…“As much as I agree with your premise that ego is the biggest problem humanity has, it seems an absolute necessity to me. How could we have become a creative and inventive species without it? How would we ever have developed genius?”
These are good questions. They are mental, logical questions though. Let me explain a little about genius. All a genius is in a species, is an individual who can see and understand more, and do it faster than the population at large. We continue to experience this phenomenon in my time as well. There will always be extraordinary members of any species. Humanity recognized and celebrated genius due to its mental pre-occupation. The rest of evolution had always just taken it in stride.
How can we be creative and inventive without ego? This is another excellent mental question. The source for creativity or genius, however, is not the mind. The Source of creation is much deeper than that. This force arises from the deepest intuitive levels of knowing, those infinite pools of the unknown. For poets, artists and musicians, it is the muse, the inscrutable being of inspiration and divine presence. What the ego and mind did accomplish was to give Source an efficient vehicle for expression.
“But I can’t get away from questioning what you’re saying. Ego seems to me to be a very important psychological function. What about the value of pride, taking pride in something you accomplish? Isn’t that essential to building confidence in oneself, to standing on one’s own? Without self-confidence, how could we accomplish anything, or make a contribution to the world?”
Confidence is very important. I agree with you. But it is not solely a property of the separated self. For the ego, it is just one more arrow in the quiver of self-defense. True confidence is being connected to the essential awareness within. It is the basis of trusting in the world we live in. This is the confidence that lasts, unlike the passing bravado of ego.
To have confidence without ego means to be in the embrace of integrated awareness. This is the real knowing of one’s place in the universe, one’s destiny in relationship to the empowerment—that which comes only from Source within. This is humility, self-knowledge and divinity…
Copyright © 2009 by Robert Potter
Letters From 500 