Let's Treat Our Egos Like Art Projects

Let's Treasure Our Gorgeous Idiosyncrasies

Sep 05, 2023

I PROTEST SPIRITUAL TEACHERS WHO WAGE WAR AGAINST REALITY

Some "spiritual" teachers wage war on reality on many different fronts. For example, they tell us that we shouldn't care about our reputation or our looks. They advise us to downplay and demean our ego, even dissolve it. They tell us that if we want to be spiritual (like them), we need to drop all the stories we regard as being core to our identity.

I agree that we should not treat our ego as the crown of creation; that we should not look to it as the ultimate authority in our lives; that we shouldn't give it free rein to make every decision for us.

On the other hand, I believe we should love our egos. We should regard them as being essential to our humanness. We should understand they can potentially be art projects that we craft and create to express the best of our potentials.

And while caring about our looks and reputation shouldn't be even close to our number one obsession, it's quintessentially human to have such care. Why demonize and sneer at such a natural activity?

I also believe we should love our stories as being central to our work and play as spiritual beings. Yes, let's de-emphasize the stories that bind us and make us suffer. But at the same time, let's celebrate and honor the stories that reveal our idiosyncratic beauty. Let's exult in the ways they express our unique soul's code.

Of course I care about what other people think of me! I mainly care what Goddess and I think of me, but I sure as hell also care about what others think of me.

It's lively and vital to do so. It's soulful. It's a natural healthy consequence of the fact that I am interwoven in a community of people I care about and who care about me. We all influence and help create each ther. That's a good thing!

Not only is there no shame in wanting to be loved and seen and enjoyed—it's a soulful, essential aspect of being human.

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THE SHINING TEMPLE OF THE ANNIHILATED EGO

In my dream, my freaky consort River and I are riding in the back seat of a crowded bus in southern France.

The road we're on is L'Autoroute du Soleil—Motorway of the Sun. Our destination is a tourist trap called the Shining Temple of the Annihilated Ego. It's a shrine the advertisements tout as being devoted to "the worship of extinguished selfhood."

What the hell does that mean? I'm not sure. I'm thinking it may have to do with the Sanskrit word "nirvana," whose literal definition is "the blowing out of a flame."

Many of our fellow travelers on the bus are religious disciples dressed in robes and sackcloth: Buddhist monks and nuns, Christian monastics, and Hindu mendicants.

There are also famous people from ages past. In my immediate vicinity, I see Andy Warhol, Carl Sagan, Marilyn Monroe, Cesar Chavez, Benazir Bhutto, Harriet Tubman, Jackie Kennedy, Arthur Rimbaud, Coco Chanel, and Ronald Reagan. Is that Virginia Woolf in the front?

By temperament, I'm more like a religious disciple and less like Andy Warhol or Marilyn Monroe. I've been a dedicated student of Hermetic Qabalah for decades.

But right now, I don't look in the least ascetic. I am dressed in red leather pants, a peach-colored silk shirt, a sparkly gold vest studded with opalescent beads, and a black ankle-length cashmere coat. I'm also wearing a red Stetson hat, size eight and a half, and I have rings on all my fingers.

River is equally decked out: suede bell bottoms, green turban, blue Union soldier jacket circa the American Civil War, tiger-skin t-shirt, and pink Converse high tops.

She is seated to my left. I recognize the person sitting to my right. He's Shunryu Suzuki, the well-known Zen master whose books helped popularize Zen Buddhism in America.

Years ago, I read every word the man published. In person, he's surprisingly conventional. He's wearing a dull brown suit and striped blue tie that make him look like a business executive from the 1950s.

This is a welcome opportunity for me. For years, I have had a bone to pick with him. In one of his books, he told a story about the importance of keeping one's ego under strict control. A student had asked him, "How much ego do you need?" Suzuki's austere reply was, "Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus."

I felt reverence for that hard-ass attitude years ago when I first came upon it as a young spiritual punk. But later, I came to regard it as puritanical and pretentious and retrograde. At this moment, piqued by his presence, I feel peeved about it.

It takes a while to work up the nerve, but I finally initiate a conversation with Mr. Zen.

"Long-time listener, first-time caller," I say to him, copping the approach of a person who has reached a radio talk show host on the phone. "Loved Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Made it my Bible for a while." That was Suzuki's first book.

"Probably better not to make any book your Bible," he replies, in a tone that is neither friendly nor dismissive.

"Don't worry," I say. "I will always love you, but I will never worship you."

"There's nothing here to worship, anyway," he says. "I don't even exist."

"Good. I will keep that in mind if I feel any pangs of desire to turn you into a holy icon."

