The ego has one purpose and one purpose only. That is to help you survive. Survival is its only goal. The ego is that force inside of you that does whatever it can however it can to stay alive. When you are born, it is the force that makes you cry when you need something, that demands attention, that gets scared when you sense that you may be in trouble. Trouble can come in many forms and the ego cannot decipher between real and imagined and so to the ego all forms of trouble can spell death, and so it panics. The ego is that part of you that panics, has anxiety, gets scared, that fights, that worries. It is solely a survival mechanism.
OK, survival is the goal and that means survival of the body, of course, because the ego doesn’t know about any other version of you. The ego is not aware that you are not this body, and in fact, is damn certain that this body is all you are. The ego has no concept of a beingness or a Mind outside of itself. All it knows is this one individual that it thinks is you. So no wonder then it so rabidly protects what it thinks it owns. You.
In this mindset the ego feels very justified in putting itself first, protecting you because after all, who else is going to do it? Another ego? No. Someone who loves you? No. What is love to an ego but two egos sharing the same fears, worries, and survival needs. An unhealthy alliance. The ego has been your best friend for a long time. How else would you have survived childhood, right?
So, then, if the ego’s whole role is survival, the ego does what any good business would do. It must create a market for its product. It must create need. For without need, you would dump the ego like yesterday’s trash. If you knew and understood that you were ok, that you were safe and sound, and loved, that you were protected by a power that created the Universe and that nothing could possibly hurt you because you are a Mind, would you need your ego? Would you still want it?
But what if knowing this Force was your true survival manager also meant that you weren’t you? That the body you think you are is not you but that instead you were the SAME as everyone else? Everyone else- I mean all the “bad” bodies and the “pretty” bodies and the “fat” bodies and the “kind” bodies because, good or bad, One Mind really means One. The body is a cloak for the Mind that exists outside of the ego’s playground of bodies. So what I am saying is, if you had the choice between being you “your name” and being One person equal to all others, which sounds more attractive? Clearly the ego is saying you. That is the ego’s product. That is its business- keeping you “alive”. So for the ego to stay in business it must convince you that A) you are just a body and that other bodies can hurt you, B) that you can die and you should be very afraid of that and C) that your strength and power come from this bag of skin and bones. The ego needs you to be afraid. The ego needs you to believe your safety lies in what you see, and what you see is a factor of what you believe is true. So this is the ego’s business then. Fear and worry, concern and bodies, being first and #1, being better than other bodies. This is not only the ego’s business but it is also now our business because we don’t realize, we forget, that we are not an ego. The line gets blurred. Where the ego ends and we begin is no longer tangible. We think we are what we think we are.
What does this lead to but a never ending quest of goals that distract us from living in peace. Since the goal is survival, then the secondary goals all relate to this primary goal. So the goal of being fit, exercising, and looking pretty are really about avoiding death by diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. We justify our ego ideals of looking like a really nice body with the “facts” that bodies will break down faster if they over eat and don’t exercise. We work hard to make more money to support the body and other bodies that we create, to help pay the bills, to keep ourselves at a status equal to other bodies. And we make up situations that really kick in the ego’s business- disease and death. Cancer, viruses, car accidents. What would the ego do without these fears and concerns? When we are fighting for our bodily life, we are really giving the ego a work out! Cancer feeds the ego’s business model perfectly. While we fight to survive, everyone around us watches the fight and fears for their own life. People change behaviors to avoid the same fate. The ego’s pyramid scheme at work.
All of this drama, all of the problems, from disease and sickness, to relationships falling apart, to war, is all about making one business profitable. The ego.
We are born fighting for life, and depending how vicious our chosen birth story was, we may be fighting from day one. We may lose our sense of self. We may have it beaten out of us or we may become so buried in grief and shame that our ego can’t tell the difference between real fear and imagined so its sees death at every turn. And maybe some of us feel so overcome and let down by life that suicide seems like a better choice. Suicide to survive appears like an option because even the ego can’t protect me here. Maybe I should just go, you think. If this is all there is, then I don’t want any part of it.
But I believe that this is where the great decision for healing happens. It is at this point where the soul knows A) it cannot possibly get worse than this and B) there MUST be a better way- a better way out, a better way to live, there must be another way of seeing this and C) why would God let this happen to me if God is an all loving and all forgiving Father. Therefore, C tells us that indeed there must be another way because this isn’t God’s plan and God does not create pain and suffering. So what am I missing here? Clearly there is a hole in the ego’s business plan.
