PLAY NICE, YOU TWO!

PEACE–Part III

Today I was asked to help someone reconcile ego and spirit. Wow! Tall order! No, gynormous order. Without spiritual guidance right on the spot, without my wonderful spiritual teachers and my training, I wouldn’t have stood a chance in helping this person.

At our church–High Desert Center for Spiritual Living–all the spiritual counselors are available to pray for anyone in the congregation. After the service, everyone goes to the social hall and enjoys coffee, tea, and treats–except for the counselors and anyone who wants a “spiritual mind treatment.” The lights in the sanctuary are turned down a bit and soft, beautiful music is piped through the speakers. Today, one of the congregants asked me–in so many words–to pray for the reconcilation mentioned above.

Yes! Isn’t that what we’re all looking for, in one way or the other, on our spiritual quest? Don’t we sometimes feel that ego and spirit are polar opposites, and that we must vanquish the masty old ego and get on the spirit train?

We have to keep remembering that the ego is not our enemy. We have to remember not to fight it, but to transcend it. I like what Dr. Hawkins says about that part of our existence:  that it’s like a pet we have to housetrain. 🙂  Our ego is the part of us–millenia old–that is concerned with keeping us alive. Without it, we wouldn’t be here. In fact, it is thanks to the ego that each one of us is here, the end product of millions of ancestors. That’s the sign of success! The ego does its job well.

Because we no longer have to run away from saber-toothed tigers, the ego has found other ways to deploy its survival instincts. It is interested in getting, winning and being right nowadays. Of course, if a saber-toothed tiger (or some other threatening beast) chased after us, it would go into full fight or flight mode. But now the ego keeps us busy getting money, accumlating possessions, obtaining love and sex, and so on. Survival also takes the form of achieving some mastery over the human domain of existence. In other words, we want people to respect us, treat us well, promote us, admire us, and not walk all over us. We would also like to show others that we have mastery over the human domain–that we know what we’re doing, that we’re winning the competitions for whatever we want, and that we’re right about just about everything. Just ask!

So hello, ego! I see that you’re riding a strong, fast horse full gallop down the trail. Thank you for keeping me alive and warning me when something’s not right.

At the same time, the way I have come to understand it, the ego doesn’t really comprehend the spirit in us. Our little animal self, in fact, sees our spirits as competition for its place in our lives. Since that part of us likes to win, be right, and get things, it views the power of spirit as a threat that it must fight. On the other hand, I believe that spirit, as the overaching essence of us, understands ego perfectly well.

So, how can we possibly reconcile that little ego beastie with Love, Peace, Joy and all the spiritual qualities?

We now return to the little scene in my church, with two characters on the stage:  a puzzled spiritual counselor and her client. And the One Presence that flows through everything and is everything and continuously creates and orchestrates this vast harmony of existence and life and consciousness. You can say that in Reality, only one Character was on that set.

And thanks to that–certainly not to me, a little ego on a spiritual path–an idea flowed out as I prayed for this client’s spiritual evolution. Having evoked the Divine Presence in the beginning, I heard myself saying that the ego is a part of us that Spirit created, as It created everything. Spirit embraces everything it creates, so the ego need not fear Spirit.  Ego would always have its place as long as we were human beings in this realm of existence.

I also remembered Dr. Hawkins saying that when we reach a certain point in our spiritual evolution, the ego would come to cooperate with us. So part of my prayer contained the idea that as my client opened up to the flow of spirit through her life, as more Love radiated from her, her ego would be in harmony with this.

Of course, I surrendered my prayer to God. Only the Divine Presence can answer prayers in the highest and best way for each individual, knowing all that needs to be known–karma, spiritual evolution, local conditions, and things that we can’t possibly imagine.

But I loved what my client asked me to address in prayer. I think she put her finger on the critial point for any spiritual aspirant. And I’m grateful that she asked me to pray with her today.

Blessings to you all. Lara LaVonne