Recently, we listened to a taped lecture
by the brilliant astrologer Robert Hand. For those who have encountered only
fortune-teller astrologers, a different breed does exist, and Rob Hand is an exemplary
case—brilliant not only about symbol systems, but also about science, history,
philosophy, and psychology—and did we mention music and classical languages? Anyway,
he was noticing that in Western culture we each inherit a “reality game” from
patriarchal figures or institutions. What struck us was his further comment that our
reality games get identified with our egos—with who we think we are. “The
reality game,” he said, “is you.”
In other words, we each (usually
unwittingly) not only accept some worldview as reality but also to some extent identify
with that worldview. The identification is not with the worldview as a worldview. We
don’t think, “Oh, this is just my perspective, my way of looking at things, and
there are other ways.” No, we’re tempted to think, “This is reality,
it’s the only reality, and thinking this way makes up who I am. I feel good about
myself because I see reality as it is; I’m perfectly aligned with reality.”
But there’s a problem: identifying
with a “reality game” freezes our minds, locking us in our worldview.
Here’s how it works.
First, there’s the reality-packaging
opener—a worldview makes reality look a certain way but then claims this isn’t
going on. No, there’s no packaging, just reality. What’s more, we (our egos),
how we see things (also our egos), and reality are all congruent, one and the same,
perfectly matched. There’s no worldview, there’s only reality, and there’s
no perspective on reality, there’s only our egos, defined by how we think, which we
take to be who we are.
Second, if we, how we think, and reality
are all one (doesn’t this sound impressive?), then threatening one threatens the
others. It doesn’t matter if the threat is large or small; it’s still a threat.
Worse, to say that what we’re calling reality may be a packaged worldview threatens
the whole edifice. If that’s true, then what we take to be reality—which is all
bound up with what we take to be who we are—starts looking like a house of cards. The
ego/worldview/reality arrangement doesn’t like being messed with, much less
undermined at its roots.
Third, if our egos are threatened, we
think we’re in danger of not being. Words like ‘annihilation’ and
‘obliteration’ come to mind. The last time we checked a dictionary for
‘obliterate,’ it read a lot like death. And it’s true: changing worldviews
isn’t a purely intellectual matter; it shakes us to our core. As even Einstein wrote
during the upheavals in physics, “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from
under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have
built.” (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962, p. 83) At
one point, Wolfgang Pauli suggested he should have become anything other than a physicist:
“At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult
for me, and I wish I had been a movie comedian or something of the sort and had never
heard of physics.” (Kuhn, p. 84) A challenge to reality (as we see it) feels like a
death-threat to our egos, as if we have to start all over and become someone else.
As a result, when someone calls for a
paradigm shift, our egos bristle and act annoyed (that’s how egos react when
they’re frightened). What’s this paradigm-shifter want, anyway? Didn’t he
or she ever hear of “America, love it or leave it”? Well, that applies to
reality too: “Reality, love it or leave it,” reality, of course, being our
particular version of it.
That’s the point. Egos react this way
not to be obnoxious but because they hear the demand for a model shift as a death-threat,
wiping out all that they believe and hold dear about the scheme of things. Egos forget
that what they take for “reality” is a worldview, a certain perspective on life.
But egos do more than just forget.
At the outset, we/they don’t notice
that the “reality” we identify with isn’t our own. It’s an image of
reality that’s been defined by parents and teachers telling us what’s what
(called “acculturation”), the media telling us “that’s the way it
is,” and materialist scientists telling us that we’d better believe what
we’ve been told or else. (For those who haven’t discovered the inquisitorial
side of reductionist science, we have an article entitled, “Where Did the Inquisition
Go?” Science maven Richard Dawkins, for example, wants all astrologers to be arrested
and tried for fraud, just because he happens to disagree with a discipline he’s never
studied. It doesn’t agree with how he thinks, and that threatens his ego.) In other
words, our egos (obliging the authorities) overlook that they’ve been commandeered to
serve as foot-soldiers for someone else’s belief-system—that through our egos
we’ve internalized a belief-system so completely that we take the belief-system to be
reality itself and therefore our reality.
It’s because our egos haven’t
noticed all this—acculturation is carefully implemented so that they/we don’t
notice—that they hear the discussion of a paradigm shift as a threat to existence.
The paradigm-shifter’s invitation to rethink some issue sounds like an invitation to
suicide. Not surprisingly, our egos are not interested. After all, one thing egos are
determined about is survival. And all that determination and talent for surviving is about
to hit the paradigm-shifter right between the eyes. (That’s what those
paradigm-shifters get for threatening our existence!)
Fortunately for all of us (including
hapless paradigm-shifters, who think they’re just starting a conversation), egos
aren’t the only game in town. Sooner or later, we stumble onto something more
essential, more basic to who we are—call it inner being, soul, higher consciousness,
or whatever suits. There’s something beyond (or beneath or above) the ego.
The experience of the
deeperÉwhateverÉhas an intensity about it that won’t be dismissed. In fact, if we
try to dismiss soul rumblings, our souls turn up the volume sometimes in ways we wish they
wouldn’t: disorientation, depression, anxiety, or confusion. Our more-than-egos
dimension is an experience that won’t be denied (though we do try to drug it away
these days—check out Peter and Ginger Breggin’s work in our book section at the
end of the website, as well as their website: www.breggin.com). Because our inner presence
won’t go away—and won’t leave us alone—we have to acknowledge it. As
we do, we gradually realize that there’s an inner something for which the ego is,
well, just a vehicle.
This ego-as-vehicle image is the key to
dealing with our egos. We need ego constructs. They’re useful to get around. We
develop them to function in a culture—and all the subcultures that shape our everyday
lives. We’re not interested in ego-bashing or trying to do away with egos, anymore
than we want to do away with our cars, houses, or even our bodies. In fact, we’re
doubtful that that’s possible. Someone who claims to have no ego, well, we’re
not convinced. As long as we’re here, we need these vehicles.
But we need them just for what they are,
namely, vehicles for something beyond themselves. And as such, we don’t need them
claiming to give us more than they’re designed to give. The nature of reality?
That’s out of their league. Philosophical clarity and discernment? That’s not
their forte. Meaning and purpose? Not likely. It’s not their fault; these questions
simply lie beyond their domain. Egos lack the inner life, which these questions require.
The minute we objectify egos—the
minute we see them for what they are and not as who we are, in the same way that we see
our automobiles as ours but not as us—we’re free to ask whether or not our egos
have it right. Is reality the way they think it is? Are there other possibilities? Is the
ego’s perspective the only perspective? Is it perhaps a distorted perspective? How
does our ego’s perspective compare with what our souls tell us? Are we treating our
cars as if they’re Delphi’s oracle?
Before we know it, we’re asking
ourselves the same questions that paradigm-shifters ask. And we have a sense that, though
one ego-construct may pass away with the passing of some paradigm that wasn’t
entirely ours to begin with, we can construct other ego vehicles as we need them.
It’s not up to them to dictate to us what reality is or what paradigms we find most
useful. We’re free to explore reality wherever our souls take us, adopting whatever
paradigms and ego-forms that we find helpful as we go. It’s not so scary that way. In
fact, it’s fun. Freedom—the “undiscovered country” of inner,
philosophical, soul-urged exploration—is like that.
