The Function Of The Ego In Relationship To The Real Self

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my dearest, dearest friends. Blessings and guidance are extended to every one of you so that you each find your path easier and you reach the goal with less struggle and resistance.

What is the goal? The goal, as far as man is concerned, can only be one thing, and that is becoming his real self. We approach this facet from many areas and angles.

Tonight I wish to discuss the inner self versus the outer self, or the real self versus the ego. What is their mutual relationship with each other? Much confusing theory exists about the function of the ego. There are those who say, or at least imply, that the ego is essentially negative and undesirable, and that the spiritual goal is to get rid of the ego. And there are those, particularly in psychoanalytic thinking, who say that the ego is important. The scientific view is that where there is no ego, there cannot be mental health. These are two entirely opposing views. Which one is correct and which one is false? Perhaps this lecture will shed some light on this important question.

Even if you do not happen to think about such confusions because they do not consciously occur to you, they nevertheless blur your vision and hinder you from reaching the important goal of your self-realization.

Let us briefly recapitulate the essence of the real self. The inner person is an integral part of nature. It is bound to the laws of nature, and to distrust this innermost self is therefore unreasonable, for nature can be wholly trusted. If nature becomes man's enemy it is only because man does not understand its laws. The inner self, or the real self, is nature, it is life, it is creation. It is even more correct to state it this way than to say that it is a part of nature or creation . The real self and creation, or nature, are one and the same.

Whenever man functions out of his real self, he is in truth, he is in joy. The most creative and constructive contributions to life come from that inner self. Everything that is great and generous, everything that is life expanding, beautiful, and wise comes from the inner, or real, self. We have said this many times, and it cannot be emphasized often enough, even in your own meditations. Trying to understand this truth, not only in your mind but in your feelings, is essential.

Now then, my friends, if this is so, what is the function of the ego, of the outer levels of personality? These are the levels that are more accessible to you and that you are more acutely aware of: it is that in you which thinks, acts, discriminates, and decides. The person whose ego has not sufficiently grown, whose ego is weak, is incapable of mastering, or of coping with, life. And he whose ego is overgrown and overemphasized cannot come to the real self. In other words, either extreme must hinder man from reaching the real self. Man's problems and conflicts are always a result of either too big an ego or too small an ego.

It cannot be said that one person has too big an ego and another too small or too weak an ego. Although this is so at times, as the presentation of an overall picture, most often it rather happens that an imbalance exists: that one and the same person has an underdevelopment. In this way nature tries to re-establish balance. The over-development may be an attempt on the part of nature to straighten out the disturbance resulting from too weak an ego. Disturbance of harmony does not exist because of the attempt to re-establish it, but rather because of the original over-emphasis or under-emphasis, whatever the case may be.

It is a fact that only when the ego is sufficiently developed can it be adequately dispensed with, whereas so long as it is not developed, it cannot be dispensed with. Now, this may sound like a contradiction, my friends, but it is not. For if the ego is underdeveloped, your not being in possession of a strong and healthy ego, and wanting to make a virtue out of this lack, is a weakness, an evasion, which can only produce more weakness and lack. Anything that leads to the abundance of the true nature of life must happen out of abundance. So long as the ego is not strong enough, you lack something. You lack that faculty of your outer self that is necessary in order to think, discriminate, decide, and act adequately, as you must when you deal in those dimensions that correspond to the ego.

Anyone who strives to reach his real self, to reach that stage of spiritual development, by pushing away the development of a healthy ego does so out of poverty. He does not yet own his outer self. Perhaps he knows that his outer self, or his ego, is in the last stages of being necessary. So he tries to skip the stage of creating a healthy ego -- out of laziness, or because he finds it difficult to do so -- and therefore hopes that this vital step can simply be avoided. But this error, like all errors, is costly. He actually delays reaching the goal. Only when man is fully in possession of his outer self, his ego, can he then dispense with it and reach his real self.

This is a law. It is a logical law, for then man acts out of strength and abundance, not out of weakness, need, and poverty. Only when you are in possession of a strong and healthy ego -- one not overgrown, not over-emphasized -- can you use this ego in order to transcend it. Only when the ego is healthy and strong can you know that it is not the final answer, the final realm of being. You then use it in order to pass it, to transcend it, to reach a further state of consciousness.

To put it in very practical terms, in your work on this path you learn -- for instance, through your meditations -- to use all the faculties of your ego in order to reach beyond it. What you absorb from outside must first pass through your ego faculties. You first reach out with your ego faculties, you first use them in order to state truths that you later experience on a deeper level of consciousness.

