Firm and Correct: Freedom and the Death of Ego

The greatest challenge we face in following a path of mindfulness and the recovery of the true self is in the resistance we encounter as we expel the force of ego from our lives. Ego cannot be treated with kid gloves; it must be starved of the nourishment it derives from our life force; it must be deprived of the oxygen of our being. In short, it must be killed.

The death of ego is rarely, if ever, swift and painless. It fights, it weeps, it suffers, it cries out in an agony of reproach. It dies darkly and savagely, a parasite to the end, greedily sucking the energy of our true self, even as it fades and drops away. When a parasite dies, the host will feel that death and its pain, even if it is aware that this death will become a gateway to fresh and abundant life.

So killing ego requires commitment and dedication — what the I Ching refers to repeatedly as “being firm and correct.” As we proceed, ego will pull out all its stops to preserve its place within us — it will arise in dreams, howl suddenly at us in our meditations, and jab at us with back-of-the-mind accusations, recriminations, and always, doubts. Even as we hear these plaintive or panic-stricken voices within us, we must persevere.

One way of persevering in our mission of killing ego and silencing its voice of guilt, regression, and recrimination is to recall to ourselves its failures. In this, crisis and adversity can actually be our ally. I’ll offer my personal experience as an illustration.

The global economic crisis had the same effect on me as it had for millions of Americans: I lost my job and faced a long and difficult struggle with unemployment, which is now nearly a year old. The adversity gave me an opportunity to see, with greater clarity than I ever have, the complete and recurring failure of ego. I saw, in clearer relief than ever before, my personal history as one of accepting the lies that the collective ego had always told me — that if I played the game by its rules, followed orders obediently, and sacrificed my true nature to its ideals, its institutions, its beliefs — then I would be rewarded with a position within the collective, material comfort, and a secure future. Sound familiar?

Looking back from my present position of joblessness and loss, I realized that I had accepted these lies recurrently throughout my adult life. I had been suckered again and again by the collective, and the fallout seemed to worsen with every denouement. So while the deceit came from the Janus-faced corporations, the cultural conditioning, and their media promoters, the ignorance was mine alone.

Indeed, one of ego’s favorite tricks that it plays when under scrutiny or attack will be to remind you of your ignorance, and fault you for it. These are those accusatory tones you hear in the darkness, saying, “I told you this was a bad project, but you didn’t listen — if you hadn’t been such an ignorant fool we would have landed better.” This voice will play like a broken record or a self-looping tape, for as long as you allow it to. Much of the work of killing ego is shutting that tape down.

Again, this is where the final verdict of adversity can tilt the balance in your favor. I finally realized, in the depth of the worst and longest stint of joblessness and loss of my lifetime, that I could turn off that tape and free myself. I could truthfully say, “I have played ego’s game for decades now; followed it rules; banked on its promises; given it my energy and devotion — and it has repeatedly and thoroughly failed. Now the time has come to give my true self the chance to improve upon that record — this is only fair.”

I also realized that I could call upon the Sage within me and the helping energies of the universe to lead me out of ego’s trap, and solidify my psychological protective field such that I would never be fooled again. I could now, without regret, turn over the leadership of my life and being to those guiding energies within and around me. I could now tell ego that its game was up and that it was time for a new direction. Therefore, at the end of 2009, I was able to write this message to the corporate ego:

So I have chosen to stop seeking you, to stop courting you. I have bent my knees at your door long enough; completed thousands of your forms; opened myself to your pimps and let them answer me with suspicion or ignorance. I am tired of your game; I cannot play anymore.

This, again, is the meaning of the phrase, “it furthers to be firm and correct,” which is found throughout the I Ching. The liberating sense of freedom that results from being “firm and correct” with ego immeasurably outweighs any reward or superficial security that the collective ego could afford you. This, in any event, has been my experience.

I should add a couple of provisos to all of this: first, dispersing ego from your life, even in its collective or corporate dimensions, does not disqualify you from society. One of ego’s final cries of warning will be to this effect: “you’ll be isolated without my protection and help!” This is just another lie: you will not lose your place in society, but will simply be drawn into a different and more welcome company.

Second: ego does not “die” in the conventional understanding of that term. That is, it does not drop into non-existence and get buried away in a box under the earth, though it may very much “go underground.” To clear ego from within yourself does not remove it from your culture, and so it will always be hovering, pressing, seeking a fresh opening. Fortunately, protecting yourself from a new invasion of ego is not a matter of constant vigilance, but rather of awareness, a calm and orderly process of self-maintenance. The renewal of awareness and the freshening energies of your psychological life that arise from the dispersal of ego will make it easier than ever to repel new invasions. You need never again feel yourself under siege from the dark and life-restrictive consciousness of ego.