We have spent the last seven issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter looking at the dualistic, black-and-white judgmental thinking process manifested by the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child; the part of us that assumes that our beliefs are always "right". As we have seen, such black-and-white thinking is inherently judgmental, creates harmful categories of "us verses them", and inevitably leads to conflict and violence.
Our black-and-white primitive ego does not like to be around people who have their own opinions about things. The rigidity of our primitive ego causes us to become angry and assume that if another person disagrees with us, they are not simply disagreeing; they are insisting that we are wrong. Our primitive ego quickly becomes angry and defensive, and blames them for creating the conflict.
Unfortunately, black-and-white thinking is only one of the aspects of our primitive ego that creates conflict and suffering for others and ourselves. Because authentic spiritual growth is directly linked to growth in self-awareness, and because growth in self-awareness comes directly from our observing egos ability to observe, pay attention, and "sit with" our primitive ego when it is unconsciously controlling our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, we will use the next few issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter to identify and explore some of the more important manifestations of our primitive ego.
In this issue of the Newsletter we will take a look at the difference between our narcissistic primitive egos' sense of self-entitlement and our enlightened observing ego's ability to manifest empathy and mutuality.
Empathy is the ability to put ourselves emotionally into another person's shoes.
Mutuality is the observing ego concept of horizontal power or a "power with others" that affirms that others have the same feelings, needs, desires, and rights that we do; the same desire and right for safety, to feel valued, to be loved, to be successful, to provide for their family, to feel cared for, to have access to health care, to have a good job, to have access to food, clothing, and shelter, to own land, the right to live with dignity, freedom, and justice, and most importantly, to be happy.
Any time we claim these desires for ourselves at the expense of another human being, for "any" reason, we are using our primitive ego's vertical power or "a survival of the fittest power over others" to withhold the right of mutuality from them. The narcissism of our primitive ego makes us essentially unable to offer a sustained mutuality to others. When mutuality is withheld, whether consciously or not, our primitive ego is guilty of creating evil.
The dictionary defines mutuality as a reciprocal relationship between interdependent entities such as objects, individuals, or groups; a high degree of mutuality of respect or reciprocity for each others expertise, feelings, needs, sentiments, and desires; and the condition or quality of mutual dependence as a quality common to or shared by two or more parties.
In other words, mutuality means that the needs, emotions, and desires of others are consciously assumed to be of equal importance to our own. The practice of mutuality requires a high level of empathy. A matured, enlightened observing ego consciously recognizes that other people not only exist and matter, but also embraces the concept that our own future is based on a deep sense of cooperation and a systemic inter-dependence with others.
In psychological language, the opposite of mutuality is often defined as a narcissistic sense of entitlement; the feeling that we are entitled, or have a "right" to something regardless of the desires or feelings of another person. A narcissistic sense of entitlement means that the needs, emotions, and desires of others are of lesser importance than our own. In other words, narcissism and self-focus effectively render our primitive ego incapable of offering others empathy or mutuality.
Because our primitive ego's sense of entitlement is firmly grounded in narcissism and the inability to offer empathy to others, it will be important, assuming we wish to grow in self-awareness, to honestly access where we stand on the continuum between the entitlement of our primitive ego and our observing ego's ability to manifest empathy and mutuality. Paying attention to our feelings and emotions in real life situations can often provide excellent insight and self-awareness to those moments when our primitive ego is getting out of control.
For example, have you ever had a driver cut in front of you and then drive ten miles an hour slower than you were traveling before they pulled out in front of you? How did you feel? Annoyed? Angry? If so, your primitive ego was probably feeling a sense of entitlement; an irritated feeling that you were "entitled" or had the "right" to drive at whatever speed "you" wanted to drive; an annoyed feeling that the other driver was definitely a jerk that did not have the "right" to abruptly cut you off and then drive slowly.
Your irritation and anger simply meant that your primitive ego was fully visible at that moment and in control of your emotions and probably your behaviors. Your primitive ego was feeling not only entitled to "own" the road, it also assumed that you had the "right" to determine how other drivers should or shouldn't behave. After all, no one has the "right" to get in "your" primitive ego's way.
On the other hand, if you simply slowed down and waited patiently until you could safely pass, you were probably feeling a sense of mutuality toward the other driver; the feeling or assumption that they too have the right to drive at whatever speed they feel comfortable driving. In this case, your emotions and behaviors were probably under the control of your more matured observing ego.
