I know it's all been said before...but it's OK to bump into it once in a while...
You probably know what I'm talking about, but if not, this is the best analogy I can think of: Imagine that you are an actor who has been performing a one-person show in front of an adoring audience. This has been your entire life for as long as you can remember. It's who you ARE, and all you want to be. Then one day, a little beam of light shines through a crack in the ceiling and catches your vision. You follow its ray, and you see something that you don't want to see. What you thought was an audience of people is actually nothing more than a cast of shadows distorted by your vision. There never was a crowd admiring your performance. You have been performing a delusional, one-person act all alone in a theater in your head. You are terrified, disoriented. You no longer have any idea who you are. You are abandoned and insane. You crumple to the stage and wish you were dead.
This is what the death of the ego feels like. It's not the death of something evil, sinful, or even in need of correction. It's the death of something that never existed anywhere but in the mind of its owner. Nevertheless, it has all the appearance of tragedy, because the suffering caused by the ego's "life" and inevitable "death" is beyond the scope of human imagining.
The death of the ego is the "dark night of the soul" described by 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross. The laying down of the ego -- or the ability to simply recognize its non-existence -- is far more difficult than merely abdicating arrogance, selfishness, or other "egotistic" tendencies. The ego is a "necessary" defense mechanism for any mind that looks at the world and thinks, "I AM APART." And how could anyone in this world not feel apart? From the moment we are born, we are given a name, race, gender, and social status. We are told that we are "good" or "bad" because we are "fat" or "thin," "attractive" or "unattractive," "rich" or "poor," "smart" or "stupid," and we quickly learn to judge others on these same erroneous bases. It's the only language of thought we have ever spoken.
This delusional perspective is as pervasive collectively as it is individually. "Collective egotism" takes the form of nationalism, racism, and every form of religious and tribal warfare. In his book The Power of Now, author Eckhart Tolle addresses the threat posed by the collective ego to the future of mankind. Tolle writes, "If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity to inhabit this planet. What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged?"
Death is not the worst thing that can happen to our species. The worst thing is for us to remain in this interminable state of separation, aloneness, animosity, and fear that drives every act of violence and madness reported on the evening news. Each and every one of us is the actor in the theater, completely isolated, contracted, and insane, performing a meaningless drama for no one and nothing. Again, a miracle is necessary to save us...but the miracle is already here, waiting to be followed.
We will each crumple to the stage in the ego's final death throes, believing ourselves to be abandoned and alone. The only real choice we will have -- the only choice we have EVER had -- is the length and depth of our agony. Remember what it was that showed the "actor" he was alone in the theater: a single ray of light cast on the shadowy darkness. The actor is lost, the actor is in pain, the actor does not want to forget his fine "performances" and adoring "audience." But eventually, he will become curious about that light. He will find that when he gazes at it fully, his memories of the shadow world become like wisps of smoke, flitting and quickly forgotten. Astonishing himself, he will find the strength to stand, and summoning all of his courage, give his whole heart to that light until it bathes and illuminates him. And he will remember something so obvious that he will not know how he had forgotten it: that he IS the light, and his whole life had been spent looking for its substance in the nothingness of shadows. This will bring a smile to his face, and his laughter will bellow with such force that the walls of the theater will begin to crumple.
He will realize he is free, and always has been. He will see the way out. He will take his final bow before the fictional world of shadows, and take his first steps into the light of the real world.
We are all light, we are all laughter, and none of us is doomed to live a fictional life forever.
