Ego is the hero in the hero’s journey of a human life. Human life is a finite affair. It has a beginning and an ending. We are born, assigned a name and a set of people, called family, who largely influence the identity we will assume throughout our human life.
The center of our consciousness, in this limited duration of time-space we will occupy in our human life, is the ego. Ego can think and act as it confronts the core challenges of its life, which include becoming a self-sufficient adult and solving the trials that must be surmounted to achieve fulfillment.
In contrast to the ego’s limited time-space existence, the High Self exists at the infinite dimension of our being; always was and always will be. The High Self is a growing identity shaped by the many finite lifetimes it has launched, only one of which is us now, in this lifetime.
The growing need of the High Self is reflected in the circumstances of the life we are currently in. Ego, solving the core challenge of now, benefits completion in this life, as well as contributes to greater harmony and knowledge within the greater High Self identity in infinity. As we learn and grow, our High Self also learns and grows.
The High Self has greater wisdom than the ego but largely leaves the ego to find its own way, which may lead to discovery that even the High Self knows not of. The High Self needs the ego in order to grow yet looks after the ego, and is quite responsive to its solicitations as it tries to find its way through life.
By definition, ego, as a finite being, is in a poor position to solve the challenges of human life. Typically, it gets caught in bipolar attitudes. Either it puffs itself up in the inflation of self-importance to feel superior and capable, or it deflates itself considerably, just trying to survive as a felt inferior being.
Experiences along the hero’s journey offer it the opportunity to gain confidence by facing life in a truthful way and accepting guidance from the High Self that supports its goals for this life. This guidance is always available but must be actively requested of High Self by ego.
When the ego asks the subconscious mind to provide guidance from the High Self it often results in a dream, a synchronicity, or a direct experience within the self that delivers its response.
Currently, our world is in the midst of rapid and comprehensive transformation. Those in human form at this time are part of a planetary ego at an evolutionary crossroads.
Heretofore, we have been dominated by a materialist worldview that is no longer tenable for planetary survival. Materialism is burdened with the belief that the causes in one’s life originate from outside the self.
The more sublime shift, however, is taking ownership of the divine power of manifestation inherent in the human mind. No one is a barrier to your full realization and expression of self. The responsible exercise of these powers advances Earth itself on its spiritual journey of love.
High Self is available to guide this massive transition. Every time we go to the heart and ask, “What is right for me to do in this situation?”, we are tapping into the guidance of the High Self.
For ego to then focus its intent to resonate with the wisdom of the
High Self will hasten our planetary ego, and our world, manifesting in alignment with truth and the greater good.
The Divine Spark of Spirit is expressed in the Soul through the agency of the High Self and the Subconscious Mind, the Yang and Yin of creation. The suggestions of the High Self are given material life through the creative process of the Subconscious Mind, the bridge between mind and matter.
The Soul is the architect and creator of the physical body it inhabits and runs for the duration of its journey in human form. The Divine couple of High Self and Subconscious Mind, within the Soul, also co-create and deliver the Spark of the Spirit to the center of the human personality, the human ego.
The High Self, as parent guardian to the ego, is ever available to provide its wisdom and guidance to the ego, upon request. The ego has the free will to choose its actions, and this freedom is generally not overridden by the High Self, except perhaps in a necessary, lifesaving intervention.
The Subconscious Mind is the crown of creation. In contrast to the High Self, its total focus is upon manifestation and maintenance of life. It leaves the thinking function to the High Self and to the ego. Its focus is upon maintaining the health and functioning of the body according to Mother Nature’s laws and the wisdom of the ages.
The Subconscious Mind is extremely receptive to manifesting suggestions delivered to it by its Divine offspring, the ego. Most people are unaware of this fundamental fact of life. In fact, the rational mind of the ego typically rejects the notion that it has the power to manifest its desires and intentions through autosuggestions to the Subconscious Mind.
Ironically, this rational prejudice materializes as a subconscious habit of limiting beliefs, which the ego impresses upon the Subconscious Mind through its incessant internal dialogue. The Subconscious Mind does not discriminate. It is receptive and trusting. Be careful what you consistently tell yourself; it is taken quite seriously. What we tell ourselves we become. Like the High Self, the Subconscious Mind expects the ego to grow up and assume responsibility for its thought suggestions.
