Go Ahead, Kill Yourself

No, this isn’t an article about suicide. Positive and Lightworker souls just don’t do that…no matter how much we might feel like it sometimes! If you do know of someone who did that, there was something else going on there that may have been helped or may not have. But anyway, sorry…this isn’t an instruction manual for self-destruction. Well, not entirely.

But now that I hopefully have your attention:

Much has been written about the “death of the ego”.  Many teachers and spiritual systems use the concept that one must kill off the “ego”, or sense of self, in order to find peace and fulfillment.  The idea of the old teachings is that pain and suffering comes from desire, which in turn comes from the individual mind having bought into the stories told by what it sees around it.  The mind is thought to construct its own story about itself – and the story may or may not be “true”.  The truth of it is a slippery thing, because it is based upon observations of subjective reality.

In mistaking subjective reality for objective reality, the mind makes assumptions about what the individual “should” want or “could” achieve.  But in truth, observing the outside world is absolutely the worst way to make decisions.  Our limited perspective can’t possibly provide the maximum information needed to make important decisions.  Your ego-mind can never know all there is to know about any given thing in the “outside world”.

But the mistake that many of the traditional systems make is in the idea of killing off the ego wholesale.  We are incarnated into this world for a reason: to be alive.  A very detailed blueprint was constructed for this Earth School, and the fact of our having a conscious mind (and a body, and emotions) was most definitely a part of that blueprint.  Therefore, trying to completely erase a part of that is counter to the general way that things work.  Withdrawing from all desire to go sit on a mountaintop might very well to lead to higher consciousness…but it’s certainly not going to be using all the gifts and tools  we were given to use for this particular process of evolution.

That said, there is la petite mort…the small death (no, I’m not talking about orgasm here).

The story we tell ourselves, about ourselves, that we’ve built over the years has many components.  Some are pretty accurate, and some are not.  A big part of beginning to become authentic is to recognize just what we really are.  That includes the nasty parts, as well as the wonderful gifts we bring to the world.  We need to look for them, recognize them, and finally find a way to accept them just as they are.  And in the process of accepting all of these components, warts and all, we find self-acceptance and peace.  Good.  Now we’re getting somewhere.  We have an accurate picture of this ball of flesh, thoughts, and emotions that we call “me”, and we can look at it without wanting to throw up because we know that it’s perfect.  If it were anything less it would not be “me” – it would be something else (and that would also be perfect, but it would not be “me”).

So now what?  Does complete self-acceptance mean that we accept the reality we find ourselves in?  Our physical circumstances have been built by the story we’ve built with our old, unaware self.  Now that we see ourselves clearly, does our physical reality fit?  Yes, it perfectly fits the old story, and if we’re content with that version everything’s cool.  We can now proceed as we’ve always done, accept what we’ve made and find peace.  Or, we can go sit on a mountaintop because perfect knowledge of ourselves has rendered us independent of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

But mountain-sitting won’t appeal to most of us.  We have a built-in urge to keep moving forward; like salmon moving upstream, we are built to move.  Our spiritual evolution is a compelling instinct, and building our physical reality on this plane is a perfect reflection of that evolution.  As it is above, so it is below…and vice-versa.  Physical change is an unavoidable component of spiritual advancement for us in our present form.

We’ve built this reality using the old story; in order for a new reality to be made manifest, a new story needs to be told.  And in order for that to occur, the parts of us that told parts of the old story need to go.

Yes, again, many new-age teachers do talk about the death of the “ego” (the mountaintop-sitters, who by the way seldom drive their Hummers up their thousand-foot driveways past manicured landscapes to a simple yoga pad on a rock); some even talk about letting go of the parts that don’t serve us.  But none that I’ve listened to speak of this nearly enough.

In the quest to change our circumstances, it’s easy to understand that in order to step into our authenticity and manifest what we want, we need to develop parts of us that perhaps are dormant or underdeveloped.  We all have gifts and traits that we’ve been afraid to use for one reason or another, and so once we decide to step into that authentic self-expression we look for ways to do that.  We might go about learning new skills, take courses, read books and blogs, seek out teachers and coaches.  We look to improve our external selves in order to give our inner selves a vehicle.

But that’s only half the story.  No matter what new abilities we develop, they will be useless if there are still parts of us that aren’t compatible with the new reality we want to create.  Those parts of us have to go if they stand in the way of what we want.  Removing them will make way for the “new you”.  Like they used to say in the old cowboy movies, “there ain’t room in this town for the two of us!”.  You can’t have a gallon of vinegar and a gallon of water in the same one-gallon jug!

The problem with this is that it often takes us out of our comfort zone.  Know this: the comfort zone ain’t necessarily comfortable – it’s just what we’re used to!  We might hate being a wallflower at parties, sitting in a corner sipping a drink, observing people, nodding and smiling.  We might tell ourselves that we’re professional observers and have no need to interact or “make a spectacle” of ourselves.  Really?  Or do we really wish we could get out there and play twister or volleyball, or stand in a circle trading awful sick jokes?  But no; we stick to that corner despite our longing for involvement – because that’s what we do.

I’m here to tell you that that part of you must die if you’re to evolve. But the old storyteller, the one that decided for you that you will sit in that corner, has a strong survival instinct of his own.  He’s not going to want you to do anything that will threaten his very existence.  He’s got to go too.

There are different ways to root out these personality blocks.  Some of us are warriors.  In my own case, I try to be as ruthless as possible – I wield my flaming sword and slash away.  There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth when these useless and hindering parts of me are cut loose, and it does hurt like hell.  But the wounds heal quickly and the scars are not huge.  This is one of the meanings of the term “spiritual warrior”.  We have no fear of being elbow-deep in blood, if that’s what it takes to get the job done.  I find that many contemporary “seekers” shrink from that image – that’ s fine for them as long as they don’t try to judge the efficacy of the blade in doing the work for those who use it wisely and sparingly.  In truth, a real Michaelite won’t care much what those passive-aggressive souls think of his methods anyway.

For those whose path involves a more gentle approach, it’s still a matter of killing off the old storyteller – even if they don’t want to think of it in those terms.  In their case, they will act as a hospice worker (with an Arsenic and Old Lace approach)  for the ego-parts that will soon be departed.  They work slowly and methodically, adding a few drops of spiritual cyanide to the morning tea, all the while smiling sweetly.  When the undesirable personality trait begins to lose power, they will sympathize and tell it that everything will be fine – that it is well-loved and has had a long, fulfilling life and has nothing to be ashamed of.  And when it has grown so weak that it begins to fade away, they will hold it lovingly in their arms and sing it to sleep…all the while planning the awesome party they’re going to have that night to celebrate the shiny new part of them that’s now going to be able to do its glorious stuff for them.  Just as vicious, but it keeps such souls’ image of themselves as lovers of everything intact.  That’s OK…they’re still killers of useless things.  The end result is what matters.

Personality traits, habits, relationships…all of these things are subject to being dispatched when they prove to be not in our best interest.  What it takes, when it comes to the bottom line, is the will to be brave, to be willing to kill off parts of ourselves that no longer serve us.  Regardless of how much honor and respect we might give to what has gone before, we need not have one speck of loyalty to what gets in the way of our Highest Path and Purpose.