But if on the contrary Man sees a new door opening above him, a new stage for his development; if each of us can believe that he is working so that the Universe may be raised, in him and through him, to a higher level—then a new spring of energy will well forth in the heart of Earth’s workers. The whole great human organism, overcoming a momentary hesitation, will draw its breath and press on with strength renewed.
—PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
I will radiate my sacred self outward for the collective good of all.
This final chapter will not be an odyssey into all the evils of our society. I do not intend to end this book cataloging all the problems that we have created as a result of allowing our egos to be the dominant force in our world.
This is not to say that I fail to recognize that we have plenty of problems that have grown out of our preoccupation with satisfying our egos. Nor am I blind to the fact that our individual egos have interacted in ways that have produced war, crime, addiction, poverty, social inequities and government tyrannies.
We have created a world ego that reflects, on the global level, the same lack of depth and richness that exists in our individual lives. Throughout this book I have presented reasons for taming the personal ego and suggestions for how to do that. The very same can be said for doing this on a global level. I hope it is as obvious to you as it is to me that the collective ego will benefit when we transcend our individual egos.
You as a single individual have a sacred quest. That quest involves coming to know your higher spiritual nature and inviting it to show you the way of the sacred self in your daily life. This means denying the demands of your ego if those demands contradict the guidance of your higher self.
Our world is a collection of individuals urged on by the loving presence within all of us to achieve the sacred quest personally and collectively. The world will become a peaceful, fulfilled, cooperative, loving, truthful, tolerant and pure environment as the individual parts that make up the collective consciousness restrain their egos. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. The whole behaves precisely as do its individual parts.
Many people I speak to tell me that they feel powerless to affect the global community. They believe that, given the scope of the world’s problems, their efforts are so infinitesimal as to be insignificant.
They simply are not seeing that it is precisely through a change in individual consciousness that the world will be transformed. All of the problems that we face as a group reflect those we have individually.
The world is encountering a spiritual deficit that reflects our need to consciously get on the path of our sacred quest. The solution to individual and global problems is to overcome the spiritual deficit. When you make the shift in consciousness allowing yourself to be an agent of heightened awareness, you are contributing to the transformation of our world.
You are not separate from the other souls on this planet. You share the identical energy that embodies the souls of Rwanda and Pakistan, for example. You are the lamp and God is the electricity. It flows through you as surely as it flows through all living things. When you make the decision to choose the guidance of your higher self over your false self, you have plugged in to the divine inner energy. When you run your life based on the principles of the higher self, you are contributing to the transformation of the entire world.
The physical changes that will take place in the world will happen automatically, just as they will in your body when you shift to your sacred self. This is inevitable. The ego fades in the brilliance of the divine light. You find you are behaving in more peaceful and loving ways. So too will this take place on a global level.
You must strengthen your will to choose the sacred path when your ego calls you a fool for believing there could ever be a world without war. If your ego can convince you, you will become part of the collective ego’s falseness. Individuals who choose ego propaganda are individuals who will build more bombs and manufacture more weapons.
Currently there are some six billion people on the planet. About three million are at war or in conflicts and skirmishes that cause them to kill and torture each other. But that means that there are five billion, nine hundred ninety-seven million who are not at war! That is a hopeful statistic which our egos do not want us to consider.
By contrast, the collective ego strives to keep the populace nervously on the edge with reminders to view the world in terms of us versus them. This ego viewpoint not only reinforces the insane escalation of ways to kill each other but is also responsible for most of our social problems.
I am not suggesting that we ignore problems of homelessness, hunger, disease and the like. I am suggesting that our collective ego has convinced us that these problems are out of control. The truth is that we have made remarkable strides in spite of the pessimistic ego, through the care and love of those who are motivated by their sacred self to serve.
Of all the people in the world, 99.9 percent have some place to go each night. All may not have luxurious homes, but on the whole we have figured out a way to house all but a small percentage of the people on our planet. Many of us are working each day to fill the gap and make it 100 percent. Yet the pictures that our ego presents are of rampant homelessness, hopelessness and a fear-based collective consciousness. This is true of hunger as well.