The greater challenge, for the ego, is the mastery of its desires. The ego was born into a material world that prizes sensual pleasure and material gain and accomplishment. These are all essential qualities that must find healthy balance in a human life. The maturation of the ego ultimately requires alignment with, and acquiescence to, the wisdom of the High Self. It might take the better part of a lifetime for ego to adjust its will to serve wisdom and right action.
In the meantime, ego and the physical body may suffer the negative consequences of ego decisions, despite the innate ability of the Subconscious Mind to heal many maladies. The Subconscious Mind will not override suggestions the ego makes, even though they may lead to ill health. Such is the imperative that the purpose of a human life is for true ego maturity.
Divine rescue would interrupt the opportunity for human growth. However, the ego can utilize the Divine power of the Subconscious Mind constructively, but it must first know how to find its sweet spot.
For the ego to intentionally reach the sweet spot of the Subconscious Mind it must silence the thinking mind with firm directives. This can begin with several minutes of stating autogenic phrases/directives to the physical body:
My feet are relaxed… My ankles are relaxed… my calf muscles are relaxed… My thigh muscles are relaxed… my pelvis is relaxed… my stomach is relaxed… My chest is relaxed… My shoulders, arms and fingers are relaxed… My back is relaxed… My neck is relaxed… My head is relaxed… My face and eyes are relaxed… My feet are relaxed…
These phrases are repeated several times as the body becomes relaxed and drowsy and the mind sinks into a light trance. The mind is no longer engaged in active thinking and building dramas through attaching to thoughts. The Subconscious Mind is now freed from the barrage of countless suggestions from random thoughts, and is fully receptive to a single autosuggestion.
And with this you have arrived at the sweet spot of the Subconscious Mind; you have its full attention.
State your suggestion calmly, confidently and rotely, repeating it for several minutes as you then slip off into the deeper trance of sleep. Do this every day with the calm knowing that, for what you ask, you will, in Divine Order, receive.
Thoughts of Carlos Castaneda recently came into my mind. Back in 1998, Deepak Chopra wrote of Carlos, on the jacket of his new book, The Active Side of Infinity: “Carlos Castaneda was one of the most profound and influential thinkers of this century. His insights paved the way for the future evolution of human consciousness. We are all deeply indebted to him.”
But with the publishing, in 2003, of Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda, which revealed her experiences within his inner circle, the final nail was put into the coffin of Carlos ever again being considered a true man of knowledge, or worthy of any legitimate consideration. Instead he became categorized as a typical New Age guru who abused his disciples. I suspect that Carlos made sure that Amy Wallace wrote that book, which ensured he’d be all but forgotten. It shocked not only his followers but the world at large.
Comparable to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Naropa University, who also fell from grace, Carlos has been, at best, deemed a teacher who employed the cognitive dissonance of crazy wisdom. At worst, he’s been categorized as the greatest fictional trickster of the century, whose shenanigans fooled an entire generation of spiritual seekers. Once branded the Godfather of the New Age, today Carlos Castaneda is essentially a forgotten, discredited man.
Having spent a significant part of my life immersed in his world, I view his current status and exit from this world as a masterful shamanic move, a stroke of genius. I say that because shaman’s recognize self-importance as the number one scourge of humankind, the most negative human characteristic that significantly waylays our ability to spiritually advance. Could the self-importance of world leadership, and the pursuit of likes on social media, which dominate the world at present, not be more validating of this truth?
Carlos wrote 12 books, leaving behind the fullness of his shamanic knowledge, should one be called to it. Yet, should anyone be so called, it would be for the knowledge alone, with no attachment to Castaneda himself. That was his great shamanic maneuver, to ensure that the knowledge be separated from him personally. His reputation aside, he succeeded in delivering his messages, and with no self-importance following him, he sealed the door behind him as he exited human form. How many of us can do our good deeds in the dark, never sharing the knowledge of them with anyone?
When we shed self-importance from our identity, we disconnect from needing to be fortified by the attention of outside energy. Untethered, at death, from the thoughts and feelings of those left behind in human form, our Spirit is completely freed to move deeper into the exploration of infinity. Becoming untethered to the need for outside validation, while still in this world, frees us to follow, impeccably, the intent of our own Spirit, NOW!
