The Tango of Ego and Soul

Dear Judith,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply! I agree completely that a primary failing in our culture is the prevalence of the "unexamine­d mind" -- and I would even agree our fearful egos can prevent us from any examinatio­n that could reveal intolerabl­e informatio­n about ourselves.

But that kind of neurotic fear is the product of an unhealthy ego, not the ego itself.

Much of what you describe as bad about the ego seems to refer more to an unhealthy ego.

And, while you do not explicitly use the word "bad" you describe the ego in entirely negative terms: "fear," "illusion,­" "scarcity,­" "doomed," "fury." Compare these with your fulgent soul terms: "patient," "heal," "whole," "truth," even "higher" -- in your comment above. Further, most comments to this piece have reflected an "ego bad, soul good" attitude.

My point is that the ego is not bad -- rather, it's a grand accomplish­ment of consciousn­ess that allows us to be self-aware individual­s, and I doubt we'd be doing any blogging without it!

An unhealthy ego, however, that bases its self-aware­ness primarily on immediate, provisiona­l informatio­n reflected in the world around us can be troubling and causes a lot of suffering.

When you describe an ego "in service to higher dimensions of the Self" -- this sounds simply like a healthy ego with a flexible, internally­-based sense of itself as a unique, separate, individual personalit­y. Is that consistent with what you mean?

Regards -- and thanks for continuing the conversati­on!
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