An ego is just a hole in the wall

Duality is clearly a fundamental aspect of reality, everything has an equal and opposite. Without polar opposites our physical world would not be possible, there could be no north without south, no east without west. To exist in the physical world is to be tall and short, depending on who you're standing next to. You cannot simply be without being in every physical dimension: height, width, depth. To live in this world is to constantly flower in all of these subtle ways opening up to each moment. Perhaps the most important and most subtle divide that makes our worlds possible is the wall between what is and what is not yet.

Long before we exist in all of these myriad physical dimensions we are in another place, separated from the manifest world. We exist but were not yet manifest in the physical world, like actors in the wings waiting to go on. This is true for everything in the manifest world, including the set, props, and costumes. The world would be an impossible mess with everything and everyone on stage all at once. This invisible wall between what is and what isn't yet is porous letting non-things pass through to become things, people, ideas, etc. People? People come through people, born into this world through their mother. And in a way everything is born into this world through something else.

In our culture there is a strange reverence for the human ego, we are both impressed and disgusted by this abstract apparatus. There is a sense that it can be too big and therefore bad, but we then worship our superficial pop culture icons as modern day saints. Fame is clearly not indicative of sainthood, but many of these people actually produce great works of human achievement and deserve due respect. Is it possible the ego has a bad rap, could it be a matter of how we use it rather than if we use it? But how do you understand the function of something so obvious yet so subtle? The true nature of the ego can be unlocked with the birth canal analogy, we birth ideas into this world.

But the wall is also critical for understanding the manifest world, and each of the countless pores in this wall can be seen as one human ego. Our egos are the birth canals that allows non-things to come into this world, and for the most part they are not very big. Most egos lead somewhat mundane lives, dealing with the very ordinary tasks of everyday life. But once one of us is called upon to perform we begin to change, grow, expand. Just as the birth canal dilates on rare occasion to allow something big, something special into this world, so do our egos. The more one can relax and allow this process to occurr the more one can open themselves up to create great works of art, craft, or sport.

In this regard Jesus could be seen as having had a very strong ego, ready to open up completely to every moment. But his greatest strength was his heart that was also ready to open up and feel love and compassion for every person he came across, no matter gender, race, social class. Jesus is seen by some as a god, some as a saint, some as a prophet, and some as nothing at all. Time and worship has erased his ego as if it would take away from his godliness, but his ego was there and it was active in all his roles. It really doesn't matter if your a prophet, a god, or just a child in the school play. The ego was made to open up and let bigger things come through us, if we can ignore the stigma of the ego-maniac bigger things will come through us and to us.