The man in the gray flannel suit

Here's an amusingly apt description of the ego, courtesy of Helen Wambach's Reliving Past Lives:

I visualize the ego as a little guy in a gray flannel suit and tight necktie. His job is to get you safely through your working day, to make sure that you pay your electric bill and don't offend the boss. He keeps up a constant chatter, telling you to do this or that, and insisting that you pay attention to what's happening in the world around you. He takes occasional coffee breaks, like when you've driven down a familiar road and realize when you arrive home that you have no memory of the trip. The ego has taken time out, figuring you can get home on automatic pilot. He's grateful when you finally retire for the night. He's got you in a safe place -- your bedroom -- where nothing is likely to happen to you. He pops up again in the morning, when you "wake down" from your wider experiences in the sleep state. He's the character who makes you look at the clock ("time" only exists in its usual sense when the ego is on the job) and nags you into getting out of bed and on your way to work. Jealous of the time you spend in your right brain [i.e., the right cerebral hemisphere], he likes to insist he's been around all the time. He hates to admit that his job isn't all there is to your experience, so he makes sure you forget your dreams. He's especially good at pretending he's never off the job. "I wasn't asleep, or not paying attention. I was just resting my eyes. I heard everything you said," he insists indignantly when you catch him at one of his coffee breaks, such as when you are wool-gathering, sleeping, or under hypnosis. [p. 79]

Comments

[Kevin]

Interesting description from the author about an interesting subject. Ego can be fascinating and problematic, so it's something I approach with a good deal of ambivalence. When considered in context with your previously posted excerpt from Wambach on the idea of the ego-persona as a mask denoting different individuals, it tends toward the notion that the ego itself is not as primary as it may seem to us at a given moment. This seems consonant with my own experiences. Rather than conceptualizing the ego/individual as a dichotomy of conscious and subconscious mind, I have noted in myself (and encountered in others) a multitude of drives and priorities, each apparently of the belief that it should have primacy over the desires of the "others". I am not suggesting anything pathological like multiple personalities (DSM-IV now refers to this as "dissociative identity disorder"), but distinct impulses which seek to dominate the time behind the wheel of the ego-bus (I have no idea what Ralph Kramden would say). In my case, I cannot "be" a painter and a writer and a concert pianist and a psychologist and a sculptor and an actor without having to choose which (if any) can do the driving. And "who" does the choosing? I'm sure most people can identify with this same experience. Whether or not it offers some glimpse, some vague indication, of past lives is most likely unanswerable, but my mother tells me that, as a small child, I did demonstrate an extreme reaction to a house not far from here, and spoke of having lived there. Those memories faded as I grew older, though I feel to this day that I know the paths from the back of the house to the woods beyond. Also, having taught myself to draw and paint (which seemed easy) and to play piano (a bit more difficult) has made a number of people speculate over the years that these were skills learned in previous incarnations. Who can say? But Wambach's description of the ego seems within the range of existence.

[Hope Rivers]

EGO; "He's got you in a safe place -- your bedroom -- where nothing is likely to happen to you"

Michael really? ;-)

[Michael H]

This is a pretty amusing description, and as an aside, Hope - I’ve been way too safe lately.

The ego is a confusing topic though, and reading definitions from most dictionaries only adds to the confusion. There’s the idea of the “I”, that part of ourselves that distinguishes us from others, the source of the perception of subject and object; the full implication is that without this there couldn’t be any sense of identification. There are positive connotations of the term, as in healthy self-esteem, and negative interpretations, as in extreme conceit. There are several hundred distinct schools of psychology today, some seeking to bolster the ego, others intending to deconstruct it. And considering yourself worthless can be as egotistical as considering yourself extraordinary. It’s a very slippery slope.

Religion and mysticism only adds to the confusion, though most tend to agree that enlightenment results from ego dissolution. But that gets tricky, because if an active effort is made to dissolve the ego, it can result in an egotistical pride in one’s ‘smallness’ relative to others. I recall Eckhart Tolle’s observation of certain arrogant Buddhist monks (I think he used the term ‘aloof’).

One of Wambach’s comments gives me pause, when she writes, “He keeps up a constant chatter, telling you to do this or that, and insisting that you pay attention to what's happening in the world around you.”

It has been my observation that the constant chatter of the ego, which is part of everyone’s experience to varying degrees, is actually what prevents us from realizing what’s happening in the world around us. I’d venture that the ego’s chatter is focused on keeping us thinking that what appears to be happening is what’s really happening. It’s not necessarily the same thing; appearances can be very deceiving.