So far, so good. Now let's assume that it is a very busy road and every time you try to pass this slow driver he or she increases their speed until you are forced to pull back in behind them. Now how might you be feeling? Your primitive ego would probably be even angrier; perhaps even to the point where you would be inclined to drive in an aggressive, unsafe manner known as road-rage. Your observing ego on the other hand would emphatically realize that the other driver was simply one of those drivers who unconsciously increase their own speed out of fear whenever an another driver attempts to pass them. You would patiently pull back in behind them and wait until you had the opportunity to pass when there were no other vehicles coming from the other direction.
OK, you are doing great. Now lets up the ante a bit. Lets assume that you had overslept this morning and are late for a very important meeting at the office. A meeting where you are responsible for presenting a creative proposal to all of your colleagues and other department heads including the company president. Lets complicate the picture a bit by assuming you have been working on this proposal for a long time and a significant raise and promotion will hinge on how well the presentation goes.
OK, I think you are probably getting the point. It is easy to stay calm and remain in control of our primitive ego when the stakes are small. Anyone can do that. The real test comes when our primitive ego feels that we are being blocked or prevented from getting something that we feel we are entitled to receive; something we REALLY want! Because our primitive ego tends to "want what it wants, when it wants it", the stakes will eventually get high enough that the sense of entitlement and impatience of our narcissistic primitive ego will cause us to get angry and aggressive.
On the other hand, if we have truly grown in self-awareness by paying attention to those times our primitive ego emerges, and have embraced a spiritually enlightened sense of empathy and mutuality for others, our feelings and emotions will easily remain under the control of our more matured observing ego. We would not only emphatically assume that the other driver is "entitled" to drive at what ever speed they want to, we would also take full responsibility for our own behaviors and the fact that it was our own choice, consciously or unconsciously, to over sleep this morning. The important point here is that the emotions and the behaviors we manifest will be a "conscious choice", not an emotional, unconscious primitive ego knee jerk reaction to our environment.
The only part of us that is capable of such a sustained, calm, non-aggressive mutuality is our matured adult observing ego; that part of us that has deep self-awareness and pays conscious attention to what we are feeling and what we are manifesting in the world in each moment. Rather than projecting them onto others our observing ego would own our own feelings. We would have conscious awareness that no one can make us feel anything that is not already inside of us. We would remain empathic to the needs and feelings of others.
The systemic, interdependent sense of teamwork and cooperation that accompanies true mutuality is present only when our enlightened observing ego is in control. Because empathy and mutuality is based on a sense of we or us, the commonly used adjective of the observing ego is "ours". A sense of narcissistic entitlement or "right" to something would simply not make sense to our more mature or enlightened observing ego because it has the matured self-awareness and conscious insight to know how easy it is to spiritually ignore the beam in our own eye.
To briefly summarize, the only part of us that is capable of a narcissistic sense of entitlement or "right" to something is our unconscious primitive ego. Entitlement is based on a sense of "me verses you" and the projection or blaming others for our own feelings and emotions. A sense of inter-dependent mutuality, and taking ownership for our own feelings, would simply not make sense to the emotionally reactive, narcissistic, autonomous, independent sense of self that defines our narcissistic primitive ego. The favorite adjective of our primitive ego is "mine".
Black-and-white, dualistic thinking, and a sense of entitlement or lack of mutuality are two significant manifestations of our primitive ego that create conflict and violence in the world. The primitive ego is an unconscious, immature part of us from childhood that is incapable of creating a compassionate, interdependent global culture.
We have had access to modern psychological insights for over one hundred years. It is tragic, a true example of cultural ignorance, that virtually none of the current knowledge, insights, and wisdom that we have learned in modern psychology about empathy and mutuality are being taught in our school systems or our mainline churches. For example, it is a rare adult that is even aware that the immature primitive ego "me first" psyche of their inner-child is, in fact, controlling virtually all of their emotions and behaviors.
The insights, knowledge, and conscious awareness of modern psychology needs to be brought into our mainstream human cultures. Until we achieve this level of self-awareness, and the ability to offer mutuality to all human beings on the planet, a true authentic spirituality will remain beyond our reach.
We must learn to consciously evolve and mature our species consciousness very quickly or it is doubtful whether the human culture, as we know, it will survive the rapidly growing 21st century globalization process already underway. It is becoming imperative that we grow spiritually through an intentional growth in self-awareness and learn to deal with the beam in our own eye before we worry about the speck in our neighbors.
