Self Importance

Keep Your Ego In Check.

Photos by Don Pierce

The Ego wants more but, as St. Francis of Assisi says, “it is in giving that we receive.” The Ego wants you to win but you are much more than your winnings. The Ego wants you to be right but it is better to be happy than it is to be right.

To keep your Ego in check, commune with nature* and then recall examples of inner guidance, ask your Inner Guide what it does not want to happen anymore, share the wisdom of your Inner Guide with others, and examine judgmental thoughts.

The grip of the Ego causes feelings of self-importance and feelings of being offended by someone or something. Since many, if not most, of the problems of humankind are caused by unchecked Egos, it is vitally important to learn how to stop identifying with ideas of self-importance and with that which offends. One can become motivated to do these things by realizing that the notion of self-importance and being offended weakens one’s Self and leads to unwise vulnerability.

The Ego wants you to win but you have to learn that you are much more than your winnings. The Ego wants you to be right but it is much better to be happy than it is to be right. The Ego wants you to be superior but it is much better to grow than it is to outdo others. The Ego wants you to have more but, as St. Francis of Assisi reminds us, “it is in giving that we receive.” The Ego wants you to identify with your achievements but you are much more than your accomplishments. The Ego wants you to have a good reputation but the making of a good reputation is not your job. Let others bestow upon you whatever reputation they see fit.

Be a host to the Absolute. Do not be a hostage to your Ego.

To keep your Ego in check, keep your inner dialogue focused on what you want for all sentient beings rather than what you do not have for yourself; cast out doubt; tell your Ego that your Higher, More-Than-Individual-Self is in charge; observe obstacles as opportunities to exercise your unyielding intent; and do not allow negative circumstances to make you a victim. See setbacks as ways to learn.

To The Restraint Of Excessive Self-importance…

HumaNatureConnect Activity

Keeping Your Ego In Check

For this activity, make a shift from being controlled by your Ego to being guided by your Greater Self that includes your Individual Self, your chosen attractive natural being, and all of Creation--both the Inner World and the Outer World. We will here be following a modified version of Barbara Marx Hubbard’s ten steps to the universal self, as inspired by her book Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence (2001).

Step One: In your journal describe any previous examples of inner guidance you have received. What did your inner guidance tell you? What did it feel like? Then ask your chosen attractive natural being to give you the inner guidance you need for some important situation you are facing right now. Sit quietly. Offer appreciation before you return home. Sleep. When you become awake again, write down whatever comes to mind without any editing. Just let the words flow.

Step Two. In your journal, describe your Inner Guide. This guide is in the Realm of Interiority. It is a source of wisdom in your Inner Sanctuary. It may feel like the voice of God, the voice of Nature, the Voice of the Absolute Spirit, the voice of NNIAAL. It guides you all the time, but more effectively if you listen to it. You can call it your “Inner Guide,” your “Inner Beloved,” or your “Essential Self.” Describe any experiences you have had with your Inner Guide/Essential Self.” Note how, if at all, you can determine how it is encouraging you to transform from a local self focused on separation.

Step Three. Feel your Essential Self, it will span from your inner world to your outer world. Love it. Ask it to speak through your chosen attractive natural being to you as feelings, sensations, or perceived words. Ask: “Dear Beloved: What do you have to say to me today. Do not expect clear English, or any other words as a response. Take the sensations, process them in your dreams, and then write in freeform in your journal. The Inner Guide “wants” its inner voice to be “heard.” Listen. Sleep. Record.

Step Four. Ask your Inner Guide, which will be, among other things, the bearer of intelligent wisdom from your chosen attractive natural being and an emissary of Nature and the Absolute Spirit: “What do I not want to have happening in my life any more?” Note how the sensations, after dreamful sleep, become words that convince you that your Individual Self, your localized personal self, can no longer do all that you need to do in the world. Turn your life over to the higher power--your Greater Self, an indivisible cove in the ocean that is the Absolute Spirit. Your Greater Self is simply the Absolute Spirit, all of creation, and the enduring yet misconceived notion of the individual that has your name. This Greater Self is connected incorruptibly to The Source. Take a moral inventory and remove the veil of illusion that confuses you into thinking that you are separate from The Source, independent of Nature, or in any way (other than in our misconceived perceptions) self-arising and independent. You are interdependent: both individual and universal.