We are making gigantic strides helping those who live on the edge of starvation. This is happening through the efforts of people inspired by their higher selves, not by ego’s pessimism. Obviously, one person dying of malnutrition is too many, and we can and will do something to ensure that we live in a world where such a thing no longer exists. But that will not be accomplished by the pessimistic view of the ego, which insists that we are separate from or better than those living in poverty. Were the entire world to suddenly shift away from the separateness of the ego and listen to the truth of our sacred selves, there would be no possibility of anyone starving.
To say that such a world is an impossibility is to listen to the ego, which is working collectively as well as individually to keep us convinced of our separateness.
UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD EGO
The world ego is an extension of our personal ego. It will lead us as a group into the same morass that our individual egos have, only on a much larger and more observable scale. The world ego does not exist in the physical sense because it is an idea. It is not who we are as a people but what we believe we are as a collection of people. Go back to the characteristics of the ego that I presented in Chapter 7, and simply extend those qualities to the entire world.
The world ego is our false self, and this is the primary characteristic that we need to recognize. We want to believe that we are our physical bodies and that the territories we occupy are so important that we are willing to kill each other in order to maintain those boundary lines.
We have become convinced that our true identities are located in tribal ancestries, traditions, histories, genealogies and the color and shape of our bodies. We have lost sight of our authentic identities because of the labels that our egos have assigned to us.
Our egos have coalesced into a worldwide false perception of ourselves based on an unwillingness to know our true spiritual nature. Although all of our spiritual leaders have reminded us of our divinity and implored and even commanded us to love one another, the world ego has won this battle and produced ancient enmities and uncountable horrors in the long history of humanity.
As a result of listening to the false self and ignoring our connection to the holy spirit, terrestrial humankind has lived in a theater of war that has created societies governed by primitive consciousness. As a people, we are capable of creating societies governed by the divine consciousness that we all share. We are all extensions of the same God, manifested in a physical form with specific identifiable attributes.
We can work individually on our personal egos and find the truth of our highest selves. Then we will extend that sacred self outward and humankind will no longer be ruled by lower instincts and primitive intelligence—instead we will be ruled by the holy spirit that is in all of us. If that sounds like an impossible task to you, then you are once again caught in ego’s trap. Your ego does not want you to believe in such a possibility because it will mean the demise of your false self.
The spiritual solution to the major problems that face the world is to bring into positions of power those who are not motivated and driven by their egos but see the collective good as their primary objective. We need leaders who do not manifest primitive tendencies of consciousness such as hate, envy, greed, bloodthirstiness and intolerance but are grounded in love, tolerance, truth and purity. These leaders are emerging and will continue to emerge as we take responsibility for transcending our own individual egos and knowing the true spirit of God. The world ego will be driven into obsolescence as we become truly aware of our sacred selves.
Your sacred self is waiting to share with you and the rest of the world the knowing that we are all of the same eternal essence, an extension of God. In that knowing is the absence of the belief that we are tribal members willing to kill for the physical distinctions that are such a minor part of our existence.
That notion of separateness is what the world ego feeds on. It is an extension of all the individual egos in conflict with each other, fighting their battles to prove just how separate they are from each other. In truth, none of us are separate from God. None of us are separate from each other. Living on a round planet symbolizes the impossibility of choosing up sides.
We all share the same oxygen, drink from the same water, walk and reside on the same soil. And whether we like to admit it or not, we are all intimately sharing each other’s continually changing atoms and molecules. The only constant in the physical world is change. Everything that is manifested in a material form is changing at all moments. This continuous shift of atoms means that there is no separateness in the quantum scientific sense or in any other sense. Your sacred self is waiting for you to make the choice to let your ego know this truth.
Your ego wants separateness, and so too does the world ego. As long as the world ego believes so strongly in being separate, there will be conflicts to assuage that ego pressure. The presence of nation-states and artificial boundaries will continue under the domination of the world ego. Nationalism represents the selfishness or egoism of a nation and will prevail as long as the ego is honored as truth.