Such was the lesson I was taught when my first wife, Jeanne, left this world and I sought our reconnection between worlds, as per our pre-agreement. Ultimately, she informed me to take my attention off her so that she could fully focus her attention upon learning the parameters of her new body and her new world.
Of course, the ultimate irony is that she has talked to my wife, Jan, every day for well over 20 years, in her soul sister messages. Her channelings, however, are not burdened with personal attachment to me. What is delivered is what she deems relevant now, for everyone, from her perspective in infinity. The opportunity for me has been to step up to the refinement of impersonal love.
Both Carlos and Jeanne teach the value of completely losing self-importance through non-attachment; no need for the validation of likes and attention from others. Freed of this imprisonment, we can focus all our energy on the greater good of self, and all others as well, uncompromised by the need for personal recognition. Validation of facts by others is a helpful and a necessary compass as we navigate our spiritual journey, but validation for the sake of self-recognition alone is a path of ego, not a path of heart.
When infinity recently sent me the suggestion to write about Castaneda’s teachings, I pondered which of his books to choose. Ten minutes later someone told me they found a giveaway copy of Carlos’s 1974 book, Tales of Power. Following this synchronistic prompting, I reread the first chapter to see what spoke to me now.
When still in this world, Carlos cautioned us to not attach to the shamanic practices employed upon him during his apprenticeship, which he documented in his three earliest books. Yours is a different time and your journeys are colored by the circumstances of your new age, he said. His suggestion was for us to be guided by the intent of ancient knowledge but to assume full responsibility for formatting its essence into addressing the needs of our time.
The essence of the first chapter of Tales of Power is that we are all double beings, both rational beings, with a solid physical body, as well as lighter energetic beings, with a soul body. Life presents us daily with appointments to obtain knowledge of this true wholeness so that we might more fully realize our fullest potential, while still in human form.
Carlos quotes the Nagual, don Juan Matus: “The only thing we all have in common is that we play tricks in order to force ourselves to abandon the quest. The countermeasure is to persist in spite of all the barriers and disappointments.” (Tales of Power, p. 20.)
Those tricks issue from the rational ego mind, terrified of ego death as it encounters the immensity of, and the powers of, its greater Soul. How quickly ego judges and dismisses its encounters with its soul in the mysterious and often puzzling synchronicities and triggers of daily life.
Synchronicities are creations of the soul of the subconscious mind, offering the ego encounters with the greater knowledge of infinity. In such encounters the subconscious mind is truly manifesting the ego’s intent to evolve, yet the ego often misses its appointments with such knowledge by its counter-intent, which is to survive unscathed the sometimes ruinous demands of greater truth.
The challenge for the ego is to suspend its judgments and refine its reason, to include the parameters of the greater truths of the soul. Reason is essential to navigating infinity, but it must get beyond the stumbling blocks of a solid world that clings tightly to its materialist prejudice.
Triggers are guides from infinity that summon the ego to retrieve its soul through honest recapitulation of its personal history. Typically, the ego gets drawn into self-pity, as it wallows in the offenses committed upon it by others. It holds tightly to the entitlement of retribution before it can forgive. This is a fixation of energy on self-importance, a sidetracking of attention from true knowledge.
Alternatively, the ego can accept all its experiences in life as reflections of all that is. The task is not about forgiveness; there is nothing to forgive. There is only the full retrieval of all of one’s energy, in the full acceptance of one’s life. With this equanimous acceptance of all the acts of one’s life, one is elevated to the highest level of love for all that is.
The barriers that don Juan references, in the above quote, are largely the habitual patterns we live by, as housed in our subconscious mind. Whether they issue from personal history, genetic history, the soul’s intent for this life, or from our ego’s defenses, new habits can manifest, through the persistence of intent and the positive suggestions we consciously and persistently impress upon the subconscious mind.
Persist, persist, persist in lightness and utter calm, and keep those daily appointments with knowledge.
Suggestions can be likened to sperm, whose intent is to impregnate the egg of the subconscious mind, the mother of manifestation.
Suggestions abound from many sources, such as habits, instincts, and the thoughts and beliefs of others. However, the optimal source of suggestion for the growth of the personality is the conscious ego presenting suggestions to the subconscious in alignment with its soul’s mission in this life.
