On Ego
UPDATE: this video is no longer available on youtube, so here's a link to myspace.tv where you can watch the same discussion.
Andrew Cohen with Ken Wilber, or "The Guru & the Pandit", live in Denver. In this clip, they discuss the notion of ego as it is used in different contexts. Implicitly, they confirm one of points I was making in my post "On Being and Becoming", also starring Andrew Cohen, namely that "ego" is being used in a wrong and confusing way, creating, as Wilber himself remarks in this clip, "a semantic mess". As the participant asking the question makes clear, "egolessness" is an unfortunate way of conceptualizing the nondual, whether from a pre- or a post-realization perspective. And, "ego is becoming synonymous with the shadow"? What is that? In short, a mess.
This mess, however, doesn't stop many teachers (including Cohen) from using the notion in very conflicting ways, which creates an unclarity, and an ambiguousness, definitely not helpful for an audience and a public that, first of all, need to come to terms with their own egos, strenghten their egos, heal their fractures, and overcome their self-obsessions. Then, may I insist, only then can we approach together, in a culture of authentic insight and understanding, not ambiguity, the question of self-contraction which indeed, to quote KW again, "goes all the way up". I'm confident that this is an essential step in creating a truly post-rational spiritual discourse, wherein basic distinctions must be stated clearly and used consistently (the rational level), in order to be dissolved in some higher, wider and deeper perspective. This seems to be true in both traditional sense (uproting the self-contraction to realize radical spaciousness) and in the developmental sense. Both aspects depend on clarity in distinguishing between paradox and ambiguity. What do you think?
Andrew Cohen with Ken Wilber, or "The Guru & the Pandit", live in Denver. In this clip, they discuss the notion of ego as it is used in different contexts. Implicitly, they confirm one of points I was making in my post "On Being and Becoming", also starring Andrew Cohen, namely that "ego" is being used in a wrong and confusing way, creating, as Wilber himself remarks in this clip, "a semantic mess". As the participant asking the question makes clear, "egolessness" is an unfortunate way of conceptualizing the nondual, whether from a pre- or a post-realization perspective. And, "ego is becoming synonymous with the shadow"? What is that? In short, a mess.
This mess, however, doesn't stop many teachers (including Cohen) from using the notion in very conflicting ways, which creates an unclarity, and an ambiguousness, definitely not helpful for an audience and a public that, first of all, need to come to terms with their own egos, strenghten their egos, heal their fractures, and overcome their self-obsessions. Then, may I insist, only then can we approach together, in a culture of authentic insight and understanding, not ambiguity, the question of self-contraction which indeed, to quote KW again, "goes all the way up". I'm confident that this is an essential step in creating a truly post-rational spiritual discourse, wherein basic distinctions must be stated clearly and used consistently (the rational level), in order to be dissolved in some higher, wider and deeper perspective. This seems to be true in both traditional sense (uproting the self-contraction to realize radical spaciousness) and in the developmental sense. Both aspects depend on clarity in distinguishing between paradox and ambiguity. What do you think?
Labels: enlightenment, psychology
4 Comments:
Yes, I agree for sure that we need to clean up the semantic mess. We can't use the same word to describe 6 different things-very confusing. I think we need a different word for at least 3 different things: 1) the self-contraction or the separate-self sense (which we relate to the Self Absolute; 2) the narcisistic, postmodern agenda (which we relate to the deeper psychic); and 3)the capacity to individuate, self-organize, etc.
