1.
That was the question that was recently asked during a philosophy discussion group. OK, to be honest, the name of the group--it has been in existence for decades--is "Modern Mystics." A student of arts and music but also a student of science as well, I am uncomfortable with the title. I don't know what a mystic is and am not too interested in finding out; if ours is a mystic group, however, we are a strange group of mystics indeed. I belong to two other book discussion groups and two music performance groups, and I must say that without a doubt the mystic one is the most cantankerous group of them all. (All of us, especially the men, have been at fault to varying degrees.) One of the members, a good friend, referred to us in his Christmas card poem (in the shape of a holiday tree) as "a bunch of mystic buffs who levitate through fisticuffs."
I am not sure what the motive was of the member who asked the ego-transcendence question. He is a good man, who does a lot of good things--we are all quite fond of him--but he is arguably the most belligerent member of the group. The question might have been rhetorical, but more likely was asked as a trap--if someone answered that he or she has transcended the ego, I am sure the questioner would retort with something like the Dana Carvey Church Lady's famous ego-smashing comment, "Isn't that special?"
We all kept quiet, having no desire to be levitated through fisticuffs. But I thought about the question, and decided to answer it in this essay. It contains information that I hope will be of use to young and old alike.
Before we discuss ego-transcendence, we must first address what the ego is. I have written at length in previous essays about the origin of the ego, so I will only give a brief summary here. In short, the ego is a fantastic software program during the playing of which the self forgets that it is "merely" pixels among pixels on a screen. When, during the course of evolution, our bodies became sufficiently complex, we began to think of ourselves as more and more separate from our environment. Self-consciousness, a chance byproduct of our genes, provided an enormous improvement in our ability to adapt to the environment, and has been passed on and gradually improved upon by our genes ever since. As most scientists would agree, there is no separation between ourselves and the environment. It is obvious that a sense of, and a belief in, individuality is necessary for our survival as a species. And since there are so many competing individuals, without a considerable degree of "me first" behavior there would soon be no "me" left to seek out the "you." Simone Weil put it beautifully: Those who live by the sword die by the sword; but those who put it down die on the Cross." A good way for a group to disappear is to really turn the other cheek and not just talk about it.
But wait a minute. We are fascinating creations of our genes, not the genes themselves. Good people always appreciate those who act relatively selflessly, and as George Price's scientific formula indicates, there is undoubtedly a genetic component to altruism. And what if someone acts so strongly for the common good as to risk his/her own life? Fowler, in his great book, "Five Stages of Faith," reserves the fifth stage for those who understand religion symbolically, but are not only tolerant as in stage four but are readily willing to face death for a great cause. I cannot imagine a good human being who is not awed by the sacrifice of self for the greater good as exemplified by the likes of Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
However impressed we are by them, we are not able to concede that they have completely transcended their ego. They had weaknesses--a fact, I think, that makes them all the more inspiring.
Has anyone in the history of humanity transcended ego completely? Such is attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, Gautama Siddhartha (the Buddha) and various sages such as India's great twentieth century sage, Ramana Maharshi. Maybe they did, I'm not sure; the records which attribute this transcendence to them were written by followers and are full of historical inaccuracies. (Less so in the case of Ramana Maharshi, since he is roughly a contemporary, and I must say, he seems to have come very close to the transcendent ideal.) My belief is that utter perfection--that is what complete self-transcendence would entail-- is a goal which the line of humanity, as it were, can in some cases come very close to, but never touch. Certainly Jesus of Nazareth is miles ahead of the farthest point on the path than you or I will reach in this lifetime! When individuals like Ramana Maharshi get so close to ego-transcendence, our minds might be unable to appreciate the small distance that remains between the actual and the ideal, and thus convince ourselves that the goal has been reached. This gives those who are so inclined an object of worship. That is how I see it.
Since perfection, if it ever occurs, is rarer than the geniuses we know and love, we get an idea of how inappropriate the question, the title of this essay, is. If our friend had asked, "Has anyone here written better operas than Mozart?" or "Does anyone here write better than Shakespeare?," everyone would realize the fatuousness of the question. The likelihood of a positive--and accurate--response among us to these two questions, though extremely low, is much more likely than a positive--and accurate--response to the ego question, which is virtually impossible.
