My last post ended with the controversial statement that a religion which is organized around the goal of getting the individual ego safely to heaven is really a delusion from which we need to be saved. It is widely assumed that religion generally is about everlasting security in the next life, including all the obligations – moral, doctrinal, and devotional – a true believer must satisfy to be worthy of its reward. “True religion” (if I can dare use the term) is actually our path out of this delusion.
It’s insufficient, of course, to define true religion exclusively in this negative fashion – as breaking the spell, escaping the trance, exposing the delusion and leaving it behind. If a system in service of the ego, by which I mean the individual human ego as well as the Absolute Ego it projects as its god, interferes with our spiritual progress as a species, liberation is only a preliminary step – however strategic and urgently needed it is. We need to further ask: “So what? To what end?”
Central to my larger argument is a perspective on personal (ego) consciousness as a critical stage in our ongoing evolution as a species (and development as individuals), but as only a stage and not the goal. When religion, which had long been dedicated to keeping our inner being (soul) and outer life (body) in holistic balance, got distracted and then utterly derailed by the rising preoccupation with social identity (ego), this shift marked a “fall” of consciousness out of communion and into a state of self-conscious estrangement.
The entire scheme of mythology was subsequently reoriented on “the hero’s journey” and final atonement with the Absolute Ego of god. Personal salvation became the whole purpose and litmus test of “true” religion. If you ask true believers to contemplate for a moment what their religion would be if the award ceremony of heaven were out of the picture, certainly a large majority of them would protest: “Then what’s the point?”
This religion of ego, ego’s god, and personal salvation is precisely what Jesus (and Buddha before him) sought to leave behind. His parables and social conduct introduced a shock to the morality of his day – as they still would in ours – and effectively shook off the trance for a few who got the message. “It’s not about you,” he said in so many words. “Get over yourself.”
And that is exactly what the ego seeking salvation cannot do.
So if it’s not about me (or you) and we need to get over ourselves, just what will that mean? Again, getting over ourselves is a requirement if we are to see what’s beyond us. But then the program needs to advance from disillusionment (breaking the spell) to a new vision of reality. Jesus (and Buddha) had a lot to say about that as well, but it only makes sense in the way he intended when consciousness has been liberated from the tightening spiral of “What’s in it for me?”
The diagram below is my attempt to map out the major components, trajectories, and possibilities of human fulfillment – of our evolution as a species in the way it prepares for and then “leap frogs” our development as individuals. For the sake of orientation in my diagram, we’ll begin at the bottom, zig-zagging left and then right as we move upward to the intended culmination of a life lived in conscious communion with others and all things – what Jesus called “the kingdom of God.”
Human beings have a need to know, intuitively more than intellectually, that reality can be trusted. When conditions inside and outside the womb are provident and nurturing, our nervous system settles into a baseline state of calm and spontaneous release to What Is. This ability to relax into being, to let go and rest in reality, is precipitated by the real support that reality provides and is gradually strengthened (or compromised) as new challenges arise. Security may be the way things objectively are, but the individual (fetus, infant, child, adult) needs to feel that reality can be trusted in order for it to become the foundation we call “faith.”
If all goes well, security will undergird the next developmental opportunity, which involves the internalization of control. “Autonomy” doesn’t mean complete independence from external resources or absolute control over everything going on inside. It rather refers to an established center of freedom, perspective, intention, and choice in which the individual has some creative control. Autonomy isn’t the end-goal it has become in some Western therapeutic traditions, but its developmental achievement is arguably essential for progress to maturity.
And because it doesn’t always go well, we should pause a moment to reflect on what typically happens when security is compromised and autonomy fails. A reality that in general cannot be trusted will compel a coping strategy called attachment – not the healthy attachment between infant and mother, but a neurotic attachment where the insecure individual “submits” emotionally to someone or something with the expectation that security will be found there. Inevitably submission pulls development off a healthy path (to autonomy) and takes it hostage to codependent relationships, repressive ideologies, and damaging addictions.