There are human beings who do not realize that there is anything beyond the ego, whose final goal is to become a strong ego -- whether or not they think about it in just those terms. This may lead to the distortion of an overdeveloped ego. This is a dead-end street, for the goal is based on a false assumption. It is much too limited in scope and possibilities, so that a person who has set such a goal, instead of transcending and passing by this stage, uses his ego faculties, that are supposed to help him transcend his ego, in just the opposite way, namely to over-aggrandize his ego.

You have to reach a certain state and fully be in that state before you can abandon it for a further state. This law is extremely important to understand, my friends, It is often overlooked and, even more often, totally ignored. The importance of this law has not been made clear enough to mankind, in spite of many spiritual and psychological teachings. This is one of the great, important laws for man to know and deeply comprehend.

In a variant form, the essence of this very law is closely related to the topic chosen for tonight: The function of the ego in relationship to the real self. The real self knows that the universe has no limitations, that in truth and final reality absolute perfection does exist and is attainable for each individual; that unlimited expansion of faculties and forces in the universe as well as in the individual makes this perfection possible. When man becomes his real self, hid God self, he becomes master over all existing laws. Even if he has never heard of such philosophies, this is the final reality he deeply senses and yearns for. His innermost psyche, his innermost self, sends forth this ultimate fate of his life and his being, this potential expansion.

The little child at birth does not yet possess an ego. Without the ego, it is possible to perceive this message from the real self quite clearly. But without the ego, the meaning of the message must be distorted. You have all not only heard from psychological orientations and teaching but your have found and experienced within yourself the childish striving for perfection, for omnipotence, for pleasure supreme: the ultimate bliss that knows no lack, no unfulfillment or frustration.

When there is no ego, these strivings are unrealistic, even destructive. You have all experienced in your pathwork that you first have to shed these desires or strivings before you can come to them anew and realize them.

In other words, every one of you, my friends, who is on this path has to come to terms with the fact that he has limitations as a human being before he can perceive that he has an unlimited amount of power at his disposal. You all have to accept your own imperfections, as well as life's imperfections, before you can experience the fact that absolute perfection is your destiny and that you must ultimately realize it. But you can only comprehend and come to it after you have shed the childish distortion of this knowledge, which stems from a lack of ego. You all have to learn to let go of the desire for pleasure supreme and make do with limited pleasure before you can comprehend that absolute pleasure is your ultimate destiny. Making do with less is an acceptance of this reality, of this dimension, and this is a function of the ego faculties. Only when your ego deals adequately with the realm in which your personality, your body, now lives can you deeply comprehend your real faculties, your potentials, and your possibilities.

When I speak of the ultimate aim of perfection, of limitless power, of pleasure supreme, I do not mean that this realization will occur in a distant future when you no longer possess a body. I do not speak of this state in terms of time but in terms of quality: it could happen at any moment, at the moment you awaken to truth. Awakening to truth is possible when you have first found and then let go of the childish distortions of the message of utter perfection, utter power, and utter pleasure. In the underdeveloped ego, these desires are not only illusory, they are selfish and destructive. They have to be abandoned before they can be attained.

This is the very same law that stipulates that working out of abundance produces abundance, whereas working out of poverty and need produces more poverty and more need. The weak ego considers itself annihilated when its wishes for omnipotence remain unfulfilled. Therefore, the wish is negative. The healthy, strong ego knows the reality of being and understands that this state may not yet be realizable because of existing obstructions to the real self. The weak ego will clutch at its own laws and conditions and thereby will distort the greater laws. Out of need and weakness it forgoes the strength and the fullness that come when ego faculties deal adequately with the immediate now and thereby transcend this immediate now.

My dearest friends, this lecture is of very great importance to all of you. It may be an important key not only to clear away the confusion regarding apparent contradiction in philosophical ideas about life, but, what is even more important, you may find it a very essential key to your own development. It may facilitate a letting go that can happen only when there is trust in this innermost self as an integral part of such a trustworthy nature and creation.

When you feel and experience this, you will not fear, and therefore you will not overemphasize, your ego faculties. Nor will you leave important underdeveloped ego faculties to slumber untended.

Are there any questions, first regarding this topic?

QUESTION: Am I right in thinking that to be in a state of reality would be eventually an equivalent to being in a state of godhood?

ANSWER: Yes, of course. But when this state is sought artificially, because the task of developing the ego seems to become too great, then it is an erroneous way. The ego must be mastered. When I say "the ego," I mean everything that it has to deal with. Let us take an example. In a distorted view, the life of the outer man is often hard. Man has to work hard, he has to struggle for his subsistence and his survival. Distortion and misconception have brought man to this stage unnecessarily. At the same time man dreams of a state, which he will eventually find, where struggle no longer exists, where only bliss exists. An attempt to escape the struggle would be an erroneous way to strive for this state. The struggle corresponds to the ego. Only after the struggle has been positively accepted will it prove superfluous, and work and pleasure will become one. But evading work, because of the struggle, leaves important potentials in the psyche and the ego untended, unexplored. After such acceptance, an individual discovers the truth of the end of tediousness in daily survival relatively quickly. It is then that he realizes the God-like state to some degree, at least regarding daily struggle.