The oddity of this necessary relationship is that the ego has a long developmental process to arrive at the necessary maturity to optimally lead the personality. This challenge is blatantly illustrated in the power struggles currently riddling the Earth. Rather than address the true needs of the planet, the world ego is stuck in greed, or essentially a narcissistic worldview, which obscures the execution of suggestions of right action to resolve crises.
This same limitation applies to the individual personality, whose narcissistic needs and desires can monopolize habits that impact the health of the physical body, as well as the quality of connection possible in relationships with others.
Many of the suggestions from ego to subconscious result in poor health and failed relationships. It often requires the learning curve of a lifetime for the ego to arrive at the optimal spiritual alignment to truly lead the personality.
At the receptive end is the subconscious mind, whose powers are truly supernatural, yet it lacks the reasoning power of consciousness to select the best suggestions to fulfill. Of course, it has the suggestive influence of the whole of human evolutionary history that expresses itself powerfully in the emotions of instincts, yet even these reactions may not fit with the true needs of life in the modern word.
For example, the instinct of self-preservation might insist upon a prolonged war as the necessary reaction to an attack. As appropriate a reaction to this survival threat as this reaction might be, the more conscious human potential to arrive at resolution through negotiation might prove more effective at finding lasting resolution.
In this case, the ego, with its higher capacities for reason and right action might be the better center for decision making, offering better suggestions to the subconscious mind than the deeply engrained instinctive suggestions that were more necessary at a purely instinctive age of human history.
In contrast to the ego, the subconscious mind does not need to undergo a developmental process. It is fully formed in childhood where its power is quite evident in play. A slight suggestion of a peer as monster, in a game of tag for instance, can preoccupy a group of kids for hours, as they are filled with intense emotional reactions to the easily imagined chasing monster.
The subjective mind in childhood and adulthood can equally take charge of one’s perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and physical actions when a suggestion successfully impregnates it. The subconscious acts as a creative manifester, fully believing and becoming the suggestion it takes in. It remains for the ego alone to reality-test the validity of this activated, or we could even say, possessed, state.
It becomes evident how this odd couple needs each other’s capacities to fully succeed in life. Ego must carefully guard against underhanded suggestions, which abound, from taking root in the subconscious. Energy practices, including stated intentions, can create boundaries against unwanted influences.
The subconscious, in response to ego suggestion, can provide information to the ego similar to the capability of artificial intelligence (AI), which can advance the ego’s problem-solving or knowledge of lived events with its perfect memory. Like AI, however, the subconscious must be monitored and led to exert its influence for the greater good of all. For this, as in all things, one needs a mature adult ego that submits to right action as its guiding principle.
A healthy, intimate relationship between each mind of this odd couple suggests the ultimate evolutionary track for mind during its sojourn in human form. In human terms, it represents the optimal relationship to find fulfillment and individuation in this magical life.
We are all ultimately One, but the structure of this world that we live in is one of separate objects, with distinct differences.
Christian Science suggests we link our consciousness with our core identity, that perfect Oneness, whereby healing the illusion of disease in a non-existent, separate physical body.
Hindu philosophy calls this illusion of separateness maya. Maya spins and directs lila, the creative divine play that results in the current world drama that we personally experience as the fixed reality of our world. To become enlightened, one must fully engage in the current play yet be aware of the limitations of its illusory solidity, and the fact of its impermanence. That’s what is meant by non-attachment.
The shamans of ancient Mexico call assuming this role of non-attachment stalking. In stalking, we fully embody the character we intend to become, sometimes even temporarily forgetting our true essence as energetic beings when we do so. From a shamanic perspective, our world is generated by fixating our consciousness upon a program that assembles our awareness to perceive a world of distinct solid objects.
Carlos Castaneda pointed out that it is sheer magic to be able to conjure this solid world. He called human beings magical beings because of their ability to so fixate their awareness as to generate such a magical event. However, he truly lamented how this single assemblage point of awareness had become the sole fixation of human consciousness. We have forgotten that we are indeed magical beings capable of unlimited possibilities.
