EGO DYNAMICS: Absolving Guilt to Continue Playing

The ego-self is a ‘getting’ machine. Whether that getting is based on acquiring resources, money, pleasure, bodily allegiances, “enlightenment” or innocence, the ego-self strives to get or acquire.

Joining, for an ego-self, is useful only in relation to what can be obtained or secured for itself and ego’s will seek out alliances through limited joining to further individual progress toward additional acquisition or getting.

This is why so many spiritual and religious ideologies fail to capture mass, collective attention and, thereby, also fail to initiate positive world change. This is because most spiritual-religious ideologies teach an anti-egoic morality. These ideologies seek to undermine the ego’s raison d’etre, or reason for being, as that of ‘getting’ or "the pursuit of acquisition" (which we ignorantly refer to as "the pursuit of happiness." LOL!). This is replaced with a religious-spiritual morality of unification and joining. Unfortunately, anti-ego morality, although able to capture and contain some egos, has never presented a strong enough case against the ego-self's chief modus operandi of getting and acquisition.

Therefore, the easiest way for religious-spiritual institutions to engender greater ego participation in spiritual ideologies and their practices, is to tailor the ideology to conform to the act of 'getting' that egos have performed for centuries (note Christianity's "thou shalt not steal" commandment. As if God cares about your property rights!).

This dumbing-down of spiritual-religious ideology has been occurring over many centuries. You may deeply consider what the "Buddha said," but always recognize that the Buddha's teachings were tailored to the cultural era in which they were codified and taught. Examine any of the current neo-zen, modern non-dualistic or "Integral Christian" websites and blogs and this will be clear. The ego-self demands that the "ancient traditions" be tailored to meet the modern ego-self existence.

Eventually, all original ideologies must conform to the ego-self, rather than the ego-self conforming to the ideology. For instance, the Christian prescription “judge not lest ye be judged” is applicable only to a point, after which it is completely discarded by an ego-self that requires guilt be projected outward in order to further its own innocence. Insult me and, as my religious ideology teaches, I will seek to forgive you.

But steal from me, or commit some other high order transgression or "sin," and I will judge you guilty and righteously endorse your just punishment.
The ego rebels against dissonance and, if you believe yourself deeply spiritual or religious, your actions must conform to this belief, so as not to experience discord. This can be an incredibly arduous task due to the absurd ego-games we all participate in. Therefore, it's easier to tailor your spiritual beliefs than your actions, since the world demands conformity, and thus, the ego will compromise its ideological belief system before it compromises its 'getting' behaviors, actions and lifestyle.

This is how so many can amass personal fortunes beyond all reason, while being acutely aware that others exist in abject poverty.

While many egos may find amassing exorbitant personal wealth absurd and indictable as guilty (although most participate in it to some degree, but consider their participation "reasonable"), the ego-self that has spent a lifetime pursuing extreme wealth will easily rationalize this as innocent and morally acceptable and ally with other egos in confirming and proclaiming that justification (allegiances are a crucial component of the ego's shedding guilt).

This makes it easier to recognize that, while others live in poverty and die of starvation, the ego’s acquired wealth is deserved and justified so, "keep your hands off of my stack."

Capitalism was originally founded for just this purpose and the central tenet, that all egos can achieve great wealth amidst abject poverty, has been accepted and fully adopted by millions of egos who live out their entire lives conforming to that rationalization.

However, too many players in the games of capital-wealth acquisition (monetary-value) and the games become increasingly harder to play as the rules become more complicated and absurd. This can be seen with regard to the current rules of subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, structured finance trades, etc, etc, etc. Who but an alliance of elite specialized egos, could justify such absurdities that less astute egos could never even begin to understand. This makes the game accessible to only a few and the rules actually exclude players from the desired outcome (and rewards are limited simply because ego's conform to the "scarcity principle").

This is similar to organized religion in that, to be a member of the Christian Church you must know the basic rules of Christianity. However, to assert power within the Christian Church you must know the rules in much more depth.

Unfortunately, many of the egos who subscribed to the monetary-value ideology (and make no mistake, ‘playing the market’ is a game that has taken on religious proportions) are beginning to see how untenable it really is. This ego-game is losing its justification and now we are seeing repressed guilt rear its ugly head as we seek just punishment for the guilty.

This will require that participating egos seek to justify their actions through absolution of guilt and continued justification of the game rules.

The ego-self rarely reacts to its own egoic tendencies and tends to justify its actions and thoughts as normal. However, egos are quite adept at reacting to guilt in other egos. The ego-self strives to shed guilt primarily by projecting it outward, seeking to rationalize every decision it makes as innocent and necessary to itself. In fact, the ego is superb at rationalizing away guilt through justifying actions and behaviors, for how else could it continue to live in an absurd world and practice the absurdities that allow that experience of "world' to be perpetuated. In time, it all begins to seem so ordinary and normal - business as usual.

Look closely at your participation in the games of the world. Do you feel that many of the ego-games you participate in are absurd? How do you justify continued play?

OJ Simpson was able to enjoy playing 18 holes of golf, even though his ego-self could NOT deny that he had committed an act of murder. All that is needed is the right formula for shedding egoic guilt and rationalizing the act. Even though Simpson acquired few supportive allies, I tend to imagine he merely absolved himself of guilt through contriving a rationalization proving that what he did needed to be done (God?) and that none can understand this, but him. (similar to Hitler's "final solution" except that Hitler acquired many allies to his cause)

Many have justified similar actions through such a distorted egoic morality that can only be claimed by the actor (with or without allies), but allows the actor to live completely free of guilt and sometimes to continue playing ego-games that cause incredible suffering to others.

In fact, this was how the current Iraq war was waged (although a 'divine allegiance' was expressed because God is certainly the most valuable ally one could acquire). In fact, the egos that waged it were able to attain allegiance from other egos right from the onset. However, those same egos that once allied with the game, now attempt in numerous ways to deny complicity, shed guilt and acquire greater innocence so that they can again be seen as credible players in the ego-game of 'politics.'

The ego-self constructs experiences to assert it’s existence into a ‘world’ and to make that experience 'real.' These experiences must reinforce a sense of innocence to its actions, thereby, maintaining the experience of ‘world.’ Guilt tends to negate actions and must be avoided at all costs, so that innocence can keep the insane machine rolling along.

This is why so little has changed over the past two thousand years to terminate most ego-games.

Therefore, rather than change your actions, the ego constructs 'alibis' that seek to protect actions from guilt thereby perpetuating the experience of ‘world’ and the ego-games that reinforce that experience. Although severe economic changes are most likely on the horizon, it is doubtful that ego-games that seek to acquire extreme wealth will ever significantly change. This is because wealth acquisition has become the egos primary mode of 'self' awareness (simply examine how many people recently chose suicidal death over ending play in this crucial self-defining ego-game)

The ego-self could construct a different experience of ‘world’ in which it seeks to absolve itself of all guilt and performs only actions that perpetuate only innocence (some guy named Jesus is believed to have done just that). Problem is, that would indict it for past actions that no longer conform to the new construct and achieving innocence might be excruciatingly difficult due to that past guilt. However, you could forgive all past actions by completely dissociating from the past. But then, that would mean both guilty and innocent actions would cease to be acknowledged.

This means that “you” would cease to be as "you" now know your 'self.' Therefore, the question is, 'who' and 'what' would you BE?

Artwork by Pamela Wilson- "untitled"