Page 39 - Microsoft Word - SPIRIT AND THE MIND.doc

22 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
desperately ego has worked, how long and intense its struggle to gain mastery and meaning in this mysterious world! The power of this process is seen no less in the patient, persevering evolution of species than in the convulsive throes of the infant separating at birth.
In Appendix IV, I discuss the evolution required for limited consciousness to arrive at the stage of human ego. It involves passage through inorganic, organic, plant and animal forms to finally manifest in man’s distinctive mind, with all the marvelous capabilities and qualities that we humbly attribute to ourselves.
But man’s powerful mind is a two-edged sword. By virtue of its heightened self-awareness man acquires and sustains a personal identity, an ego, unlike that of any lower creature. A stronghold in the mighty flux of forces that surge eternally around him, it is considered by many mankind’s most courageous achievement. Yet because of it he is caught in a terrible bind: the transition between the possibility of a glorious transcendental leap in consciousness . . . or devastating annihilation.
DEATH OF THE EGO
This book is an attempt to define more clearly and in depth the dynamics of this major turning point. In the last analysis, the triumph of ego identity is short-lived. Differentiation and separateness ultimately lead to the suffering of isolation and loneliness, the first aspect of mortal fear. It is then that the deepest innate yearning to transcend all boundaries and merge again with the universe awakens. The mind, which has led man into this trap, must now be used to escape it, through transcendence. “The thorn that is the splinter is the same thorn that removes the splinter,” says Sai Baba. Realizing the nature of the trap by virtue of its heightened self-awareness, the mind must now will itself to detach not only from its own sense of importance, but more basically, any sense of being a separate entity at all—so that consciousness can be freed from its subtle yet profound bondage.
It should be emphasized that the spiritual yearning for egoless- ness is not the suicidal wish of a troubled mind unable to cope with the outer world, nor the desire to avoid the effort and responsibility necessary for proper psychological development. For one to stand at this brink of transcendence, the mind must have been mastered and stilled; one must have gained the mental strength and skill to operate