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The Ego and Free Will

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The Negative Ego and Free Will

In contrast to the surrendered ego, the negative ego does not have the power to grow or move forward. It has no capacity for sustained joy or any connection to the soul. The negative ego’s range of emotion proceeds from fear, which is its negative pole, to aggression, which is its positive pole. Most of the negative ego’s existence is spent in generating experiences that slide back and forth between these two poles of determination.

Fear and Aggression

The free will of the negative ego, therefore, is bound and limited by the two forces of fear and aggression. While the negative ego may think it has free will, the truth is quite different. Its freedom is severely restricted. There just isn’t much room to find peace and freedom between fear and aggression.

The Negative Ego’s Mission

We must not forget that the negative ego’s mission is to protect the toxicity in our system from being discovered. It sustains its own existence by doing so. When the negative ego succeeds in deterring us from facing our toxicity it insures that our suffering will be continual and chronic. By placing its need to dominate ahead of our need to grow, the negative ego prevents us from becoming more conscious.

The Intersection of Humanity and Divinity

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A Dual Role

The surrendered ego stands at the intersection of humanity and divinity, knowing that it has a dual role to play. One role is to keep the door between these two realms open. To do this it must maintain its integrity and openness, remaining centered and in acceptance, rather than being pulled in conflicting directions by waves of negative emotion. It cannot afford to take things personally and fall into reactive behavior. Its job is not to get even or yield to the seductive pull of retaliation. Instead, its task is to forgive all transgressions against its person, so that it might remain centered and connected to the Divine. Its high mission is to bring peace, clarity, and balance, wherever, and whenever, it can.

Teacher and Role Model

The other role the surrendered ego plays is that of teacher and example, leading the way for others to find the door to the Divine within themselves. It is not interested, as is the negative ego, in being the only power on the playing field. Instead, the surrendered ego wants everyone to share equally in the Divine power, for that is our true birthright.

Expanding Joy

The surrendered ego knows that once we have discovered who we really are, the most effective way to deepen and expand our experience of our true self is to help other people discover their real self. The surrendered ego knows that we expand our joy when we share our joy.

The Great Secret

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Acceptance

The great secret of the surrendered ego is acceptance. It knows that the more it loves unconditionally, the easier it will be to accept whatever situations may come its way. Being in a state of acceptance allows the surrendered ego to remain emotionally centered and connected to the timeless dimension of its nature. As long as the surrendered ego stays in acceptance, it will maintain its connection to the Divine, and the power of the negative will not be able to distract it from its path.

The Channel of Unconditional Love

The surrendered ego further recognizes that when it is in acceptance mode it is both a channel for unconditional love to enter the world and a vehicle for prayers to flow up to the Divine world. Whether Divine energy flows down through the open door of the surrendered ego or prayers flow up through it, the result is the same. Good things happen. We all win when Divine power is brought to bear in the world.

The Healthy Ego & Group Consciousness

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The Healthy Ego and Group Consciousness

When we develop a healthy ego, taking things personally, creating a closed system, and playing zero sum games no longer interests us. We now know better. If there’s enough success in the world for you, then there’s also enough for me. Even better, if I am whole and successful, it will be easier for you to be whole and successful. The more wholeness and abundance we both generate, the easier it will be for everyone else to find abundance. When we view reality through the lens of I win/you win, reality expands. A win/win model generates communication, cooperation, and teamwork – all elements of the healthy ego and group consciousness. Whenever a healthy ego and group consciousness exists, peace and order flourish, and economic opportunity expands. For a healthy sense of group consciousness to flourish, everyone who participates in the group must have cleared the toxicity from their system and developed a healthy ego. Otherwise the group consciousness will be shallow, false, and short lived. Instead of leading to peace, it will lead to blame, bitterness, and cynicism.

Zero Sum Reality

When we view reality through the traditional lens of I win/you lose, reality contracts. Without a healthy ego structure there is no group consciousness. Life is war, a series of zero sum games. The traditional win/lose model engenders conflict, misunderstanding, and instability. All we have to do is look at the world of today to realize how entrenched we are in this model of reality.

We can never develop a healthy ego, transform our consciousness or begin to change the world until we address the hidden, negative elements in our own system. Every attempt at transformation and change that fails to address our toxicity will fail to meet its objective.

Refusing to Take Things Personally

The good news is that when we develop a healthy ego and  no longer take things personally, we won’t have to react. Reacting negatively is a choice, not an inevitable occurrence. We react negatively when we feel powerless. That is the lesson Barbara learned when she cleared her toxicity and healed her childhood wounds. Once she realized that she didn’t have to suppress her own needs in order to be loved, she found that standing up for her self was empowering and exhilarating. When she stood up for herself, she stood in her own power and her self-pity vanished. Rather than feeling less than everyone else, she recognized herself as the equal of everyone she encountered. Barbara healed her life and in the process developed a healthy ego. Now she’s ready to find a circle of equals and experience group consciousness.

