EGO TRIPS

Fr Jim Cogley

Until the Middle-ages people were convinced that the earth was the center of the universe and everything else revolved around us. It was Copernicus who proved that the earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way round. Then it was Galileo who suffered at the hands of the religious authorities of his time when he used his telescope to demonstrate astronomical facts but in doing so was challenging the status quo. As with the macrocosm so it is with the microcosm. Every newborn child believes that he or she is the center of everything, and the world revolves around him or her. This is a totally ego-centric existence that of necessity needs to give way to something greater. Whether this happens depends on the degree of love that the child receives at every stage of its development in order to see the world beyond itself.

As full-blown adults we all have had the experience of acting out of character with our adult self and reacting or behaving in a childish manner. When this happens, it feels as if our normal lives have been tripped up or even sabotaged. As we journey through life none of us are afforded a totally free passage. We make the transition from child to teenager to adult usually by leaving parts of ourselves behind. These are the parts that have been so wounded, rejected and neglected as to be deemed unfit to bring with us into adult life. While they have been conveniently left lying in oblivion they are like sleeping dogs that sooner or later will get hungry and wake up. When they do, we discover pockets of acute egocentricity in ourselves that are quite at variance with what we deem ourselves to be.

It is our spontaneous unrehearsed reactions that have so much to teach us about ourselves. That is, provided we listen to them and not blame the person who has triggered the reaction. We relate and respond from our adult selves while our reactions are rooted much earlier. In a reaction we descend into a pocket of unlived emotional life and so the energy that is released can be utterly out of proportion to what has been said or done. We may blame the one who pulled the trigger, but it is the cartridge in the gun that causes the explosion. In that explosion all rationale is blown out of the water, and we are incapable of reason. So also, our grip on adult perspective is lost because we are now viewing reality through a different lens. Reactions can be our great teacher because they are always putting us in touch with our deeper selves and those parts that have not yet been integrated.

Just because we get older doesn’t mean that we become less egocentric or more mature. Egocentricity often masquerades behind carefully cultivated personas. The persona can appear quite impressive and admirable, it can wear a white coat, be successful and professional, it can be beautiful and talented, but it cannot be real. It is simply the face that we put on to meet the faces that we meet. At the deepest level my world, my relationships and everything else revolves around me. I may work in smugness thinking I am doing a good job, I may retire in satisfaction at what I have achieved, but it is still possible that I have never begun the journey towards my true self. To have gone through life with the persona still intact also means that the ego is still in charge and a long and lonely journey back home to my true self still awaits.

Fr Richard Rohr once said that the Christian life ‘is a series of crippling humiliations’. Needless to say, being humiliated is the last thing that we want. Yet in terms of our soul journey something painful is necessary to burst our bubble of illusion that all is well in my world. This is the fundamental ego stance, that in relation to others my life is pretty good, I live up to a set of moral values and others see me as honest and forthright. At some point a distant drum may sound and my world once so secure is turned upside down. Someone close to me dies, a marriage breaks down, a business goes to the wall, or a health issue arises. Some unexpected visitor arrives and invites me to travel down a road that previously I never knew existed. This is my destiny path that without a severe trip up from somewhere I would never have embarked on.

We would all love to have an untroubled and carefree passage through life. There may be some who do, but from a soul perspective they may be the unfortunate ones. We don’t like suffering or anything that upsets the applecart of our lives. Yet without some degree of challenge and suffering there can be no real awakening, the soul remains in slumber. The Advent prayer ‘Awake o sleeper and rise from the and Christ will give you light’ is one that captures the mystery of spiritual awakening. In those who have had to endure hardship and overcome challenges there is a quality and depth that is quite noticeable. Their conversation is not just non-versation and small talk about the weather and trivialities. The nonessentials of life have been weighed in the balance and found wanting and now what is truly important has come to the fore.