"Have you ever tried it?" he asks. "Not existing?"

"Well, that's the thing. As it turns out, I eventually discovered that I preferred existing to not existing. That's when I had to burn your books and take your photo down from my altar."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says. "I mean the part about you preferring to exist. Burning my books and banishing my image were not unwise."

"I've always wanted to ask you a question," I say. "Do you mind?"

"I'm not sufficiently here to say yes or no. You are free to proceed."

"Remember how you said that no one needs much of an ego; that the best ego size is just big enough to keep one from getting hit by a bus, but no bigger?"

"I recall that a mirage resembling me once said something like that."

"I wonder if you would consider the possibility that maybe your old idea could benefit from revision. I mean, yes, i acknowledge that the ego is the root of much mischief—more evil than the craving for wealth and religious fanaticism combined."

"In Christian terms," Suzuki interrupts, "the original sin."

"Yeah. Even for me, the stupidest and cruelest things I've done could be blamed on my infected and inflamed ego."

"Which is why it's better to live without it," he says.

"I don't agree," I say. "I think the ego has redemptive uses. And besides, just because it is potentially dangerous doesn't mean that spiritual seekers like us should nuke it."

"Redemptive uses? Like providing you with the fuel to become an all-knowing rich and famous and powerful sex god?"

"No. Like providing me with the fuel to become a compassionate and creative and curious devotee of the Great Mystery."

"The ego appropriates those noble aspirations and turns them into disguised versions of being an all-knowing rich and famous and powerful sex god."

"Well, that's how a fundamentalist thinks," I press. "It would be like me practicing abstinence because I'm afraid of the chaos I might stir up by risking the gifts that sex affords me."

As I deliver that protest, River tickles me in the side just below my ribs, a sign that she approves of my cheeky jab at the celebrity Zen guy.

Suzuki chuckles derisively, but I am unflustered. I've argued with famous people before. David Bowie didn't take it personally when I questioned his feminism.

"Instead of repressing the ego," I say, "we should sublimate its brute force. Use all our best psychological tricks to transform its greed into generosity. And turn it into a beautiful work of art."

"Good luck with that delusional dream," Suzuki says.

"How about this?" I say. "Let's be spiritual artisans who devote ourselves to crafting exquisite egos. And let's do it with the same rigor and panache as a great actor who's preparing to play the role of Buddha. Let's add 'egos' to the list of beautiful artifacts that talented creators produce, along with songs, books, films, sculptures, paintings, electronic games, and dances."

"What you propose," he replies, "is like putting lipstick and mascara on a donkey. Or worse yet: on a lipsticked and mascara'd donkey that has explosives strapped to its body like a suicide bomber."

I don't feel defensive in the least. On the contrary, I'm delighted he's fighting back.

"You're on the wrong side of history," I tell him cheerfully. "Like the reactionary traditionalists who are quite sure that all humans are one of only two genders."

River leans over and whispers in my ear, "You're my sexy non-binary hero and anti-hero."

"So what do we have here?" Suzuki snorts. He's getting emotional! "A staunch advocate for the rights of the ego! Good for you, you brazen rebel. The ego has been the victim of appalling oppression over the centuries. I am glad someone is defending its honor."

"I'm not defending the honor of all the arrogant assholes who have mangled history with their megalomaniacal cruelty," I say, as serene and amused as a meditator in a mountaintop sanctuary. "I'm proposing a crucified and resurrected ego, a gorgeous and lyrical and empathetic ego that's a gift to humanity."

"I'm guessing," Suzuki sneers, "that someone with your views must have a deep attachment to the phantasm we Zen Buddhists refer to as 'individuality.' Am I right?"

"I'm more aligned with Gurdjieff's position," I reply. "While it's possible to create an electric, luminous individuality, most people don't want to work that hard."

"And am I right to assume you regard that electric, luminous individuality as permanent and immortal? Going to live forever, are you, my young friend?"

"Yes, I am, thank you. And so you are, too."

"No, thanks," he scoffs. "My laughable hallucination of unique selfness has a future appointment with the worm-rich dirt. Good riddance."

"I'll bet you a trillion nirvanas that you and I meet again at the end of time."

"You don't have a trillion nirvanas to bet."

"Are you sure about that?"

Suzuki shouts, "Immortality sucks!", grabs my face with his hands, and smacks his skull into mine, propelling me out of sleep.

ALIVE IN ETERNITY

I plan to be alive and sentient until the end of time and even beyond — although not in the exact form that I am now. (I invite you to join me!)

And I will always remember and think fondly of this perfect moment, a few nights ago at 8:08, when I gazed out over the Marin wetlands toward the East Bay and felt the balmy breeze and smelled the aromatic mud and basked in the pink mauve gray blue light blessing me from the west horizon.