A personality that is held captive by its “idols of security” will tend to take on an inferiority complex where shame – the conviction of being deeply flawed, stained, depraved and unworthy – attracts a dark shadow of helplessness and hopelessness. If it gets dark enough, the individual will go to any length to justify and promote the idol’s absolute authority – and violence is never out of the question.
As you might guess, I am of the opinion that much of the “redemptive violence” committed in the name of god and religion – human sacrifice and substitutionary atonement, persecution of minorities and heretics, acts of terrorism and holy wars – has insecurity and shame at its roots.
But let’s move on.
Assuming a healthy establishment of autonomy with the executive ego in control, an individual is prepared for higher experiences beyond the self. Think about such transcendent experiences as inspiration, creativity, compassion, and love, and notice how each one “gets over” the ego for the sake of a higher truth of some kind. Indeed, if an individual is only calculating the prospect of personal advantage or reward in these experiences, they will simply not be available.
However, just as before, we need to say something about what happens when security and autonomy are not in place, yet the impetus of transcendence is nevertheless lifting the ego in that direction. What results is a pathology which seems to be the inverse of an inferiority complex, where the ego becomes inflated with conceit, glory-seeking, and self-importance. This is the lesser known superiority complex, and while it seems to be caught up on issues utterly opposite to feelings of shame and inadequacy, ego inflation is really just another coping strategy for the insecure personality.
Even if grandiosity is discouraged by religion in its members, the superiority complex can still be celebrated (and justified) in the patron deity who blusters and brags about being the best and greatest, the one and only, who deserves and demands all the worship, praise, and glory. As Absolute Ego, the deity who so comports himself is serving to sublimate otherwise deplorable behavior for human beings into something they can validate and promote through their god.
The way Yahweh carries on in some Bible stories has to make you wonder.
Before we take our final step of ascent in my diagram and contemplate at last the “so what” of true religion, I want to quickly comment on the telltale marks of ego strength, along with their opposite pathologies. Ego strength is a necessary and desirable achievement of healthy development and shouldn’t be confused with egoism, which is actually a symptom of its absence. In other words, personal identity (ego) becomes stuck on itself when it is weak – insecure, manipulative, and craving attention.
A “strong” ego by contrast serves to stabilize the personality, balance its moods, and unify its numerous substreams of impulse, affect, and perspective – what Roberto Assagioli named “subpersonalities.” When these strengths are not present, the individual can be flooded by rising urgencies in the body (borderline personality), swing uncontrollably between emotional extremes (bipolar), or get overrun from within by divergent attitudes and motivations (dissociative identity). I’m doing my best to save these terms from their classification as “clinical disorders” so that we can acknowledge and deal responsibly with them in normal life.
At last we can consider where all of this might be leading, assuming that our zig-zag progress from security to autonomy has gone reasonably well – which is not a safe assumption, as I’ve tried to show. So let’s just pretend that we are not caught in the trance of personal salvation, but have seen the vision and heard the invitation to our intended fulfillment. What sort of experience is that?
My word is communion: the awareness, the participation, the commitment, and the responsibility of living together as one. Importantly, the prefix “com” when added to the base word “union” prevents the couple, several, or many from dissolving into homogeneity where individual distinctions are annihilated. The valued gains of autonomy and ego strength are not canceled out in communion but instead are connected to other centers, in those higher experiences mentioned earlier: inspiration, creativity, compassion, and love.
That is where our liberation finds its fulfillment.
Communion doesn’t need to be defined in exclusively human terms of course, even though our most pressing challenge is in the realm of interpersonal relationships. Jesus understood the challenge as especially critical and urgent in our relations with our “enemies,” which doesn’t only – or even most importantly – mean our adversaries across the ocean, the picket line, or the political aisle.
The enemies we really need to love most are the ones who daily let us down, betray our trust, exploit our insecurity, abuse our generosity, and don’t even seem to care. They are our family members, our neighbors, our former friends.
But that’s another topic – kind of.
Tracts of Revolution 