The Four Principles of Ego Development

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Smile..smile..and laugh together

The foundation of the Negative Ego

The negative ego is based on four fundamental factors. These factors are:

  1.  Unprocessed toxicity.
  2.  Self-hatred and the victim mentality.
  3.  An innate sense of fear and powerlessness, which often translates into the need to dominate one’s relationships with other people.
  4. An unwavering intention to keep the soul isolated from the conscious mind and ego.

The Foundation of the Healthy Ego

The healthy ego, on the other hand, is happy to grant the soul access to the psyche. It is not interested in distancing itself from the soul, but in closing the gap with the spirit. The healthy ego is also built on four factors, but these factors are very different from those comprising the negative ego. The four factors that contribute to a healthy ego are:

  1.  Cleared toxicity.
  2.  Self-respect and a healthy boundary system.
  3.  The ability to love other people, appreciate and acknowledge them for who they are.
  4.  A strong commitment to unite the soul with the conscious mind and ego.

Self Respect

A healthy ego starts with a clear subconscious. There is no inner victim, no self-hatred, and no tendency toward self-destruction in the healthy ego. Instead, the healthy ego is continually building and expanding its self- respect. Self-respect grows with the ability to reach out and create healthy relationships based on affection and mutual respect. Self-respect is reinforced when we stand up for ourselves. Self-respect flourishes when we are able to give and receive love. Sharing the energy of unconditional love expands and strengthens us. People with a healthy ego instinctively understand that when they wholeheartedly acknowledge another per- son’s talents, gifts, and contributions, they are indirectly acknowledging their own sense of self.
The ability to wholeheartedly support and recognize someone else is only possible when our system has been drained of its toxicity. If we are free of envy, jealousy, pettiness, and vindictiveness, we won’t feel threatened by someone else’s success or see that person’s good fortune as our personal loss. However, until we clear the toxic emotion from our system and learn to set effective boundaries, we will find ourselves caught in a closed system where the tendency will be to do exactly that.

The Evolution of the Ego

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negative ego, victim, ego

When Toxicity Becomes Radioactive

The relationship between toxic content and the victim mentality makes that toxicity highly magnetic and powerful, almost radioactive. The resultant combination attracts an ever increasing stream of toxic situations into the person’s life. These new situations will incline the person polarized by his negative ego to react negatively, like a victim, to perceived threats to his survival, thus causing even more imbalances and fragmentation to his system.
In essence, there is a great irony at work in the primary mission of the negative ego. Instead of protecting its host from more traumatic incidents, the negative ego attracts more traumatic events to him. That is fine with the negative ego, for in adding to its host’s traumas, the negative ego increases its power over the host’s psyche. While a toxic system does not help the person who must live within the constraints of that toxicity, it does help the negative ego project its power and keep the soul at bay. The negative ego is shrewd and calculating. It knows that the more toxic material there is in its host’s system, the less opportunity the host’s soul will have to exert its influence and help the person grow.
As noted earlier, the negative ego does not have a death wish. It protects the toxic content in its host system because that toxicity is the source of its power and existence. Its secret mission, as opposed to its primary mission, is to keep the person focused on outward pursuits and dominated by an endless stream of desires. By keeping its host focused on chasing after a stream of desires, the negative ego diverts him from turning within, taking responsibility for his toxicity, and consciously evolving. By keeping its host focused on the external pursuit of happiness, the negative ego insures both its own continuity and its position of power.

The Healthy Ego

The healthy ego, by contrast, has already turned away from the distraction and glamour of desire and turned inward to confront and clear the unconscious toxicity in its system. In facing its fears it has faced them down. Instead of dissipating its power by turning outward, it is integrating and re-owning its power by moving inward. In moving inward, it is building a positive center of power. Since the healthy ego has cleared the toxicity in its system, it is no longer dominated by the victim mentality and is free to finally develop a clearer sense of self.

The Evolution of the Ego

As the ego evolves, we evolve. The healthy ego was once the negative ego. The transformation of the negative ego begins when the individual decides he has had enough frustration, emptiness, and suffering; when he admits that desire and denial do not work and can never fulfill their promise to satisfy him; when he sees that it is time to face himself, look within, and clear whatever toxic content he may find there.
The conscious, deliberate engagement with one’s unconscious toxicity marks the beginning of the negative ego’s death spiral. That confrontation weakens the desire nature and brings healing to the inner victim. As the negative ego is thrown into the spiritual fire of the Elimination Zone, it is slowly purified, refined, and reborn as the healthy ego. Where the negative ego nurtures the darkness and pursues its own separate goals of domination and control, the healthy ego embraces the soul and is eager to pursue the true goals of the individual, growth and evolution.

The Healthy Ego

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An Open system

The healthy ego is an open system. It wants to do all it can to help the soul achieve maximum influence in the psyche. The healthy ego is interested in promoting the growth and evolution of the person it serves. It is a true ally and partner in the pursuit of that growth.The healthy ego knows it can accelerate its host’s growth and evolution by merging with the soul and letting the soul be the ultimate authority in the psyche. The healthy ego knows instinctively that when that merger occurs it will strengthen every aspect of the psyche, produce a higher level of systemic integration, and widen its host’s awareness.

