by Doug Hammack
We’re spending these days looking at some ancient spiritual practice that challenge the tyranny of desire. This week we look at how to effectively challenge the power of ego-desire.
Relaxing Our Ego Desires (Part 1)
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We’re doing a series of lessons on finding inner peace
• And particularly, how to quiet the tyranny of desire
• Toward that end, I’m introducing you to some ancient, but neglected spiritual exercises
• Practices designed for the purposes of carving out the inner space from which inner peace comes
• We’re working on the assumption that w/o inner peace, we don’t access the Life of the Divine Spirit w/in us
We began talking about the spiritual discipline that help us deal w/ the power of desire
First, we looked at the practice of intentional silence
Then last week, we talked about relax our body-desires, sense desires
Today I want to talk about learning to relax the tyranny of ego desire
Ego desires are powerful forces w/in us
• They radiate from deep and powerful forces w/in us
• Iconic truths we picked up from our families of origin
• Core beliefs we picked up from teachers, coaches, favorite uncles
• Interpretations of reality we formed from experiences, both positive, but especially negative in our lives
Often ego desires come from hurts we’ve sustained in life
• I hope you remember the scene in the movie, Gone w/ the Wind
• Scarlett O’Hara, in the aftermath of Sherman’s march is forced to scrabble for one last wilted turnip in the ground
• She stands fist to the air
• I swear before God that this war and these people will not lick me
• If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill
• As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again
And like Scarlett , experiences imprint our ego desires for a lifetime
As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again
• Or… I’ll never be controlled by a man again
• Or… I’ll never be poor like my family again
• Or… I’ll never be rejected by someone I love again
And to make sure our pain never happens again…
• Perhaps we work harder than healthy for ourselves, loved ones….
• Perhaps we work to control all the variables in our lives
• Or we become ingratiating employees so we’ll never be fired
• Or we become curt and off-putting so that when people do reject us, it’s not the true “us” rejected, but a persona we projected
And like Scarlett O’Hara who marred and diminished her own life in order to fulfill her vow …
• Our ego desires form a series of actions, responses, and instincts
• And these impulses w/in us compel us forward
• Determine our lives for us
And like the body desires we talked about last week…
• They control us, drive us, determine our actions
• And, on the topic of this series of lessons we’re doing…
• These ego desires steal away our peace
We said last week…
how we handle human desire can either open us to inner peace, or steal it from us
we saw this with our body desires (sense-desires) last week…
servicing what I want to taste, what I want feel/touch, what I want see
• Counter-intuitively, becomes a harsh taskmaster
…sucks up a tremendous amount of inner peace
…sucks up a tremendous amount if inner space
• Who would have thought that?
Spiritual masters from the past did
• They discovered that the intentional practice of reshaping, relaxing, and quieting our body desires is tremendously freeing
Well everything that is true of body desires, is true of ego desires too
• Some have a strong ego-desire to be approved of or admired
And this must be quieted if we would be spiritual people
• Others a strong desire to be preferred, to be advanced
Same is true here
• Many’s ego-desire is strong to be successful
• For others, to have power or wealth
• Some, this desire is to dominate others or to have things their way
• Many desire not to be inconvenienced
• Other ego desires…
To not be humiliated
To have the last word
To defend ourselves at all costs… etc.
These desires cry out all day long to be heard and answered
• and if we are to attain the interior space we need to access God within us, these must be quieted
• their insistence, their demands, their space-stealing, their awareness-deadening noisiness…
…all must be quieted if we would be alert to God’s Spirit w/in
• alert to inner virtue, inner Life, inner Truth
• all the Divine resource that is present in us goes will go untapped, if we do not learn to quiet our tyrannous desires
the noise of our body desires and the noise of our ego desires is too strong, too insistent, too demanding
• so the ancients set out a path to help us
• a series of spiritual practices, spiritual exercises designed to help quiet this internal despot and free our souls
The solution to being dominated by ego desire was laid out for us by spiritual people long ago
• They discovered this danger long before the hustle and bustle of 21st century living
• And they designed a path to help us quiet these demands
• an ancient set of practices to not have to live in service to the insistencies of our inner demands
Psalm 131
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.
Last week we saw the value in denying our bodies their preferences from time to time
• going without something our body desires, or doing something our bodies prefer not to do
• In so doing, we relax the insistence w/in us
Well the same path applies to our ego-desires
• We must learn to relax our ego desires just as we do body desires
So, how do we do this?
• we begin with understanding ourselves
• and we begin this, by asking God for insight into our selves
The ancient Greeks had inscribed on their most sacred temple, the phrase “know thyself”
• this saying has been attributed to everybody from Pythagoras to Socrates
well, self-awareness knows the demands our ego is making of us
and forewarned can be forarmed
• it is important to know what my ego desires are
• What are the insistent demands of this lesser dimension of self?