As we move toward unity we will create a world ordered by the higher self, which sees everyone as an inhabitant of the same kingdom. Then there will be no special interests being served; no forts being built on borders; no more nuclear weapons created; and no passports, customs or even exchange of currency. What will be is the knowing that we are one people. We will know that we are not the separate boundaries that we hang onto to coddle that world ego and promote the ideas that billions of people have needlessly died for.
As we substitute love for fear and allow our sacred selves to appear, the need for separateness will gradually disappear. It is happening right now, despite the efforts of many people driven by their egos to maintain the symbols of separateness, which are gradually melting away. The work of the spirit is subtle and patient.
There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, and the death of the world ego is long overdue. No more young people being sent off to die to preserve ancient borders. No more killing of our brothers and sisters whose customs are different in our physical world but who are connected to us in the world of our sacred self. The movement toward the sacred self will make the seductive voice of the world ego less appealing.
We can no longer afford this veil of separateness that the world ego begs us to embrace. The weapons that exist today, if used, will kill even those who use them. We all share the same environment, breathe the same air. To pollute it with radioactivity is the same as firing weapons at ourselves, which is precisely what we do whenever we fire any weapon at anyone. When Jesus said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” he was begging us to realize that we are one. Your higher self knows this—so too does the highest part of the world collective.
The false part, the ego, insists that we are not only separate but special. In this creed of specialness, ego tries to convince us that we are more favored than others and that the special status is nurtured by following a spiritual master who is our ticket to heaven. This god of specialness hates certain people and loves others depending on their belief systems. The ego uses this kind of thinking to control us.
When you center yourself and find your quiet inner sacred space, you know the loving presence that does not discriminate. You know that specialness is not something bestowed on some and not on others. You know that it is absurd to believe that a Muslim baby will burn in hell because of not having Buddhist or Christian beliefs. You know that Australian aborigines are equal in importance to royalty. Your sacred self tells you this, and so does all of our spiritual literature.
Your personal ego’s message of specialness is echoed and intensified in the collective world. The world ego wants it to be easy to ignore those who have less. Then less industrialized societies that are not as literate can be viewed as “them,” which ego interprets as less favored. They can be considered as not chosen by God. That makes it possible to overlook them or use our superior weapons to eliminate them. This is how it becomes possible for people to watch real bombing and destruction on television and tell themselves that the victims are getting what they deserve.
But the sacred self knows that “Thou shalt not kill” does not have an asterisk. When we kill peasants in the process of overthrowing a dictator, our sacred self knows that we are violating our highest commandments by making some people disposable.
In truth, no one is special. We are all equal and we all share the same spirit. If you believe anyone is special, it means that someone else is not. The world ego will work very hard to keep this idea of specialness alive because it allows the kinds of actions that perpetuate the existence of the ego.
We will move away from that position as we pursue our individual sacred quest. When the loving presence is known, we will be unable to view others as less special or ourselves as more so. This will represent a victory of unselfishness over selfishness in all forms throughout the world.
Tom Brown, Jr., describes this attitude in a wonderful quote taken from his challenging book, The Quest:
Man living in the island of self is living but a small part of what life is all about. Man must transcend the barriers, the prisons of ego and thought, and reach the Creator. All Islands, all circles, must be bridged. Each world must be understood, then finally fused into an absolute and pure “oneness.” Then there can be no inner or outer dimension, no separation of self, just a pure oneness where man is at once all things. It is in this fusion of worlds that man will know all things and live the deeper meanings of life…. Then and only then can man ever hope to touch God.
As you travel the path of your sacred quest you will help to dispel the absurdity of specialness that the ego so assiduously promotes. You will see an end to this kind of thinking in your life and on a world scale as well.
On the world scene at this point in history we see huge conflicts being played out merely to assuage the part of the ego that was offended. When you are easily offended, it is the self-absorbed ego that gets hurt and insists on proving how special and important you are. The same thing happens collectively. This collective ego is at work on the global scale and in our local cities as well.
