From the Ego to the Heart | Steve Beckow

By Steve Beckow, April 13, 2023

(Golden Age of Gaia)

It’s taken me decades to know and acknowledge when the ego is speaking.

It’s taken me an equally-long time to acknowledge when I’m being self-serving.

The ego is the motivator and repository of everything connected with the survival and success of the person. How can I let it go?

Download Transcending the Ego here:

https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Transcending-the-Ego-2.pdf

The ego was originally designed to help us arrive at a level of consciousness of self that we hadn’t attained before. We came to have an “I.” We came to be aware of it. We’d achieved self-consciousness.

This was one step on a long, long journey from ignorance to absolute realization of the One that we are. (1)

It’s a journey of increasing depth of understanding of “I.” Who am I? becomes the ultimate question.

No one escapes being on that journey and no one fails to return Home. As Sri Ramakrishna said, some are fed in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening. But all will be fed. (2)

There are many approaches to transcending the ego. we can let go of any thoughts the minute we see that they issue from the ego. We can befriend the ego. We can ask the Mother and invoke the universal law to make the ego our friend and servant. We can process all vasanas, which would have the ego recede and recede.

All of these ways and perspectives are reflected, I hope, in the selection of articles in this volume.

Whatever we do or don’t do, we’ll find, as the energies rise, that our thoughts, feelings, and actions will more and more be influenced, not by the ego, but by the heart. We’ll be launched on a new level of consciousness – Self-consciousness.

There’s nothing “wrong” with the ego. It served us well in making the transition from no self-consciousness to self-consciousness.

It’s a question now of relying on something that has passed its point of utility. It doesn’t lead to the same useful results that it once did.

We now need to rely on different tools than the ego. Chief among them now is the heart. (3)

Footnotes Follow

Download Transcending the Ego here:

https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Transcending-the-Ego-2.pdf

Footnotes

(1) On the overall journey, see “The Purpose of Life is Enlightenment – Ch. 13 – Epilogue” in The Purpose of Life is Enlightenment at http://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Purpose-of-Life-is-Enlightenment.pdf

(2) “All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without any exception, will certainly know the real Self.” (Sri Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 818.

(3) On reliance on the heart, see Love Like We Never Imagined It to Be at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Love-Like-We-Never-Imagined-It-to-Be-R13.pdf