QUESTION: About the over-developed and under-developed parts of the ego: Would over-activity be a result of an over-developed ego, while passivity, in an unhealthy manner, would be a result of an under-developed ego?

ANSWER: Yes, that is correct. The functions of the ego further the state of becoming, whereas the real self is the state of being. Of course, from man's vantage point there is the misunderstanding that the state of being means no activity, whereas in fact activity is within the state of being. Activity and passivity blend as one harmonious cosmic movement.

QUESTION: Where I am unable to let go of my selfwill and therefore trust in God, that is where my ego is over-developed. Where I fear self-responsibility that is where my ego is under-developed. Is that correct?

ANSWER: Indeed. Where you do not dare to make your own decisions, where you lean on ready-made rules, there your ego is not sufficiently developed. And here you have a very good illustration of what I spoke of in this lecture: Because of one distortion, an opposite distortion is created. Because your ego is under-developed in those areas, something in you tries to attain the selfhood that you simultaneously deny when you refuse self-choice and self-responsibility. Since the entire process occurs in blindness, in lack of awareness, you choose the wrong way of attaining selfhood, namely selfwill. Concomitantly, your deep psyche feels that there should be a loosening up, and the clutching becomes a strain. You seek, in turn, this loosening up, again, in the wrong way, by not taking hold of your ego in making your own decisions. You rather choose to do what you are told in blind obedience to rules.

QUESTION: I find it very difficult to let go of the dependency I feel toward any person, possibly representing my father and mother. I have been quite aware of this. But what you said tonight about the reluctance of letting go, the childish desire for omnipotence, the dream for pleasure supreme -- all this seems to me to be an important factor. I don't think I realized this sufficiently until today. Could you perhaps explain to me how these two act together, making it difficult for me to let go?

ANSWER: Now, of course, it is very important that in your work you find specifically in what areas you do not wish to give up omnipotence, pleasure supreme, and the ease which the spirit longs for, where hardship does not exist, with all its apparent difficulty of assuming responsibility because it still seems a burden to you. You believe, in a corner of your being, that the childish state, with no adult responsibility, can be maintained by simply insisting that your parents continue to care for you. During your self-observation you must find in what specific ways this manifests in your emotional reactions.

Then, as I said earlier, the connection is something deep inside of you that clamors to have all of its childish wishes fulfilled. You do not want to give up any of these wishes, not comprehending on that level that in this form the wishes are unfulfillable. At the same time, on an equally deep inner level, you fear the consequences of this weakness and dependency. Therefore, as a weak and dependent person -- inwardly -- how can you afford to let go? For the only way you appear strong in your own concept of yourself is by insisting, by not giving in and letting go. The weakness creates fear, and fear generates distrust. Therefore, you cannot let go and give yourself up to the universal flow that will bring you into that state where the higher self attains these wishes on a different level. And therefore you must first determine to become a strong, self-responsible "ego" that is mature enough on all levels to determine to give up the childish version of essentially realizable wishes. Of course, I emphasize that I speak of this inner level, and not of you as a whole and outer person, for there are many levels where you are mature and self-responsible. Beware of the feeling of resignation that says that you can never have any of that. Know that you can. You will come to realize that when you give up the perfect dream even what you have now will be so much better, so much more pleasurable. Meditate and pronounce the words that you truly wish to give in, but without resignation, in a positive spirit that accepts that good possibilities are waiting, even though the rigid, childish version is abandoned.

Part of this maturing process lies in establishing clearly and specifically in what way you have caused a specific hardship or a difficulty in your life. When meditation such as this is used, you will see that you become strong. You will then trust yourself. As you do so, this innermost self becomes a reality. Being part of life and creation, you will trust them all. Your distrust prevents you from giving yourself up, from letting yourself be. You must distrust yourself if you refuse to become a strong enough ego that deals adequately with the immediate issues around you. Do you now understand the connection?

QUESTION: I understand it, it is very clear. But isn't it a long way one has to go? One wants a certain experience, a certain pleasure, or a certain power; must I accommodate myself to the present circumstances, or can I reach out for whatever I want?