2.
Although utter transcendence is impossible for the vast majority of us, it can, as I have discussed, be approached. All of us, in fact, could and should come a lot closer to this ideal. We can readily imagine what this ideal would entail as well as we are able to imagine a perfect sphere. So it would help to discuss what mystics have called "self-realization" which I will do now. For the self-realized, there is no separation--the game (lila) of self is what Hindus call maya, illusion. Having gone beyond duality, the 'person" at this stage identifies with the world, nay, has become the whole universe. He or she will indeed turn the other cheek, much as a tree will "turn the other leaf," as it were, to a voracious caterpillar. Now we can appreciate the ridiculousness of the transcendence question. Since the sage has become the world, it is just as likely that another component of the world, say, a stone, would reply. Stones are silent, God is silent, sages are silent.
The question is asked by one individual of another. Having transcended individuality, how could a sage respond? Even we, wordlings that we are, know better. It would be like someone (consciousness) in a house (the body) looking at the world through an open window with utter delight. A neighbor in the next house asks, "Have you overcome the ego?" Saying yes would be like closing the window, getting on a footstool in a rather dark room and telling one's dusky reflection in the mirror, "Oh, I knew it! You're a sage." It is ridiculous enough if a young person exhibits such vanity; in an old person such adolescent self-absorption is truly farcical.
As an older person, I think I am much more practical and much more realistic. It is very difficult to maintain a sense of false pride when one realizes that next year--who knows? one might become an urnfull of ash. My advice to the young and the old is this: forget about idle questions. You will never make progress through chatter. Develop a balanced sense of self--don't ever accept anyone's attempt to make you feel inferior since the aggressor is trying to aggrandize himself and thus find relief from his own sense of inferiority. Develop wisdom and practice compassion. The way to do this was beautifully expressed by Freud: the most important things in life are work and love. Stop all the ego talk! Work as hard as you can at something that you are interested in and in which you, with much effort, can and will develop a just sense of pride. (Make sure it's something that at the very least does no harm.) And love. And love. And love!
That was the question that was recently asked during a philosophy discussion group. OK, to be honest, the name of the group--it has been in existence for decades--is "Modern Mystics." A student of arts and music but also a student of science as well, I am uncomfortable with the title. I don't know what a mystic is and am not too interested in finding out; if ours is a mystic group, however, we are a strange group of mystics indeed. I belong to two other book discussion groups and two music performance groups, and I must say that without a doubt the mystic one is the most cantankerous group of them all. (All of us, especially the men, have been at fault to varying degrees.) One of the members, a good friend, referred to us in his Christmas card poem (in the shape of a holiday tree) as "a bunch of mystic buffs who levitate through fisticuffs."
I am not sure what the motive was of the member who asked the ego-transcendence question. He is a good man, who does a lot of good things--we are all quite fond of him--but he is arguably the most belligerent member of the group. The question might have been rhetorical, but more likely was asked as a trap--if someone answered that he or she has transcended the ego, I am sure the questioner would retort with something like the Dana Carvey Church Lady's famous ego-smashing comment, "Isn't that special?"
We all kept quiet, having no desire to be levitated through fisticuffs. But I thought about the question, and decided to answer it in this essay. It contains information that I hope will be of use to young and old alike.
Before we discuss ego-transcendence, we must first address what the ego is. I have written at length in previous essays about the origin of the ego, so I will only give a brief summary here. In short, the ego is a fantastic software program during the playing of which the self forgets that it is "merely" pixels among pixels on a screen. When, during the course of evolution, our bodies became sufficiently complex, we began to think of ourselves as more and more separate from our environment. Self-consciousness, a chance byproduct of our genes, provided an enormous improvement in our ability to adapt to the environment, and has been passed on and gradually improved upon by our genes ever since. As most scientists would agree, there is no separation between ourselves and the environment. It is obvious that a sense of, and a belief in, individuality is necessary for our survival as a species. And since there are so many competing individuals, without a considerable degree of "me first" behavior there would soon be no "me" left to seek out the "you." Simone Weil put it beautifully: Those who live by the sword die by the sword; but those who put it down die on the Cross." A good way for a group to disappear is to really turn the other cheek and not just talk about it.