• What noisy dimensions of my self are stealing away my peace?
Because when we know the enemy of our peace
We can begin to design a battle strategy
Remember this…
Cheeseburger thought, cheeseburger bought… HAND GUESTURE
• When there is no gap between stimulus and response, we are our responses
• But when there is a gap between stimulus and response, we see we can choose our responses
Ego desires are often the us we know
• Ego desire thought, ego-desire bought
• No gap, no consideration, no reflection
• We just do what we are compelled to do
• We just act on what thoughts come to mind
• Thinking to ourselves that we are acting as a self
• Not realizing we are acting as slaves whose actions are dictated by a master
The first step to quieting the demands of ego consciousness is to be aware of the demands of ego consciousness
• And this is by no means, easy or common
• Most people are simply pulled along by ego desires
• Their desires dictate their lives for them
• Their desires dictate how their energies are spent
• How their priorities are set
• How their time is spent
But in fact, they are simply serving the insistent ego demands formed in very ill-considered times
Often ego desires started out as survival strategies to get us through a tough time
• But long after survival is no longer at stake, the desires continue
• Often ego desires are formed by a passing remark from someone we cherish
• Perhaps a small point of rejection or rebuff from someone we loved
And on the basis of these ill-considered life strategies, we live out our lives, live out our days
• Led by nothing more than a collection of ill-considered impulses, desires, internal demands
If we are to find inner peace, these ego desires must be quieted
• our insistence to service these desires must be calmed, relaxed
• we must learn to hush these lesser impulses w/in us
The ego-desire for approval and admiration will steal away our peace
• The desire to succeed and prove to ourselves that what so-and-so said about us isn’t true… that will extinguish peace
• The need to have it our way, to be the top dog… peace killer
• The insistence that we not be inconvenienced…
Well, life tends to work out such that we are inconvenienced
Insisting that not be so, that’s a peace killer
• Sometimes people are humiliated
It’s a terrible thing, but it happens
But for some who have been terribly mistreated, avoidance of any form of humiliation is an insistent demand
And that demand… it’s a peace-killer
Insistent ego-desires, often beyond our conscious awareness…
These will kill off true living
• They will quench the vibrant Divine Center in each of us
• And they will stunt the growth of Divine strength, Divine wisdom, Divine goodness inside of us
So we must aware of our enemy
We must know the ego-desires that are dictating our lives
So…
What to do?
Well, as I just said, awareness is step #1
• But as we become aware, how do we relax the desires of our personality?
• How do we “release” our need for approval, or our desire for success?
• How do we relax an instinct to dominate others?
• How do we rewire the desire to get our own way, have the last word, always be right, and so on?
The very way we think about these ego-desires helps point us in the direction of how to be free of them.
• When we need to be approved, we must feel we lack in approval-worthiness
• When we need to have the last word, we evidently feel we lack in status to speak w/ authority
• When we are driven to succeed, we evidently feel our lives are lacking in worth, significance
So we ask the question
What is my belief about my self?
Is my self as tentative as my actions indicate I believe it is?
And a deeper question…
Is my intrinsic worth contingent, or dependent on my performance?
Now we are Christian people
We follow Jesus
And we attend NRCC and listen to Doug talk about God, Jesus, Bible
So we know the answer to that question
We know that our worth is not determined by our performance
That our marketplace value system of scarcity and envy doesn’t determine the value of our humanity
But on this point, it wouldn’t matter which spiritual tradition we followed
It wouldn’t matter if we were Christian or Hindu
Every spiritual tradition answers these questions w/ a resounding “no”
We are not our performance
Our value is not tentative
Our worth is not provisional or unsettled
Every spiritual tradition tells us that we are safe.
• Either they say that God loves us, sustains us and won’t forsake us
• Or they say that the very nature of self is such that it cannot suffer injury and is already (though secretly) perfect
in our own tradition, Jesus tells us that we can be cast down by life
but we will never be forsaken by God
• most ancient of texts (Deut. 32:10) tell us we’re apple God’s eye
• one of the prophets (Zech) said it this way…
I love you as much as I love Myself
Anyone who hits you, hits Me.
