“Some spiritual seekers mistakenly understand the process of freeing the ego from all its “possessions” as killing or destroying the ego.
Just as survival is the primary instinct of all nature, so the ego will try to survive at all costs. If you threaten it, you will not accomplish your spiritual purpose. If you starve it indiscriminately, you will not succeed either.
You, the soul, need the cooperation of your ego. The problem is not in having an ego — you cannot realize yourself without it — but in the way you relate to it on your spiritual path.
Until the ego becomes your friend and ally, it is like a child raised on processed food. You cannot force your ego to eat healthily overnight. The ultimate purpose of your ego is to become your vehicle toward freedom and God. And you must wean it off junk food, allow it to fast so that it may cleanse itself of toxins, and feed it with true “spiritual nourishment.”
Remember that the ego is the self-defining intelligence of your consciousness. Until you nourish it properly with wisdom born of experience, it cannot identify with Spirit. The more you learn to act as your spiritual Self, instead of empowering the whims of the ego, the more you will help it to free itself and turn it into your vehicle toward true spiritual freedom.
Michael Tamura, You Are the Answer, pp. 143–144
There are authors and spiritual teachers who speak of the ego as an enemy, and for a long time this created confusion in me. That is why I gladly share what Michael Tamura has written on this important subject. It is important because it concerns the relationship between the two parts of our Self — the empirical / earthly personality we call the “ego,” and the immortal and eternal part we call the “soul.”
Creativity in our lives unfolds through the right relationship between these two parts. This is also the central idea in the work of Pamela Kribbe, who speaks of the ego as an instrument of the soul. What she wrote in her book helped me, for the first time, to look differently at this “enemy” and to understand what the transition from “a life based on the ego” to “a life based on the heart” actually means.
What Michael Tamura writes further consolidates this understanding:
“My view of the ego, in its purest essence, is that it is the basic self-identifying intelligence of consciousness.
When the human soul was formed as a spark of God, this ego within the soul became ‘self-awareness,’ separated from the totality of awareness.
When we complete our purpose of shaping this ego with wisdom so that it can reunite with the wholeness of our being, it becomes whole and knows itself as a Self within the Whole.
As Jesus said: ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’”
– Michael Tamura, You Are the Answer, p. 135
In understanding how to shape our ego with wisdom so that it may serve the soul, I see the greatest value of Tamura’s book. One of the most important steps in this direction is to nourish the mind with ideas that help us see the “larger picture.” Through our relationship to this larger picture, we can discover a meaning that transcends the limitations of our particular earthly identity.
Such efforts transform the ego-mind: it ceases to identify with transient things from the material world and begins instead to draw its value from the eternal creative essence of Spirit, from which it has arisen. When this happens, the transfer of authority from ego to soul is accomplished. We continue to say “I,” but behind this “I” there stands only the self-aware intelligence.
When we relate to the ego in this way, we are protected from the mistake of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead, we keep the baby and change the way we care for it. Instead of feeding it with thoughts that make it fearful, we begin to nourish it with thoughts that lead to understanding. This understanding, in turn, gives rise to trust in the hidden intelligence of the Whole — of which the ego itself is a part.
Fear begins to dissolve. The joy of creativity emerges.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