To state it simply, authentic spiritual growth, empathy, and mutuality are all directly dependent on our ability to consciously and intentionally grow in self-awareness. We need to learn to transform our age-old narcissistic primitive ego sense of entitlement, and the conflict and violence it creates socially and religiously, and replace it with the more conscious and enlightened observing ego skills of mutuality and empathy.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
We have spent the last three months discussing our human primitive ego thinking process and exploring the powerful and dangerous impact black-and-white thinking has had historically on our mainline religions. and currently affects our political process.
In this issue of the Newsletter we took a look at mutuality and once again we discovered how quickly our primitive ego's narcissistic sense of personal entitlement, and its inability to manifest mutuality and empathy to others, not only keeps our psyche trapped in an immature childhood consciousness, it inevitably leads to conflict and suffering. I am convinced that until we learn to intentionally grow in self-awareness, virtually all of us are going to be guilty of unconsciously using a primitive ego thinking process and creating conflict and suffering; for ourselves and others.
Only when we have trained our adult observing ego to consciously pay attention to our unconscious primitive ego thinking process and the unconscious knee-jerk responses we manifest every time we do, will we begin to see how unhelpful they are. Given time, our observing ego will begin to grow; to consciously evolve and mature.
Because I believe that the conscious maturation and evolution our observing ego consciousness is the single most important goal facing the future survival of our human species, I will focus the next few issues of the Newsletter on what I believe are the most important and harmful aspects of primitive ego thinking. Whenever possible, I will use news from our current Presidential campaign and other current events to develop insight into the dangers of primitive ego thinking and illustrate the immature consciousness used in a primitive ego thinking process.
For example, last week the New York Times carried an article about a young Chinese student at an American University that tried to act as peacemaker between Chinese students and Tibetan students demonstrating for Tibetan freedom from Chinese rule. She was careful not to take sides. She was simply urging the two sides to sit down and talk to one another without violence. Within days, her family back in China received death threats and she was told that if she returned to China she would be killed.
Unfortunately she and her family found themselves caught in the judgmental violence of a black and white, narcissistic, primitive ego thinking process devoid of reason, mutuality, and empathy. Hopefully the rage and threats of violence will dissipate and she will be able to return safely to her home and family. This is an excellent example of the irrational danger created by our collective primitive ego's judgmental black-and-white thinking.
The goal for each of us is to develop an enlightened consciousness; learning to intentionally pay attention every time we find ourselves using a dualistic primitive ego thinking process. As always, the goal of the Stonyhill Newsletter is taming our primitive ego through growth in self-awareness and authentic spiritual growth, the conscious and intentional evolution of our adult observing ego consciousness, and our ability to manifest true unconditional compassion, empathy, and mutuality to others.
We will continue to explore our primitive ego psyche and the importance of developing an enlightened observing ego consciousness in the next issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter.
I encourage questions and comments from my readers. They help to keep me on my "intellectual toes". So thank you Jeff for taking the time to send in your insightful question.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
The opposite of an enlightened mutuality is our primitive ego's narcissistic sense of entitlement. Conscious awareness of our sense of entitlement that comes from the narcissism of our primitive ego will eventually lead to a sense of mutuality. No other response will make sense if our goal is non-violence and compassion; an enlightened consciousness. Growth in self-awareness and authentic spiritual growth are identical.
So once again, our goal is growth in self-awareness; learning to pay attention whenever our primitive ego feels a sense of "entitlement". Simply learning to pay attention will always leads to effortless change over time when our goal is the evolution of our consciousness and enlightenment.
QUOTES
Evolutionary enlightenment is all about creating the future. How do you create the future? Through "your" evolution, the evolution of your own consciousness. Your choice to evolve literally creates the future. When the free will of the individual lines up with the imperative to evolve, human life is transformed. You begin to see your own evolution as nothing less than a sacred obligation. You realize that you are the very cutting edge of evolutionary potential, at least in this part of the universe. It's taken fourteen billion years to produce your miraculous capacity for consciousness. And now the future of this entire process rests completely on your own shoulders and depends on your own choices.
Andrew Cohen, France, August 2003
Every thought in consciousness has been born into form, a temporary form and then it dies and goes onto another form. You could say the whole world is consciousness having taken birth as form, manifesting as form temporarily, and then dying which means dissolving as form. What always remains is the essence of all that exists - consciousness itself. Eckhart Tolles
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