The world ego is easily offended. When ego is offended, it needs revenge. It needs to retaliate to demonstrate its importance and specialness against whatever is perceived to be the cause of the offense. So, when an ego-dominated nation is offended by the words of a petty tyrant, it redresses the grievance by aggression and killing.
So too are our cities filled with young people who rely so strongly on their egos that they are willing to arbitrarily kill those who do not meet their self-imposed standards. They are convinced that they are special and entitled to everything that proves their specialness. If they do not get it, they are offended and create riots and mayhem, killing and looting.
This represents a gigantic lack of spiritual awareness. We need to put God back into the consciousness of these young people, replacing the deficit with higher awareness. Then these problems will begin to dissipate. When people discover their sacred self, they are no longer offended by what they do not have. Instead, they are willing to give of themselves and are free of needing more or comparing themselves with others. This change in emphasis from ego self to sacred self will eventually eliminate the problems of welfare and war.
When the collective ego is offended, the world becomes embroiled in destruction. When the higher self is consulted, there is nothing to be offended about! One only sees what has to be done and begins to live out of the love that the inner silence proclaims. Consider this statement by the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard:
The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked my advice I should reply Create Silence.
Indeed, by going within and teaching all of those who are so eager to redress their grievances to do likewise, we would see a major shift in consciousness and much more compassion and tolerance. Ultimately, we’d see the peace that all of us on this planet want so desperately.
The higher part of ourselves that I have written about throughout this book reflects a vision that is infinite. This is assuredly not the vision of the ego. The ego is just as cowardly on a collective scale as it is on an individual basis. The world ego is frightened of a mass appeal to overcome our spiritual deficit.
When people face inward and embrace a more loving perspective, the power of the sacred self will create change not only in the community but in the entire world as well. The world ego will do all that it can to prevent this kind of inner approach. It will ridicule those who promote meditation, peaceful demonstrations and the love of God as a way out of the morass of social evils. The ego wants conflict.
Ego’s vision is ensconced in the material world, and it endorses a kind of taking up arms against those who propose improving life by opposing ego. Ego is cowardly in that it fears the celestial light of God. This system is sustained exclusively by habit and fear of the higher self. Let anyone suggest that there is a spiritual deficit that needs love, peace, kindness and compassion to be incorporated in the curriculum of life, and they are scoffed at as unrealistic or childish. What the ego-based system encourages is more spending and more separateness.
A shift in consciousness will surely melt the old system in which an unholy alliance exists between a few powerful, well-entrenched bureaucrats and the powerlessness of the masses. In the old system, bureaucrats provide themselves with benefits that are denied to those who pay the bills for the bureaucrats, then hide under the guise of special privilege when confronted with their cowardice. This is where the cowardice of the world ego shows its shameless face over and over.
The collective ego insists that we cannot afford to make too many changes; that we cannot afford to provide everyone with the same privileges as those who are in power; that those who buck the system are troublemakers and need to be silenced.
The higher collective spiritual awareness knows better. It knows we have nothing to fear as long as we are operating from love rather than a desire to serve ego. Sacred self knows that genuine power is within the self, not in the institutions that we have created which distance the masses from those who have amassed power. The collective ego is cowardly, yet it will fight to maintain the influence that it has over so many who are victims of the entrenched system.
As you begin to consult your higher self, you will affect the collective consciousness and force those who are hanging onto the ego-based system to relax their hold. The ego always fears the light and therefore operates in secrecy and dark rooms. When the motivation for all of those in charge is based exclusively upon the principles of higher awareness, then the collective ego dries up and withers away.
The primary emphasis of the collective ego is power. This power is measured usually in monetary terms. The more money you have, the higher degree of specialness you are awarded, and the longer you get to stay in charge.
Thus the world ego loves to spend money, particularly your money. You will be told how important it is for us to spend billions of your earnings on an unworkable system that will protect us from outer space missiles, and sure enough the money will be appropriated. You are told by the ego system that we need more sophisticated weapons so that we can conduct warfare from inside air-conditioned fortresses where we can press a button and wipe out thousands of people and all of their possessions, without ever even having to witness the suffering we are creating.
