ‘living’ menhirs, searching for the philosopher’s stone. The philosophy itself extolled precisely personal, tangible, and discernible virtue, all these You – are God and Cults of Reason. Even in the pre-Buddhist East, there were Taoist magicians trying to concoct pills from cinnabar. Now no matter where you look, all this is discarded as unnecessary. What do you think, is this a natural evolution or simply one egregore conquered another?
These are just different descriptions, different paths to achieve one result. The eternity of individuality is not identical to the extension of personality.
Enmerkar, excellent article, as well as many others here, thank you! Can I know your opinion on G.I. Gurdjieff and his Fourth Way? As far as I understand, he believed in metempsychosis, but in the context of Eternal Recurrence. That is, everyone is born at roughly the same time and place. The very concept of ER, to which F. Nietzsche also arrived, seems intuitively obvious and easily observable in everyday life as well.
All Paths are good for those who suit them) The main thing is to find one that suits you. And Gurdjieff, undoubtedly, is a great Master. As for the ‘Eternal Return,’ in my opinion, it can be said with the well-known phrase: ‘every lesson is repeated until it is learned.’
Enmerkar, thank you. How necessary is a Master for development, or is independent work possible?
Of course, independent work is possible.
One evening, while Sitiro Kodzyun was reading sutras, a thief with a sharp sword came in and demanded either money or life. Sitiro said to him: ‘Do not disturb me, you can take some money from this box.’ And he continued his reading. After some time he stopped and said: ‘Do not take it all. I need a little money to pay taxes tomorrow.’ The uninvited guest took most of the money and was about to leave. ‘When someone gives you a gift, you should thank,’ added Sitiro. The man thanked him and left. A few days later, he was caught, and among others, he confessed to the crime against Sitiro. When Sitiro was called as a witness, he said: ‘This man is not a thief, at least in relation to me. I gave him money, and he thanked me for it.’ After the prison term ended, the man came to Sitiro and became his disciple.
Hello everyone. I’m not a fan of studying local systems, but I somewhat understand that they are all creations of local minds. Although I can’t state this with certainty. In general, I have a different understanding. And my understanding over this time has formed in that the matrix (which, as you probably know, is created by the Keeper of the Origin) is our essence. You just need to accept yourself entirely with your strengths and weaknesses. Here you are bustling about, but why? No, I understand that consciousness requires food, and you will always seek something within yourself or outside, this search will never stop. And we are only reasoning about the local matrix of local consciousness, but if we start to study the matrix of the Sphere… I recently asked one of the Seraphims about studying the hierarchy of consciousness, and do you know what he replied? Having understood the degrees of study upwards of one of the levels, we begin the study of the reverse side, the ladder of consciousness downwards. And only having understood its reverse side do we transition to a new level and everything starts again. This process is infinite. Good luck.