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Just a word Rosemary Brown

There are more than a billion English speakers in the world, and yet there is one simple word
which has a different meaning for every one of us. It is composed of a single letter, but that letter
is a capital. Its place in the alphabet is between H and J. It is what each of us uses to refer to him/
herself.

In Latin, the word can be translated as ‘ego’. That perhaps gives us some warning about its use.
And it is much used because it is much loved. It is often the very first word of a sentence: it takes
pride of place.

Often it introduces some piece of information which the speaker or writer is indeed proud of:
achievements, possessions, books read, famous acquaintances... The letter after H has marked
tendency to parade itself in a favourable light. It has three reliable relations always at hand to pro-
vide support: me, my and mine. Together, they have an insatiable demand for recognition and
praise.

However, our little word is by no means a one-armed bandit. It frequently has an equally powerful
shadow side, and this manifests as self-pity. Oh, how many problems the poor self has faced and
still faces in its life: it is full of its own woes. The mind can run round and round within itself,
increasingly self-ish and resentful. In this mode, the self is seeking sympathy, while turning blink-
ered eyes to the suffering of others.

In some religious practices popular in the past, an attempt was made to focus on one’s own faults
and do penance, but even then the mind was looking inward to the self.

A mystic might look at the whole issue within a wider spiritual context.

The true Self – which may be called the soul or that of God within everyone – is above and
beyond the ego. It is part of the universal whole, the indivisible and eternal Unity. It has nothing to
assert or prove, and nothing can hurt it.

The false self, which sees itself as separate and embattled, can cause us to lose sight of the
Truth.

Mysticism offers us the metaphor of each life being like a wave in the ocean: the wave emerges
from the ocean and can be seen as ‘a wave’ but it has no existence separate from the ocean and
in time merges back into it.

We are not ‘other’ from the rest of creation and we will be happier and more peaceful when we
accept this. The ninth letter can go back into the alphabet with its twenty-five brothers and sisters.

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