But wait a minute. We are fascinating creations of our genes, not the genes themselves. Good people always appreciate those who act relatively selflessly, and as George Price's scientific formula indicates, there is undoubtedly a genetic component to altruism. And what if someone acts so strongly for the common good as to risk his/her own life? Fowler, in his great book, "Five Stages of Faith," reserves the fifth stage for those who understand religion symbolically, but are not only tolerant as in stage four but are readily willing to face death for a great cause. I cannot imagine a good human being who is not awed by the sacrifice of self for the greater good as exemplified by the likes of Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
However impressed we are by them, we are not able to concede that they have completely transcended their ego. They had weaknesses--a fact, I think, that makes them all the more inspiring.
Has anyone in the history of humanity transcended ego completely? Such is attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, Gautama Siddhartha (the Buddha) and various sages such as India's great twentieth century sage, Ramana Maharshi. Maybe they did, I'm not sure; the records which attribute this transcendence to them were written by followers and are full of historical inaccuracies. (Less so in the case of Ramana Maharshi, since he is roughly a contemporary, and I must say, he seems to have come very close to the transcendent ideal.) My belief is that utter perfection--that is what complete self-transcendence would entail-- is a goal which the line of humanity, as it were, can in some cases come very close to, but never touch. Certainly Jesus of Nazareth is miles ahead of the farthest point on the path than you or I will reach in this lifetime! When individuals like Ramana Maharshi get so close to ego-transcendence, our minds might be unable to appreciate the small distance that remains between the actual and the ideal, and thus convince ourselves that the goal has been reached. This gives those who are so inclined an object of worship. That is how I see it.
Since perfection, if it ever occurs, is rarer than the geniuses we know and love, we get an idea of how inappropriate the question, the title of this essay, is. If our friend had asked, "Has anyone here written better operas than Mozart?" or "Does anyone here write better than Shakespeare?," everyone would realize the fatuousness of the question. The likelihood of a positive--and accurate--response among us to these two questions, though extremely low, is much more likely than a positive--and accurate--response to the ego question, which is virtually impossible.
2.
Although utter transcendence is impossible for the vast majority of us, it can, as I have discussed, be approached. All of us, in fact, could and should come a lot closer to this ideal. We can readily imagine what this ideal would entail as well as we are able to imagine a perfect sphere. So it would help to discuss what mystics have called "self-realization" which I will do now. For the self-realized, there is no separation--the game (lila) of self is what Hindus call maya, illusion. Having gone beyond duality, the 'person" at this stage identifies with the world, nay, has become the whole universe. He or she will indeed turn the other cheek, much as a tree will "turn the other leaf," as it were, to a voracious caterpillar. Now we can appreciate the ridiculousness of the transcendence question. Since the sage has become the world, it is just as likely that another component of the world, say, a stone, would reply. Stones are silent, God is silent, sages are silent.
The question is asked by one individual of another. Having transcended individuality, how could a sage respond? Even we, wordlings that we are, know better. It would be like someone (consciousness) in a house (the body) looking at the world through an open window with utter delight. A neighbor in the next house asks, "Have you overcome the ego?" Saying yes would be like closing the window, getting on a footstool in a rather dark room and telling one's dusky reflection in the mirror, "Oh, I knew it! You're a sage." It is ridiculous enough if a young person exhibits such vanity; in an old person such adolescent self-absorption is truly farcical.
As an older person, I think I am much more practical and much more realistic. It is very difficult to maintain a sense of false pride when one realizes that next year--who knows? one might become an urnfull of ash. My advice to the young and the old is this: forget about idle questions. You will never make progress through chatter. Develop a balanced sense of self--don't ever accept anyone's attempt to make you feel inferior since the aggressor is trying to aggrandize himself and thus find relief from his own sense of inferiority. Develop wisdom and practice compassion. The way to do this was beautifully expressed by Freud: the most important things in life are work and love. Stop all the ego talk! Work as hard as you can at something that you are interested in and in which you, with much effort, can and will develop a just sense of pride. (Make sure it's something that at the very least does no harm.) And love. And love. And love!
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