 | Ego Traps
by Rev. Michael Matson, D.D.
http://www.metaphorsforlife.com
Throughout history much has been written by mystics both great and
small about the ego and its role in preventing us from breaking free
of the illusions we maintain about our ourselves and the lives we
lead.
As a teacher and counselor, I've discovered that students and
clients often find it very difficult to unpack those historical
references and apply them to our lives today. Rumi, for example, tells
a very risque and yet applicable story. To paraphrase (and please,
nobody take offence at Rumi's imagery):
A wealthy woman's handmaiden learned how to safely pleasure herself
using her mistress's mule. One day the handmaiden's mistress catches
her doing so, but the mistress does not make her presence known to the
girl. Intrigued, the mistress decides to sneak into the stall and try
the mule out for herself. But because she didn't know the steps her
handmaiden had taken to keep herself safe, she is fatally injured.
Shocking as Rumi's choice of vehicle for the story is (and the
original is much more shocking than my brief and sanitized
paraphrasing), the mistress's attitude and the choices she made drive
to the heart of the strategies and tactics I've observed western ego's
employ. See if you can find the common themes that run through the
following modern ego defense strategies:
**The guru: The individual is quite ready to become the student to
learn a profession or a trade -- and might even be in school doing so
-- but has all the answers where personal and spiritual matters are
concerned. Having convinced the individual of how spiritually advanced
they are, the ego is quite safe from the attacks real spiritual growth
would pose.
**The linguist: This individual has an impressive spiritual vocabulary
and can talk at length about spiritual things using that
vocabulary. Here the ego's aim may be to assure the individual they're
"more spiritual than thou," thus convincing them they're doing just
fine spiritually; or it may be to trick the individual into believing
that by mastering the use of the language, they really are
doing spiritual work. Either way, the ego is safe.
**The teacher's teacher: This chap has a teacher, but tells the
teacher what to teach, how to teach it, and whether or not the teacher
has correctly "graded the papers." In other words, the ego has
convinced the individual that they're really doing their spiritual
work (because they have a spiritual teacher), but is still safely in
control because it's writing the syllabus and grading the work.
**The analyzer: For this person, it's all about them. "It" might
originate inside or outside, but whatever the point of origin, it is
quickly internalized and personalized. It's all about them because,
from this individual's point of view, they're very special and very
different from everybody else; they simply don't "process" things the
way other people do. Here the ego has successfully trapped the
individual in their own myopic little world, and built enough barriers
to prevent real help from threatening it's supreme position.
**The intellectual: For this individual, it's all about
answers. Things must be explained. They must make sense. And often,
there's an uncompromising drive to get to the unfettered, unvarnished
"truth." Intellectuals don't feel, they think about feeling and will
insist to the very end that they are feeling their feelings. Having
successfully trapped the individual in the world of the mind, the ego
safe from having to worry that real emotion and intuition might
challenge its supreme place.
**The child: This poor person is paralyzed by fear. They often see all
the blocks to their spiritual evolution, including the fear itself,
but simply cannot engage in the process. If they have a spiritual
teacher -- and most do not -- they don't trust the teacher to guide
them successfully to their spiritual goals. The ego has checkmated
this person by convincing them they're going to lose everything
important to them if it's forced out of the driver's seat.
**The victim: This individual takes everything
personally and usually in the most injurious way possible. They can
inflict more strife and tragedy on themselves in less time than the
average wrecking ball, and are often quite proud of the collateral
damage their personal dramas inflict on others. ("I'm just bad
luck.") At the very least, the ego has managed to convince this
person that they are powerless, and it will convince them that
someone, something, or maybe life itself is out to get them if it
can. Thus, the ego has free reign to play.
Now of course, very few individuals will fit neatly into just one
of the above strategies. Most fit closely with one, but will borrow
tactics from at least one other strategy, and sometimes two.
The important thing to note is that at the heart of every one of these
strategies is pride and arrogance. Just like the mistress in Rumi's
story, who was too proud to learn from her own handmaiden, "the
teacher's teacher" knows more about what they need to learn, and how
it should be taught, than their teacher does; "the guru" is too proud
to need a teacher in the first place, never mind seeing the
shallowness of its own life; "the analyzer" is so self absorbed
nothing else matters; and so on. All variations on the central theme
that defines modern life itself: Pride and arrogance.
To make real spiritual progress the ego's strategies have to be
learned and countered. It's tough work. It's unpleasant work. It's
dirty work. And as the above defense strategies suggest, it usually
takes the help of a very talented teacher to get the job done right.
---
Reverend Dr. Michael Matson is an author and mystic who teaches and
counsels extensively on our modern orthodoxies and the process of
recovering from fundamentalism, and is currently writing a book on
the subject. If you'd like to learn more about his work, please visit
http://www.metaphorsforlife.com
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