Anyone who bloodies your nose, blackens your eye, does to Me
And most of us recognize truth in these ancient writings
But there’s a giant gap between mental assent, and belief
If we believed that we were safe, that we were loved, that we were of infinite worth…
• we wouldn’t need to press our own advantage
• we wouldn’t need to keep trying to position ourselves for advantage over others
• we wouldn’t need to push ahead, get the last word, defend ourselves
So, quieting these inner demands, begins by understanding them
And for that I encourage you to prayers for insight
• HOLY SPIRIT w/in me, reveal my motivations
• Reveal to me what I really want
• Help me see insistent demands that before, I only saw as preferences
I have a friend in this process
When an extended family member asks for help my friend gets mad
• When they make demands of me, he/she said, I strongly react
Not telling gender, for today arbitrarily saying “she”
• I lecture them on how they should be living better
• I get upset at the demands they make
Now in past, there was no gap between the ego desire and the action
My friend simply reacted strongly, started lecturing, got mad
• But as she has been pursuing understanding…
• As she offered the prayer I just mentioned…
HOLY SPIRIT open my eyes to see my motivations…
Help me understand my own self…
She’s come to see something…
• You know, in past, my family made unreasonable demands on me
• Because I’m nice, I just went along
• I did everything they needed from me
• I took care of all the things that would have fallen apart w/o me
And in truth, there was a payoff for me doing so…
• I got strokes and kudos for doing it
• I felt good about myself for doing it
• But at same time, I felt trapped by having to always rescue them
• I felt bitter, I felt angry and cheated
Now, all these years later, I don’t play the rescuer role anymore, but the bitterness remains
• The trapped feelings remain
• The resentful, cheated-by-life feelings remain
And so when the desire to lecture or rail against them comes up…
• What I’m really doing, is expressing resentment/bitterness desires
• My actions come from insistent ego desire
• I want these people off my back long after they’re no longer on my back
• I long ago differentiated myself from my family
• I stopped dancing this unhealthy dance with them
• But I’m still driven my inner desires of resentment and bitterness
After my friend saw this about herself, she immediately brought it before God
• And almost immediately she found a place of freedom
• A place of Life to rise from a place that had been dead
• A place of liberty that had previously been a prison
The first step of being free from ego desire, is to ask HOLY SPIRIT for awareness
The second step is to ask HOLY SPIRIT for to be free
• HOLY SPIRIT, help me see why I do what I do
• HOLY SPIRIT, widen the gap between stimulus and response so I can see
• Help me not simply BE the response I have
but to step back and see what I am doing
• What demands is my personality making?
• What demands is my ego making?
• What am I trying to protect, or cover, or defend, w/in myself?
• What are my insistent ego demands and where do they come from?
And when we see something, we immediately bring it before the Divine
• HOLY SPIRIT w/in me, free me from these habitual ego-desires
• Free me from inner drives, inner compulsions, inner instincts
SIDENOTE:
Apophatic spiritual practices come at same problem in a completely different way than we’re discussing today
• A way beyond understanding
• A way beyond thought
• Ego strongholds are simply dissolved by wordless prayer
• By meditative practices we’re discussing in the practicum
(btw, you should come on Wednesdays)
• Especially helpful in this regard is the Welcoming prayer, we introduced several weeks ago
• Send me an email if you’re not at practicum and would like some resources
But either apophatically, as we discuss in the meditation practicum…
or cataphatically, as we’re discussing today…
• what we want is to be free
• what we want is to know that we are safe
• that we are loved
• that we are valued and thus valuable
what we want, is to live in a state in which we don’t have to feel tense and anxious
• and the way to release that tension
• the way to find that inner space, and inner peace…
• is to trace the tension, back to the demand
• what is my ego seeking…
• and is that what my soul finally, really wants
• probably not
when we see what lesser demand, what lesser desire has set itself up as a god within our ego
• we turn to our faith
• turn to our God
• turn to the HOLY SPIRIT w/in us
• and when we do, we hear the Inner Voice tell us…
You already have everything you need
You already have everything you most truly desire
You have nothing to worry about
Even if the entire earth and every broken human that populates it…
• Sends you a message of diminished worth
• Sends you a message of diminished respect
• It is a false message
• It holds no power over you
• The Divine Reality has enshrined your worth forever
• You don’t have to struggle for recognition and a good position
• The only “you” that really matters is quite safe and in good condition.
• As you come to believe that, you can relax and enjoy life
So the first step of this ancient path:
• Seek awareness of your ego desires
• Awareness of the root behind that desire
• Awareness of the tyranny that desire has over me
• Awareness of how that desire steals away my peace
And second, offer a simple practice deeper desire
• Lord I desire to be free of these lesser desires
And third, simply be watchful
• Simply stay alert
HOLY SPIRIT is in business of opening eyes
James 1: If anyone lacks wisdom, ask God. God gives generously…
Ask God for wisdom to see and understand your desire
Call out for Divine help (Lord, free me from this rooted desire)
• Ps. 50 call upon Me in the day of trouble; and I will help you
Watch and see what unfolds
I’ve got faith for this kind of prayer
This is how my life has unfolded
• Call to Me, there is help to be had
• Open yourself to the My Spirit, there is aid to be found
• Listen for God’s Inner Voice, there is assistance for you
Next time: more on this ancient path of quieting our ego-desire