That Insipid Ego
One of my core goals in recent years is ridding myself of ego. This journey started as a yogi when my meditation finally reached deep enough that I experienced that moment when my sense of ego completely disappeared. Most yogis describe this moment as euphoric, melting into the universal consciousness, experiencing the divine, and it’s part of the reason that yogis often describe divinity as “the universe.” However, considering my goals as a Christian, melting and giving up my ego fits in perfectly. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah that, “the heart of man is wicked and beyond repair.” Beyond repair means we are in need of a heart replacement, and God is absolutely willing to give us just that through the Holy Spirit, but it requires giving our ego away completely.
Examples of my wicked heart are easy to come by. I honestly love making extreme statements and my wife is very sick of how many favorite things I have and how I can declare so many mundane things terrible. Basically, strong opinions are fun. In yoga, we see these opinions as attachments. If I love something, then I’m attached to it and removal of said thing will bring me pain so true self love would be letting go of my attachment. On the flipside, disliking something means its presence brings pain, but I probably have no power to choose whether it is present in my life so, again, true self love would be giving up my attachment to its absence. Opinions are attachments and part of the pursuit of the yogi is to give up all of those attachments. Attachments are expressions of my ego.
I find the pursuit of forgoing my ego one of the most fulfilling parts of my life. Recently, however, I had an interesting experience around it. I had posted some well wishes to another person on social media that I didn’t think were connected to my ego at all. Right afterwards, my wife gave me her interpretation and stated how she felt that my ego was involved. Instantaneously, I felt defensive which, upon consideration, is fascinating. What do I have to defend? I’m defending my lack of ego, in that message. This leads me to think that I view lack of ego as part of my ego. What a rabbit hole. As a result, I’m not sure exactly where I should go to combat this. I will, obviously, continue to pursue ridding myself of ego but also need to be aware that I still have ego, which is a weakness, and also that my attempt to rid myself of it is not a benefit to myself, but a natural consequence, and so doesn’t make me a better person, meaning there’s no need to defend it. This is overly complicated so I went to other sources for advice.
The biggest aspect of this which is helpful to me it all that is began with words. I was actually attempting to convey a message to another person without ego and became defensive when another person had a different view of that message. Both the stoics and Christianity bring useful advice on that note.
When considering words, my favorite stoic (though he’s technically a precursor to the stoics) is Diogenes. I love his advice, “Always say less than necessary.” So there should always be two checks when saying anything. First, is this a necessary message? If it is necessary that the message be shared, then secondly, should I actually say it? In this case, it was easy enough to delete the message before others saw it and acknowledge that my wife was likely right that I didn’t need to share that message. However, this brings two questions. 1. If I say so little, will I actually take part in community or simply be cut off from those I love? 2. What messages are actually worth saying? These questions are more easily attacked within Christianity.
Jesus gave us a few commands about the way we speak. First, he constantly taught us to pray, how to pray, and that prayer should be continual. Therefore, logorrhea is absolutely allowed as long as we’re talking directly to the Creator. Not only is it allowed but encouraged, so there is no ego in considering whether we should speak to God about anything at anytime. The answer is simply yes. When talking with others, Jesus himself gives very little direction. He is very clear, in multiple places that we should love one another and be at peace with one another. Anything we say exactly to those ends, then, is without ego. In the great commission, He also told us to make disciples of all nations, baptize all nations, and teach them to obey everything He has commanded us. So we also have free reign to speak, without ego about Christ and all of his teachings. That’s the complete laundry list.
Bringing together the stoics with the teaching of Jesus leaves a very short list of things we can say and trust that we have no ego. The entire list of necessary things that we should share with other people are: messages of love and peace, and messages about Christ and his teachings. And everything else should be shared directly with God, and not others. Lastly, if I’m unsure whether to share, there’s always the Diogenes filter.
To a talker like me, this is a difficult lesson, and one I expect I’ll deal with for the rest of my life. It’s a good think this pursuit is fulfilling as the finishing line is still far away.