Our Huge Ego Problem
Undoubtedly there are many expressions of love, justice, well-being, and dignity inherent in modern democracies, science, and even within capitalism. However, the modern experiment that was to elevate the well-being of all people and to inhabit Earth in a manner consistent with the good of all people and creatures has obviously failed on scales once unimaginable. It would be irresponsible to blame any one thing for this enormous shift in human consciousness and ability to care for one another and the Earth, but we must at least point to an incredibly over-emphasized focus on human ego. We are an ego-obsessed culture.
By ego, I mean the aspect of each person that claims “me” or “mine”. It is the me that lives my day and looks out for my needs as I wander along the way. It is the important part of self that looks for the differences between me and you and often prioritizes me over you. My thoughts, my needs, my wishes, my comfort, my health, my survival, my sense of satisfaction. The ego develops an identity around these needs. And there are many aspects of life that rightfully require this individuated energy.
Our American culture clearly prioritizes this energy. One way to think of it is that ego energy looks like adolescent energy. In many ways our culture is an adolescent culture. And the more that we codify, celebrate, and admire this energy the more our political system will fail, communities will splinter, a few will rise to the top and the vast majority will be crushed (which is not only the fault of the top dwellers but lies upon us all to admit our part in this ego-empire).
One solution which has been proposed by organized religion in many forms is to criticize the ego, blame it, condemn it, and try very unsuccessfully to eradicate it. Often this is labeled as “sin” or “flesh” or some other name that can be identified and judged. This has never been the way to deal with the ego. It is always unsuccessful as the primary road to spiritual maturity.
The Creator fashioned us humanoids with an ego and intends for us to use it as one of the building blocks of self-understanding. However, the ego is a vastly inadequate guide to and through adulthood and spiritual maturity. It is only able to be healthy when it is contained in a broader or bigger truth. That larger story will always be one of Love, relationality, generosity, connectedness, and mutual responsibility for one another and all of Creation. This energy in each creature could be called soul, spirit, essence, core, or Divine nature. Many religious systems refer to this aspect of self as “the image of God”. This image is the only adequate energy to properly contain the ego. It is the very source of all of life and interconnectedness. It is creative, sustaining, harmonious, and redemptive. God within each manifestation of life is always straining for more life, more responsibility toward others, more relational and creative possibilities of displaying God’s very essence everywhere and in all things. As the ego understands itself to dwell within the image of the Divine then my “me” can understand its place among all things, not over and against all things.
If the human race, and perhaps much of what we know to be life on this planet, is to survive and thrive and continue to express the original goodness of the Creator, then we must continue to find ways to “grow up”. We must move toward adult spirituality instead of adolescent spirituality in adult bodies. There is nothing wrong with adolescent spirituality in adolescents. But it isn’t a sustainable way of being for adult humankind. And perhaps that is at least one of the reasons that image-based spiritualities, Nature-oriented spiritualities, mindfulness and contemplative teachings are having such a resurgence of late. The collective soul of people worldwide is calling for the maturity, depth, and power of the image of God holding the human ego in check.
Traditions, such as the millennia-old perspectives and practices of the Celtic Christians and pre-Christians are one of many of these sought-after spiritualities. The Celtic way is one of dancing with God who is imminently close. God’s revelation as Christ is not a concept to be believed in as much as it is a reality to fall into over and over again with each moment of relationship with others, all creatures, the fullness of the natural world, and the creative aspiration toward Love in all of its forms.
If we moderns, who have a tendency to think of ourselves as progressed and superior, can humble ourselves, our “me”, and look to the great wisdom of traditions that have known how to acknowledge ego while containing it in the Spirit of God, our species and the lives of most life on the planet may have a future in which all things thrive instead of an existence in which the loudest and most powerful “me’s” (which is in all of us) irretrievably destroy God’s breathed-out goodness that we call the Earth.
—Kirk Webb, Director of The Celtic Center