ANSWER: Yes, you can, and certainly you should reach out. But you can adequately reach out only if you trust that it can happen, and if you let it happen. But you want to do it with your outer ego deficiencies. That is where the ego cannot adequately serve you. This is a gross misunderstanding of the functions of the ego. You use your ego where it cannot serve you and you refuse to use it where it must serve you. You want to attain that pleasure with the limited scope and vision of the ego, with its limited possibilities, rather than through letting nature, life, and creation bring it to you in their own way. But you do not trust, because you do not let go. And you can only let go of this part of your ego when you have understood these things and when you use the ego faculties in their proper way -- for example, in stepping aside and claiming that different higher functions fulfill their role for you. When this interplay is learned and lived with, self-trust grows, and positive chain reactions between ego, real self, and universal forces are therefore set in motion.

When you reach into the ego world with your ego faculties, you limit yourself. The reaching out into the universe must be done upon a decision of the ego, but not with ego limitations. This is where you must abandon the ego and reach into another realm. This was the essence of this lecture. This giving up of the ego can happen only when you fully possess it.

QUESTION: Isn't the ego connected with selfwill?

ANSWER: Indeed. False ideas, as well as selfwill, are naturally a result of the ego world, and not of the real self. But it is also the faculty of the ego to give up both. Only the ego can do so. The ego is necessary in order to change its own mind and intent. It is necessary in order to understand that it has a false idea, that it does not have to operate on selfwill. It is up to the ego to either maintain or abandon these destructive facets. The ego alone is capable of exchanging the false idea for a truthful one. This means letting go of a tense, anxious selfwill, and replacing it with a relaxed, free-flowing, flexible will based on a discriminating reasoning power, and it means calling upon the intuitive levels of the self to make the choice for the higher inner guidance of the real self.

QUESTION: I cannot visualize how the law of karma and heredity works and how the process of birth takes place. The baby, being born, and the soul -- does the soul exist before the baby is born? How does that work?

ANSWER: Perhaps the best way for you to perceive these principles would be to think that the human body is a direct result of the personality which, of course, exists prior to the baby's birth. The personality's thinking, attitudes, emotions, and actions -- all of these have their result, their effects. The body with its environment, the life and the life situations, the personal "fate" are all effects of the mentality and the personality and the character. Not only your body, but your life conditions are a result of what you are. If you look at the question from this point of view, you will avoid a great deal of confusion. Karmic law, heredity, and specific conditions of birth are then no longer a problem. You may now perceive that the body is built by forces outside the personality. This creates confusion because such thinking occurs in a spirit of duality, rather than in a spirit of unity, where you would perceive that you, your body, your country, as well as every other factor in your life, is an immediate result of yourself.

QUESTION: It is difficult to feel that.

ANSWER: Of course. You must not try to force such a feeling. It will come by itself if you shelve this problem now, as far as feeling it is concerned. The more you comprehend cause and effect in your immediate life -- in areas where you may still be blind in this respect -- the more must the scope of inner experience of the real self as the central cause of its life extend and eventually prevail.

All of my friends still overlook very immediate links of cause and effect: How you forfeit the results you wish; the patterns and attitudes that create certain undesirable conditions in your immediate life. As long as there is a veil over these specific links between cause and effect, it is impossible to feel the identical law governing wider time span on a larger scale.

QUESTION: I suffer from occasional heart palpitations that have no organic cause. I have found in my work that this is due to repressed guilt. Is there self-punishment involved?

ANSWER: Yes. It is self-punishment, fear of punishment, and at the same time fear of and resistance to giving up that which causes the guilt in the first place. You have made good progress in your work. Now, if you uncover a level in which you do not want to give up any of the facets that create guilt, you will experience and you will have a profound understanding of your basic problem. Self-punishment is a substitute for giving up the guilt-producing attitudes. By doing so, you unconsciously believe that it is possible to maintain these attitudes and yet absolve yourself through the guilt. Therefore, you go on punishing yourself, believing that this makes up for not giving up the destructive patterns. If you say often enough how bad you are, if you suffer enough from your guilt, then you feel that you still are a nice person, in spite of maintaining what is, in actuality, of no conceivable advantage to you and to others. The specific realization of this level will come to the degree that you truly wish to find it. Your ego faculties will help you to shed the guilt-producing patterns. Even if something in you doubts, you may do so in the understanding that at any time you have the right to reassume them, should you so desire. This will strengthen your ego and you will succeed. You will no longer be a helpless prey, but you will take hold of yourself by using your ego in its proper way.

Bring your personal problems to the question and answer session where we can go into them more deeply. You will surely profit from such participation, my friends.

All the blessings are extended to every one of you. These blessings are a reality that transcends and envelops you. They are the universal love, responding to your valiant efforts of self-exposure. Be in peace, be in God.

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
March 19, 1965

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