Eva on ego – A preliminary stage to greater fulfillment

Hi Folks,

With regard to the ongoing conversation about the ego, I have copied below a section from a book I’ve introduced before and most highly recommend called, “Fear No Evil,” by Eva Pierrakos. This is actually channeled material, but from a woman with a lot of experience in psychotherapy and married to a psychiatrist, John Pierrakos, who was one of the primary students of Wilhelm Reich. Their approach to psychology is similar to Daoism in that there is great emphasis on “embodiment.” John was the originator of The Pathwork in NY in the 60’s, and Eva joined him in it later.

One of the ongoing issues this forum has been churning is the importance of the ego. What is it and what good is it? Polarities exist, one pole saying the ego must be gotten over and the other saying the ego is part of your growth. Eva’s viewpoint is that it is a necessary developmental stage in the spiritual process and that it cannot be transcended until it is fulfilled. She also says that the ego IS transcended, organically, when it is developed properly.

Personally, I believe that any other viewpoint of the ego is one that creates a blockage in one’s development. I am presenting this section from one of her lectures not as “proof” in an ongoing argument, but simply for our mutual expansion.

Eva uses the terms “real self” and “false self” for the purposes of discriminating between the two stages, but her explanation of the ego validates it far beyond what those terms imply.

Eva started channeling in 1959 and died in 1979. This piece comes from somewhere in that time frame.

Over the next few days I am going to send out some fascinating and illuminating sections from a chapter from Lonny Jarrett’s book “Nourishing Destiny” which are related to growth and development directly from a Daoist alchemical viewpoint. I am thinking of all these pieces as fitting in together…Enjoy, Alexander

The Need For A Strong Ego

…what then is the function of the ego, meaning by this word the outer level of personality? The ego is the part that thinks, acts, discriminates, and decides. The person whose ego is not sufficiently grown, whose ego is weak, is incapable of mastering or coping with life. And the person whose ego is overgrown and overemphasized cannot come to the real self. In other words, both extremes of the ego’s weakness and its inflation must hinder the reaching of the real self.

Only when the ego is sufficiently developed can it be adequately dispensed with. Now, this may sound like a contradiction, my friends, but it is not. For if the ego is underdeveloped, your efforts to compensate create a weakness and evasion that can produce only more weakness. As long as the ego is not strong enough, you lack the faculties characteristic of your outer self, which are to think, discriminate, decide, and act appropriately in any situation you encounter in the outer world.

Anyone who strives to reach the real self by rejecting the development of a healthy ego does so out of poverty. Such people do not yet own their outer self. This may be due to laziness since ego development is so difficult, and they hope this vital step can simply be avoided. But this error, like all errors, is costly. It actually delays reaching the goal. Only when you are fully possessed of your outer self, your ego, can you dispense with it and reach your real self.

Only when the ego is healthy and strong can you know that it is not the final answer, the final realm of being. Only when you possess a strong and healthy ego that is not overgrown and overemphasized, can you use this ego to transcend itself and reach a further state of consciousness.

Reaching Beyond The Ego

The law that [italicized] is extremely important to understand, my friends. Humans often overlook it, and even more often, totally ignore it. The importance of this law has not been clear enough to humanity, in spite of the discovery of many spiritual and psychological truths.

In a variant form, the essence of this very law can be seen in the topic under discussion: the function of the ego in relation to the real self. The real self knows that the universe has no limitations; that in truth absolute perfection does exist, attainable for each individual; that unlimited expansion of faculties and forces, in the universe as well as in the individual, makes this perfection possible.

The little child at birth does not yet possess an ego. Without the ego, it is possible to perceive this message from the real self quite clearly. But without the ego, the meaning of the message must be distorted. Perhaps you have found and experienced within yourself the childish striving for perfection, for omnipotence, for pleasure supreme, the ultimate bliss that knows no lack, no unfulfillment or frustration.

When there is no ego, these strivings are unrealistic, even destructive. Some of you have experienced in your pathwork that you first have to shed these desires or strivings before you can come to them anew and realize them.

In other words, every one of you who is on this path has to accept your limitations as a human being before you can realize that you have an unlimited fount of power at your disposal. You all have to accept your own imperfections, as well as this life’s imperfections, before you can experience that absolute perfection that you will ultimately realize is your destiny. But you can comprehend this only after you have shed the childish distortion of this knowledge. Only when your ego deals adequately with the realm in which your personality and your body now live can you then deeply comprehend your real faculties, possibilities, and potential.

When I speak of the ultimate aim of perfection, of limitless power, of pleasure supreme, I do not mean that this realization will occur in a distant future when you no longer possess a body. I do not speak of this in terms of time, but in terms of quality; it could happen at any moment when you awaken to truth. Awakening to truth is possible only when you have first found and then let go of the childish distortions of utter perfection, utter power and utter pleasure. In the underdeveloped ego, these desires are not only illusory, but selfish and destructive. They have to be abandoned before they can be attained.

My dearest friends, this lecture is of very great importance to all of you. It may not only dispel the confusion about apparent contradictions in philosophical ideas about life, but, even more important, it may provide an essential key to your own development. It may facilitate a letting go that can happen only when you trust your innermost self as an integral part of nature and creation.

When you feel and experience your real self, you will not overemphasize your ego faculties. Nor will you leave important underdeveloped ego faculties to slumber unattended.