A Second Death Experience

The healthy ego also knows that as the evolutionary process goes forward from the Integration Zone and enters the Elevation Zone, it will undergo another upgrade, or death experience. The healthy ego, unlike the negative ego, is not afraid of its own death, because it has died once already when making the transition from the Elimination Zone to the Integration Zone. When it died as the negative ego, the healthy ego was transformed and freed from the chains of unconscious toxicity that bound it in fear and separation.

Seeking Growth

The healthy ego, unlike the negative ego, seeks continued growth and transformation. It understands that as more light enters and integrates the system of its host, the freer and happier it will be. When the ego is upgraded by the influx of spiritual light, all aspects of the individual’s system become freer and brighter. As the ego goes, so goes the individual. The key to personal evolution is to shift the ego toward the pole of the soul and spirit.

The Absence of Fear

The healthy ego is no longer worried about its survival, and no longer dominated by fear. Its goals are no longer antagonistic to the goals of the inner person. Instead, they are the same. The healthy ego is learning to move in harmony with the soul. Where the soul leads, the healthy ego wants to follow.

The Negative Ego

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negative ego

We Are Not Our Shame

The strategy of the negative ego is to keep us occupied in vain pursuits that feed it but do not feed us. If it can keep us focused on our greed and desire, the negative ego is assured of maintaining its power. To defeat the negative ego at its game, we must realize that we are not our shame. The territory of toxic emotion that the negative ego tries to hide from the world is not who we are. It is what prevents us from being who we are. To identify ourselves with our shame is to keep ourselves from our freedom. It is the error of identification that the negative ego wants us to make. It is the mistake that drives us to utilize our desire nature to flee from facing whatever false self we have erected and have come to believe that we are.

The whole rationale behind the power of desire is that if we succeed in fleeing from the pain of our shame, we can hide ourselves in material pleasure. The problem with that rationale is that pleasure always ends. Sooner or later, our pain will return and overwhelm us. As long as shame exists, it can never be entirely silenced.The strategies of the negative ego have a short shelf life.

The Adversaries of the Soul

What we must eventually realize is that what we fail to confront is much more dangerous to us than that what we choose to face. What we shrink from facing shrinks us. While we can actualize our desires, our desires cannot actualize us. Our soul contains our identity, our path, and our purpose. The negative ego only contains our unhealed wounds. The negative ego and our desire nature are the adversaries of our higher connection.

When we finally realize that the three forces of alienation- fear, greed and desire – are a dead end and lead nowhere, we are finally ready to enter the Elimination Zone and begin the path of personal evolution. What we need to keep in mind as we enter the Elimination Zone is that when we stand up to our fear, our fear will stand down. We regain our power when we confront the inner darkness and the negative ego that would otherwise diminish us.

The Ego and Enlightenment: Part 1 The Negative Ego

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Light in the Darkness

Everyone has an ego and a negative ego. Being egoless is an illusion. The real question we face is not how can we become egoless but how can we transform the negative ego we do have into a higher level of integration and Self acceptance.

The Negative Ego and The Shadow

The base ego state we all contend with is the negative ego. The negative ego is the outgrowth of the shadow. The unconscious toxicity that forms the shadow feeds the negative ego, gives it its power in our psyche, and eventually raises it to dominance. The negative ego is a unit of separation. Its mission is to separate our mind from our soul and control our life. The negative ego usurps the power of the soul. It is defensive, secretive, and aggressive. The negative ego is not at all self-reflective. It seeks happiness and the fulfillment of its desires in the material world and derides the notion that happiness is dependent on our inner state,- on the nature of our relationship to our soul. When things go wrong the negative ego never takes responsibility for its actions but blames others for its problems.

Negative Ego and the Victim Mentality

When we chronically blame others for our problems we have embraced the role of victim. The victim is self-righteous and feels entitled to take whatever form of retaliation and revenge he deems appropriate. The combination of poor judgment and unethical behavior makes the negative ego a karma generating machine. The longer we let the negative ego remain unchecked the more karma we will be forced to deal with later. Because the negative ego constantly creates karma it delays our evolution and adds to our unhappiness. This in turn leads to a life that is increasingly out of balance and very distant from who we really are. The ever increasing darkness in our psyche that the negative ego produces allows it to become even stronger. While generating karma is bad business for us, it is good business for the negative ego.

Negative Ego and True Identity

If we remain under the negative ego’s tyranny we will never find our true identity. Real identity is stored in the soul, not in the ego. As long as the union of the negative ego and shadow is in force the union of the mind and soul cannot occur. The negative ego and the shadow are the antagonists to growth while the soul and the spirit are the protagonists of evolution. The path to conscious growth begins when we choose to activate the soul and confront the shadow. This choice is monumental and initiates the long and difficult battle between the light and dark elements of our being. The key to winning this war is to take responsibility for our actions, become more self- reflective, and turn within to face our shadow and the toxicity that feeds it until all toxicity is drained from our unconscious swamp. When we “drain the swamp” the negative ego dies and the ego becomes our ally in the growth process not our opponent.