Step Five. Feel the bliss of union. Lift yourself up to see beyond your Individual Self. Note in your journal what this union feels like. Describe the Ecstasy. Write a poem of love as the Greater Self. Note any internal messages coming through your chosen attractive natural being, which is one outer world manifestation of your Inner Guide.

Step Six. Speak as your Inner Guide. Say, for example: “I am love.” “I am wisdom.” “I am courage.” “I am patience.” “I am surrender.” “I am the Beloved.” Offer the wisdom of your Inner Guide to others, once you have learned to give it to yourself.

Step Seven. Identify when your ego-controlled Individual Self causes you pain. Ask your Ego to speak of the nature of your problem. Give compassion to your Ego/Individual Self. This offering is good training for being an aspect of the Greater Self that leads. Use this slowly.

Step Eight. Immediately after tending to last night’s dreams, examine your thinking, looking particularly for separating or judgmental thoughts. Present whatever may be causing grief to your Individual Self to your More-Than-Individual-Self, your Universal Self––your self that Hubbard calls your “Essential Self’ or your “Beloved Self.” Mix in what we shall call the “Inner World Kettle of Emergence” the concerns of the Ego-dominated Individual Self with the perspective of the More-Than-Individual-Self. Consciously infuse separating feelings into the perspective of the Essential Self trading grief, agitation, anger, the urgency of time and other separating feelings with awe, love, joy, safety, beauty, and the ever-present Now. In so doing, you are becoming both fully human and fully divine In this fusing, there is no destruction of the Individual Self. Instead, the individual self is like a devotee working in service of the Beloved More-Than-Individual-Self. Use the individual self to find what needs to be corrected in the parts of your life. Let your Beloved Self speak about solutions for you as a being embedded in the world as a More-Than-Individual, Essential, Sacred, Universal Self. The former are messages from the Ego, the latter are messages from the Beloved Self. Fill out your own Personal Record of Individual Problem statements and Messages from the Beloved in the Progress Chart below. In filling out this chart, do not expect rapid solutions. Sometimes it takes numerous messages before adequate solutions to problems emerge. Remember, the Individual Self is the Merely Human Self. Lastly, remember that what Hubbard calls the “Beloved Self” is the same thing as what we have been calling the “More-Than-Individual-Self,” the “Greater Self,” or the “Ecological Self.”

Step Nine. “As we shift our attention and identity to the Essential Self and experience the world outside from this inner vantage point, the outer action seems miraculously to re-pattern itself to a higher order, one that is more resonant with our inner values” (Hubbard, 2001, p. 121). Remove worries about getting things done. Instead, flow in your work. Write a description of what is being deferred or eliminated in your life. Express fully your desires for higher consciousness and greater freedom. Realize that you are your own force of creation. Describe incidents in your life that illustrate the points mentioned in this waypoint.

Step Ten. Write in your journal the fruits of being guided, no longer primarily by your Ego, but by your Inner Guide, your Essential Self that is indivisible from the Greater Self, Nature, the Absolute Spirit, and the Source. Write down how these fruits can serve yourself AND others.

Since most of the problems of humankind are caused by unchecked Egos, it is vitally important to learn how to stop identifying with ideas of self-importance and with that which offends.

Do not be a hostage of your Ego.

The Ego wants you to win but you have to learn that you are much more than your winnings.

The Ego wants you to be right but it is much better to be happy than it is to be right.

The Ego wants you to have more but, as St. Francis of Assisi reminds us, “it is in giving that we receive.”

Nocturnal Pilgrimage

Tend To Your Dreams Before Heading To The Next Waypoint

Look over the list of six or so Indigenous Images you made in your journal during the activity in Waypoint 2.7. Write some more about each image, providing as much detail as possible. Let the image reveal its unique qualities. Stay in the present. Make no associations. Stay away from meaning-making. Go with the image to its own depth. As you do so, pay attention to what is happening to you. Are you being connected through the image or the broader setting of the dream? What in the dream feels most natural? Wait for cognitive, intuitive, or somatic moments of surprise or remembrance. Write down what you believe to be the organic relationship between the dreamscapes and the Dream Characters.

Sometime during that portion of your day after Dream Tending, spend some time outdoors viewing scenes of nature. Doing so will create within you higher alpha wave amplitudes, which, like many prescribed drugs, increase the production of serotonin, which, in turn, increases nerve cell production and one’s happiness (Selhub & Logan, 2012, p. 15). With more of this happiness chemical in your system, begin your next day’s waypoint. Move to the next waypoint, “Exchange,” take another step towards Gladandgreen Junction.

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