The fact that a commandment has been violated and that we have participated in the mass murder of our brothers and sisters is not a notion that the ego entertains. Those are enemies, ego reminds us. They are bad, and we need more and more money to be able to kill them with more sophisticated means of destruction.
The collective ego convinces itself that money makes it special, and thus it will throw dollars at any problem and pride itself on the undertaking. Consume, consume, consume. More is better. The more you accumulate, the fancier your toys, the bigger your shopping malls, the more petrol that you use in your automobiles—the more successful you are. It is a push away from peace toward a style of consumerism and capitalism that is defended as the way of civilization.
Yet your higher self knows that there is no peace in more-is-better. It is just as true on the collective level as it is on the individual plane. The higher self urges you to simplify and to avoid contributing to anything that hurts others or increases the separation from your spiritual source.
As you listen more closely to your sacred self and transcend your ego, so too will the world ego be shifted away from power, control and money back to the basic virtues of higher awareness—back to peace, beauty, love, purity, tolerance, patience and compassion. This does not mean that the benefits of technology cannot be enjoyed. It means that the ego will not be the motivating force in our lives. What we truly are as a people is a force that craves peace and simplicity.
We want that deeper awareness that comes with the sanity of the higher self. It is insane to continue believing that we are a collection of tribes, each with a separate identity and a special mission. It is insane to believe that anyone who does not fit into our particular tribal mentality is a potential enemy.
We know that there is not a separate God for each of us, or even for each of our tribes. We know that there is a universal divine intelligence that flows through all of us, and in that sacred space within us we are all one and the same. We know that we are spiritual beings trying to learn how to be human. We know that the best within us is love, kindness and compassion.
Yet our egos, both individually and collectively, have campaigned long and hard to promote a false idea. How sane is it for people to be killing each other over disputes that ancient egos created long before we arrived? How sane is it for us to believe that some of us deserve to eat the food that God provides and that others do not deserve it by virtue of their geographic location? How sane is it for us to pump up our youth with the philosophy of the free ride by leading them to believe that if they want something they deserve it? How sane is it to show our children pictures of violence as entertainment and allow them to adopt the ego belief that it is human nature to hurt others as a way to defend a right to be special and separate?
As our higher selves begin to triumph over ego in the daily decision making of our lives, we will truly be making progress on the path of the sacred quest for all of humanity. You must banish all doubt about your ability to facilitate such a quest and begin to know that you are both the microcosm and the macrocosm.
There is a universe within you—a unified field of all possibilities that you can reach as you become the compassionate witness. Be silent and shut down the inner dialogue. Most important, transcend the false self that we call the ego. That is when the healing will occur.
The world ego is destined to be restrained as more individuals look within and consult the highest part of themselves. The doubts are vanishing and the spiritual revolution is well under way. Moving toward an egoless world is not some far-fetched idea, any more than the disintegration of the Iron Curtain was a far-fetched idea. To those who heard such talk a few years before it happened, it did indeed seem absurd. But ideas, thoughts and inner knowing are powerful instruments for the disintegration of the false self.
One of the simplest and most powerful ways of doing this is taught by Eknath Easwaran; writing in his book Meditation, he advises us to spend thirty minutes every morning in meditation repeating the Prayer of St. Francis. In saying this prayer we both transcend the ego and invite the sacred self to guide us throughout the day. I invite you to join me in this daily prayer as we share the path of the sacred quest.
THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
If you have the same knowing about your world, dramatic changes will take place as we collectively put to use the greatest force in the universe—the force of love.
It seems only fitting to quote my spiritual teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj as I close this book. He reminds us of the simplicity of creating a society that is based on spiritual principles:
My stand is clear; produce to distribute, feed before you eat, give before you take, think of others before you think of yourself. Only a selfless society based on sharing can be stable and happy. This is the only practical solution. If you do not want it, then—fight.
I want it. I encourage you to do the same. God bless you!