In other words, this perfect moment will live forever in my eternity. It will live forever in Goddess's eternity, too, because I have noticed it, honored it, celebrated it, and offered it up to her as a gift from my awareness to hers.

In the midst of this gorgeous, poignant, eternal glory, everything belonged and belongs. Each longing I feel to love and be loved, every worry and hope I feel about the future, every confusion that mystifies me and every joy that exalts me — it all belongs

I don't banish my ego's yearnings as being beneath me. I don't deride my psyche for feeling fear. I honor all the phenomena that arise inside me as streams in the flow of being a soulful, struggling, ever-questing human.

The real "Reality" is not somewhere else in some future paradise or ideal situation. It's right here amidst all the messiness and uncertainty.

I don't aspire to rise up into some perfectly calm and featureless zero point. My enlightenment and awakening are here now, alive in the ever-shifting stories we are all creating together.

This section is written by the marvelous Toko-pa Turner:

EMBODIMENT IS THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

Much has been written about the art of mindfulness, especially focusing on how to create wiggle-room between an event and our reaction to it. We are asked to consider: Who is the "I" that experiences the event? And can we find the inner witness who sees oneself experiencing?

All of this valid, important work takes us deeper into the seat of this "silent witness" so that we’ll be less governed by the unpredictable ebbs and swells of the emotional life. It can be a tremendous tool for moving through difficult passages with equanimity.

But more often than not, I see this practice creating a kind of dissociation or detachment from the feeling life. Especially in folks who haven’t done the hard and dirty work of integrating their shadow, meditation can be used like any other form of escapism, to circumvent the true encounter with our less-than-desirable inner (and outer) guests.

The result of this brand of presence often creates the opposite of what it intends. Rather than fostering the oneness it exalts, it feeds the very separation we are trying to heal by creating an image of spirituality that is unattainable. The focus on enlightenment rather than embodiment distances us from the messy business of being human.

If you’re doing it right, presence, rather than detaching you, sensitizes you to your environment. It puts you smack-dab in the discomfort, the disagreeability, the pain, the awkwardness, and the contradiction — this is where you can grow more skilled at meeting life where it’s at, rather than how you’d prefer it to be. In other words, allowing the full spectrum of events to be included in your experience, rather than mounting resistance to them.

By extension, presence also makes us more porous to life’s mystery, or what Timothy "Speed" Levitch calls the "ongoing wow of now." When we think of presence in these terms, as an aperture or opening to what is, we immediately feel a spaciousness stretching around the word. And it is this capacity for presence that awakens a natural sense of accountability towards, and authentic engagement with our relationships, communities, and the natural world.

—by Toko-pa Turner, who is here: https://www.facebook.com/TokopaTurner

Image is by Red Thunderbird Woman — Leah Dorion —

and is from the book Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of September 7

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In honor of the Virgo birthday season, I invite you to be exceptionally distinctive and singular in the coming weeks, even idiosyncratic and downright incomparable. That's not always a comfortable state for you Virgos to inhabit, but right now it's healthy to experiment with. Here's counsel from writer Christopher Morley: “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Here's a bonus quote from Virgo poet Edith Sitwell: “I am not eccentric! It’s just that I am more alive than most people.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Do you sometimes wish your life was different from what it actually is? Do you criticize yourself for not being a perfect manifestation of your ideal self? Most of us indulge in these fruitless energy drains. One of the chief causes of unhappiness is the fantasy that we are not who we are supposed to be. In accordance with cosmic rhythms, I authorize you to be totally free of these feelings for the next four weeks. As an experiment, I invite you to treasure yourself exactly as you are right now. Congratulate yourself for all the heroic work you have done to be pretty damn good. Use your ingenuity to figure out how to give yourself big doses of sweet and festive love.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio novelist Kurt Vonnegut testified, "I want to stay as close on the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge, you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamed-of-things—the people on the edge see them first." I'm not definitively telling you that you should live like Vonnegut, dear Scorpio. To do so, you would have to summon extra courage and alertness. But if you are inclined to explore such a state, the coming weeks will offer you a chance to live on the edge with as much safety, reward, and enjoyment as possible.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Where there is great love, there are always miracles," wrote Sagittarian novelist Willa Cather (1873–1947). In accordance with upcoming astrological aspects, I encourage you to prepare the way for such miracles. If you don't have as much love as you would like, be imaginative as you offer more of the best love you have to give. If there is good but not great love in your life, figure out how you can make it even better. If you are blessed with great love, see if you can transform it into being even more extraordinary. For you Sagittarians, it is the season of generating miracles through the intimate power of marvelous love.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author Alexander Woollcott (1187–1943) could be rude and vulgar. He sometimes greeted cohorts by saying, "Hello, Repulsive." After he read the refined novelist Marcel Proust, he described the experience as "like lying in someone else's dirty bath water." But according to Woollcott's many close and enduring friends, he was often warm, generous, and humble. I bring this to your attention in the hope that you will address any discrepancies between your public persona and your authentic soul. Now is a good time to get your outer and inner selves into greater harmony.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1963, Aquarian author Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, a groundbreaking book that became a bestseller crucial in launching the feminist movement. She brought to wide cultural awareness “the problem that has no name”: millions of women's sense of invisibility, powerlessness, and depression. In a later book, Friedan reported on those early days of the awakening: "We couldn’t possibly know where it would lead, but we knew it had to be done." I encourage you to identify an equivalent quest in your personal life, Aquarius: a project that feels necessary to your future, even if you don't yet know what that future will turn out to be.