In my time in Carlos Castaneda’s world, I once observed him personally demonstrate a physical movement to break this fixation of limited awareness. He was a short man. He turned his back to us, performing a kind of shoulder roll.
He keenly stated that we are magical beings whose wings have been clipped. With that he urged us to literally free our wings, demonstrating with a movement initiated from the wing itself; engaging the fullness of the entire back rather than a shallow roll of the shoulder. I saw the profound movement of the depth of his wing.
It’s a simple movement. Imagine the wing. Feel an impulse to move it. Be led by it.
The maya of the human mind is one of duality. We appear to have two distinct minds. That is the divine lila of life as it is played out in the current fixation of the human form. These two minds are the ego and the subconscious. The dance between these two minds is our true inner soulmate relationship in this life, replete with all the agonies and ecstasies of human relationship.
The ego is our objective, reasoning mind. The ego is the seat of consciousness. The ego greatly identifies with life in its physical body. The ego is the home of personal identity; the ego says, “I am.” The ego exercises the directive power of free will, choice, and decision making. The ego is charged with the responsibility of leadership in its human life.
The subconscious is the home of total memory. Every moment of our life is recorded there. While the ego may retain some memory, the subconscious records it all. During recapitulation we experience the relationship of ego and subconscious, as the consciousness of now is reconciled with the full experience of the past.
The subconscious operates through intuition. The subconscious is the remote viewer that can travel way beyond the confines of the physical body and observe events on the other side of the world, or in the cosmos. The subconscious has access to the Akashic records, the collective unconscious history and accrued knowledge of our species.
The subconscious is the seat of telepathy; it receives and can read the thoughts of others. The subconscious runs all the operations of the physical body. The subconscious houses the instincts and is the home of emotions.
The subconscious is our magical mind. It does not reason; its modus operandi is suggestion. Whatever suggestion it receives, it will fully bring to life. With its vast tools and resources, the subconscious can manifest, to the best of its ability, any suggestion it decides to adopt.
Unknown to us, the ego and the subconscious constantly work in tandem. Thoughts from the ego become directive suggestions to the subconscious, which then turn into a set of habits that automatically control our lives.
The subconscious is also quite receptive to the suggestions of others. We may notice our attitudes, moods and behaviors greatly impacted by our interactions with others. This may largely be the suggestive influence of someone else’s energy upon our subconscious. As opposed to the ego, with its fixed identity, the subconscious does not have a personality. It is an open book that willingly embodies the content of suggestions, wherever they may originate from.
Healthy leadership by the ego, in the quality of its suggestions to the subconscious, creates the ideal relationship between the two minds. This requires the ego to firstly be in alignment with its Spirit as the arbiter of right action. The ego must also accept the existence of the subconscious mind with all its magical capacities. This is often a tall order for the ego to undertake, which clings to its rationality as ruler and dismisses the greater powers of the subconscious mind.
The ego needn’t believe in the power of the subconscious to access it. Merely rotely repeating a suggestion, ad nauseam, is bound to register eventually as a directive to the subconscious. If I notice a headache brewing, I direct my subconscious with the incessant suggestion that the headache is healing, and is healed. If it disappears, as it often does, I acknowledge the fact of the power of the subconscious to heal.
The ego comes into better relationship with the subconscious when it can expand its rationality to include the fact that the subconscious has abilities that appear to defy logic. Exercising the intentional practice of autosuggestion can produce results that broaden the ego’s reason to include the magical potential of the subconscious mind. Rather than dismiss miracle cures as placebo, scientists would do well to study the factual abilities of the subconscious mind to alter physical events in the body through the power of suggestion.
Reconciliation of mind is ego valuing the subconscious, and consciously feeding it suggestions for the greater good of self, other, and world.
When we leave this life in our soul body, our mental body, of ego and subconscious, will leave as one. As we journey beyond the physical body this reconciled mind is our navigator in the great beyond. Use this life now to bring mind into a partnership to truly serve your evolving soul.
Now and then,* Chuck
*I am blown away by the magic of the release of the modernly engineered Now and Then, the Beatle’s final song, which is #1 on the musical charts. The generation of now is claiming their own rightful ownership of the Beatle’s Aquarian magic, as well as John Lennon’s soulful reconciliation of relationship. May its energy further permeate the world and its reconciliation of relationship.