OK, so we have established there there is really only one evil empire in the world of humanity- the ego. This is the only business in town. Knowing that, at last now we know who or what we are dealing with. It isn’t an array of seemingly endless problems. It is only one problem. That I believe I am a body. That I believe this body is separate and alone, an individual, that must survive at all cost, at the cost of others and that everyone else is out to get me. That is the business of “The Borg” of life.
This means we want to quit being a player or an employee in the ego’s business. We want to try the other Company. We want the truth. There is nothing to survive. There is nothing to fight for. The solution is the understanding and practice, the realization that all of the drama and sadness was created simply was a swap for the ego’s lies. But it was never the truth. When you stop playing the ego’s game, the illusion falls away like a heavy dust after a rain. God’s mist washes away the false sad imitation painting of the glorious real masterpiece underneath. What was hiding right in front of us all along. We were always in the presence of love and peace but we forgot who we were. Because we were fighting so hard to survive as a state that was not real.
Step back from the battlefield, look at it with a new vision. If God created me and God is in my mind and my mind and God’s are one, then who made this mess we call life? Who made this strife and anguish? If not God. Then who? We made it up. In our intense fear and self loathing, which took over our thoughts, we projected out a world that matched what we thought we were. We needed this world. It was part of survival. Remember the ego’s business is to stay alive but for the ego’s business to thrive, it needs to sell you a product and that product is near death, so we created near death everywhere we look, on the news, in our lives, to establish indeed that we need the ego. It is our ADT, our Brink’s security. It says- hey- if you drop me, you won’t be safe anymore, I can’t protect you if you drop me. And we get scared so we go running back.
The answer is to say to that voice- that’s right, I don’t need you. You aren’t protecting shit. In fact, you are making all the messes you are supposed to be protecting me from! You are causing all the problems!
I can imagine the conversation:
Ego- hey we’re having a 2 for 1 special this week. Noticed you’ve been worried about employment and retirement security since the conversation with the guy on the plane yesterday. We can cover both for ya.
Me- You are so observant. No thanks. I’m good. Not worried about either.
Ego- are you sure? I can throw in relationship security too. I see that belly role on the top of those yoga pants and hasn’t it been twice your partner has mentioned your teeth needing braces? Sounds like she’s worried about living with a hillbilly in a few years. Menopause just around the corner. You really ought to consider these things. I can double down and make sure you never ever worry about anything...
When we stop investing in the ego, we begin to stop projecting the fears that are making the life we see going on out there. What is going on out there in the world will have a different meaning. Because in God’s business, the product is Love. Love and Peace. And when we invest in this business, the Mind remembers what it truly is and who created it. We can step back and look at each person, not as an individual ego, but as a brother or sister sharing the same Mind we are, struggling with the same battle we are, and trying to change companies, like we are. All we can have is compassion because we know what it is like to fear the change. We know what it is like to see a world out there and not want to be in it but not know how to get out.
Everyone of us has to make this decision to see their true self-worth and to choose God as the better way. Everyone has to come to the recognition that there is a better way and that they could see peace instead of this. Even though we are all One and all created from the same Mind, we, in our effort to hide from the fear, have made billions of fragments of us. We separated out to make finding the truth even harder. Slowly we are coming back together. The shards of glass from the broken mirror will come back together into one beautiful image that reflects the perfect unity of us. We are tired and have been playing this game too long.
The solution then is to see that there is one problem and so one solution. The solution is to change teachers, or change minds. The solution is to first realize what you have been doing, that is, that you want to be separate and that you don’t want to be like everyone else. And then to say to yourself, I no longer want to believe this way. I no longer want to feel separated. Because that separation you feel that appears in the form, in the symbol, of other bodies, really is the reflection of your separation from the One and Only Source of life: God. The hiding out is hiding from God. The scares and sicknesses are attempts to blame God for the dream you created. So stop fighting what is true and let vision come back to you.
If you believe you are in this world you believe you are a body. That is ok. The next step is to know that even as a body, I don’t have to play the ego’s game. I can still Love - all equally and I can express love without the ego’s interpretation. I can give ego-less Love to my brother/sister minds and shift my mind to one that shares the Love that I am and in doing so, we will all awaken from our dreams and see that we are nestled at home with our Father, God.