Ken wasn't getting Andrew just right--when Andrew uses the word "ego," 9 times out of 10 he is not talking about the self-contraction/witness (though I realize there is a self-contraction in both 1 and 2)but rather the narcisistic agenda, the postmodern dream, the postmodern self-centered lifestyle, the me generation, the me-first way of thinking, the there's-nothing-higher-than-myself religion, etc. Ken was perhaps projecting his own interest in the Self Absolute onto Andrew a little bit. Andrew teaches Self Absolute, but he's way more interested in stage development, way more interested in awakening people to authentic self/deeper psychic. He thinks that is primary. (Once Ken started talking about self-contraction/witness, Andrew said something about it as well, but it was a digression for him, out of his train of thought. :) )
I will tell you something about Andrew's thinking you may not know about, which may help explain his approach. He once told the following story or offered the following hypothetical situation: You are on the beach in France, in St. Tropez, and a rich lady tells you she is going to give you $10 million dollars. She invites you to lunch, and you will go with her to get the check after lunch. So, Andrew says, no matter what kind of ego problems you have, you wouldn't let that lady know about it, would you? You might have a really screwed up ego, but you would find a way to keep it together for that lunch, wouldn't you?
So the point is, he says, that if you really want to keep yourself together enough, you will do it. So he emphasizes personal choice and will power to a great degree, the idea being that we can overcome just about anything if we really want to. And then you put that together with his idea of the authentic self never having been wounded and being the best part of ourselves and also awakening the best of our intelligence, and you start to get why he doesn't emphasize therapy, which could actually prevent awakening to deeper psychic if continued for too long.
He calls his teachings the "top-down view," as you may well know, and it's the main difference between his teaching and ILP--you have to be ready to serve, he says, NOW! Paraphrasing: "How much more time to heal do you need?" There is something to this as Ken has called AQAL the "ultimate defense of the ego" (speaking of ego in the second sense there, the postmodern dream). Also, there will probably be a part of us that will continue to feel unhealed and want more time.
So the emphasis of Andrew's "top-down" teachings is really to knock the second ego, the postmodern dream ego, out of control, though I believe they would be improved with some kind of shadowwork and a more complete way of working with the frontal self. He (with Ken in one)talks about these things a bit in these two videos:
http://www.andrewcohen.org/andrew/guru-dialogues.asp
(See "The Top Down View" with Ken Wilber in the right-hand margin.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihND4q6lBko
(He talks about the "choosing faculty" in the YouTube video. I'd like to know what people think about that idea. Andrew is really all about choice, to the point where he will just about never use the word "witness." The second tenet of his teaching is "The Law of Volitionality"--
http://www.andrewcohen.org/teachings/volitionality.asp )
David, if I didn't think there's huge potential in the way Andrew Cohen treats evolution and nonduality, I wouldn't bother discussing the details of it. Yes, there are quite a few meanings to the "ego" (I manage to put together ten). However, I believe there's another thing present in the very context of these teachings, the context of everything goes newage spiritual culture, and it's my impression that Cohen is reacting to that, so that it shows up in his language.
As you may know, there's a question addressed in the "Top Down" video clip, and it's at what point does the top down approach really work. When does NOW really sink in? That is a mistery, though also being a choice, but not a personal one.
Thanks for your comment and the links. Godspeed,
Hokai
Thanks, Hokai. Hey, I didn't feel you were being hostile towards Evolutionary Enlightenment in general; I just wasn't sure how familiar you were with it. I'm kind of familiar with it after being on several retreats and a student (not living in Mass.) for a couple of years. I still have a good relationship with Andrew. He's been good to me.
Another good question is when is it appropriate to begin attempting top down? That's the question that really interests me. As for when Now sticks, I guess there different degrees of it, right? At one point one sees that the psychic being, as Aurobindo said, has always been there--then one has a choice of whether to be with it or not.
Also, do you think it might be particular to a certain stage, making ego an enemy? Say Indigo? It might make sense that the first deeper-psychic stage would have that characteristic as it would need to "negate" the frontal, just like other stages have to negate what came before.
Best,
David
PS. Hey, I'd be interested in hearing what the 10 egos are!
Yes, some sort of negation is there alright. But the negation of structural growth is different than the negation of state-stages. The exclusive identification is dislodged in these two ways, and also in various types of processes. Faith process is different then, say, insight process or energy process. 10 egos? I'll have to translate the post on that subject from two years ago, originally writen in Croatian. Promise to do that soon.:-)
Hokai
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