As someone who has briefly experienced the dissolution of the ego personally, it gets even trickier. I can personally attest that the ego has no problem assuming ownership of a transcendent experience. The ego is more than happy to retrospectively regard a mystical understanding or the onset of Cosmic Consciousness as evidence that one is special. It conveniently ignores the aspect of the experience that tells the greater whole that the unity experience occurred at the same moment as the dissolution of the ego.

I think the way out is deceptively simple, though not easy by any means. I think what’s involved is a slight change in what we choose to place our internal focus on. We normally are transfixed by our perceptions, but can we begin to see ourselves doing the perceiving? Can we see the chatter as chatter and not as fundamental reality? Can we create enough separation to watch our consciousness operating within, instead of latching on to and grinding away at whatever comes hurtling into our attention? As Wambach also writes with the example of driving down a familiar road, we all do this occasionally anyway, those moments when our minds are free, quietly grazing, aren’t deeply engaged in anything at all. We’ve all had the experience where we have misplaced or forgotten something. It eludes us as long as we actively search, yet leaps to mind once we stop looking.

It’s occurred to me more than once that perhaps what we’re here to learn is to live in a state of detached engagement, to realize the difference between consciousness itself and what our consciousness perceives. I suspect that doing so consistently will lead to an individual understanding of what the ego truly is and who we truly are, and the tremendous difference between the concepts. It’s just a guess, but I also suspect that the degree we learn to do so here will play an important role in what we experience when we leave.

[Hope Rivers]

"It’s occurred to me more than once that perhaps what we’re here to learn is to live in a state of detached engagement, to realize the difference between consciousness itself and what our consciousness perceives"

Michael, I believe love is what we're really here to learn.

[william]

“Can we create enough separation to watch our consciousness operating within”

Three years attending the course in miracles weekly study group helped me see what I believe was my ego in action. Not always a pretty site and it appeared that almost always there was some sort of feedback when one demonstrates some form of egotism to guide the ego to more humility.

It is very hard not to judge one’s own ego when you see it for what it often is and its need to seek constant reassurance of its existence. Even a person that is very quiet can be very much into their ego. So many human attributes are of the ego like guilt, shame, success, winning, losing, recognition, fame, power, self judgment, judging others, blaming, and even showing sympathy and the big one Dr Hora talks about is “self confirmatory ideation”.

I often wonder if the ego does not seek constant reassurance of its existence because at some deep level it knows or suspects its lack of eternalness. I believe that the ego is a necessary phase of consciousness (soul) development. I have always felt the more one tries to quash the ego the more it has control over your thoughts. The opposite of egotism is receptivity and humility.

I suspect the universe is communicating with us all the time but we must become receptive and humble to hear, see, and experience its divine wisdom.

Hope: would like to add just one word to your statement to Michael. “I believe love is what we're really here to learn” and experience.

[Hope Rivers]

William,

Yes you are right, its all about the action.

Experiencing, learning, loving and evolving...it's a journey thats both beautiful and challenging, but yet it is IT....... I guess this say's it all.

......"If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.

It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails, it never ends.

If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man (woman), I put aside childish things.

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three.

but the greatest of these is Love."

[Barbara]

I like that description a lot. It even explains some of my frustration with recalling dreams. Much more user friendly than what one finds in dictionaries and so forth, which as Michael H said, only seem to lead to more confusion.

[John]

When I really think about it, most of the dreams I remember either fall in to two categories:

- I strongly remember any dreams involving love
- So extremely bizarre that I wake up dumbfounded.

Perhaps the "soul" has a natural affinity for love?

[Michael H]

‘Perhaps the "soul" has a natural affinity for love?’

John, my best guess is that, in the end, the ‘soul’ is love, though the nature of that love is inconceivable to the ego.

[Hope Rivers]

I agree with you Michael H.

I'd give anything to experience the intense love that consumed me in my NDE like experience, but alas I guess I may have to wait to die first.

I have achieved sustained moments of pure bliss through meditation,which was a very pale shade of the NDE experience, but then life gets in the way and it's hard to keep it up.

I guess us humans with all our frailties and inadequecies will have to contend with a very faint version of "love" until we master self.

As much as I feel priviledged for my experience, it has crossed my mind that ignorance can sometimes be bliss.

[william]

hope I agree sometimes ignorance can be more blissful than knowledge but the buddhists and the hindus believe that the orgin of our suffering is ignorance.

so I suspect that the statement ignorance is bliss sometimes can be perceived as valid.

here is the quote that ignorance is bliss that was taken out of context

"Where ignorance is bliss, tiss folly to be wise".