YOU ALWAYS HAVE MORE HELP THAN YOU IMAGINE

Both people whom you know and people you don't know could very well come to your assistance and offer their support if you meet two conditions:

1. you believe you deserve their assistance and support;

2. you seek out and ask for their assistance and support.

There's a higher part of your brain that will also provide you with insight and guidance if you turn to it in humility and seek its input.

Whether or not you actually believe in spiritual beings, they, too, are ready to offer unexpected help, support, blessings and resources. If you don't believe in their existence, I invite you to pretend you do for a while and see what happens. If you do believe in them, formulate clear requests for what you'd like them to offer you.

I may also be able to provide you with compassionate guidance, both through the written horoscopes I provide in this newsletter and the Expanded Audio Horoscopes I offer online and via telephone.

To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to

https://RealAstrology.com

The cost is $7 per sign online. (Discounts are available for bulk purchases.)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: All of them make me laugh." Piscean poet W. H. Auden said that. After analyzing the astrological omens, I conclude that laughing with those you love is an experience you should especially seek right now. It will be the medicine for anything that's bothering you. It will loosen obstructions that might be interfering with the arrival of your next valuable teachings. Use your imagination to dream up ways you can place yourself in situations where this magic will unfold.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov says war is “more like a game of poker than chess. On a chess board, the pieces are face up, but poker is essentially a game of incomplete information, a game where you have to guess and act on those guesses.” I suspect that's helpful information for you these days, Aries. You may not be ensconced in an out-an-out conflict, but the complex situation you’re managing has resemblances to a game of poker. For best results, practice maintaining a poker face. Try to reduce your tells to near zero. Here's the definition of "tell" as I am using the term: Reflexive or unconscious behavior that reveals information you would rather withhold.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Raised in poverty, Taurus-born Eva Peron became a charismatic politician and actor who served as First Lady of Argentina for six years. The Argentine Congress ultimately gave her the title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation.” How did she accomplish such a meteoric ascent? "Without fanaticism," she testified, "one cannot accomplish anything." But I don't think her strategy has to be yours in the coming months, Taurus. It will make sense for you to be highly devoted, intensely focused, and strongly motivated—even a bit obsessed in a healthy way. But you won’t need to be fanatical.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Ben H. Winters has useful counsel. "Every choice forecloses on other choices," he says. "Each step forward leaves a thousand dead possible universes behind you." I don't think there are a thousand dead universes after each choice; the number’s more like two or three. But the point is, you must be fully committed to leaving the past behind. Making decisions requires resolve. Second-guessing your brave actions rarely yields constructive results. So are you ready to have fun being firm and determined, Gemini? The cosmic rhythms will be on your side if you do.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Journalist Alexandra Robbins was addressing young people when she gave the following advice, but you will benefit from it regardless of your age: "There is nothing wrong with you just because you haven’t yet met people who share your interests or outlook on life. Know that you will eventually meet people who will appreciate you for being you." I offer this to you now, Cancerian, because the coming months will bring you into connection with an abundance of like-minded people who are working to create the same kind of world you are. Are you ready to enjoy the richest social life ever?

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Kevin Kelly is a maverick visionary who has thought a lot about how to create the best possible future. He advocates that we give up hoping for the unrealistic concept of utopia. Instead, he suggests we empower our practical efforts with the term “protopia.” In this model, we “crawl toward betterment,” trying to improve the world by one percent each year. You would be wise to apply a variation on this approach to your personal life in the coming months, Leo. A mere one-percent enhancement is too modest a goal, though. By your birthday in 2024, a six-percent upgrade is realistic, and you could reach as high as 10 percent.

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter

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