Heart Versus Ego

I ended the last post with “Are we willing though to listen to our hearts and not our egos?” and feel I should unpack it a bit.

Logic isn’t bad. In fact going back to a previous post I think life would be easier if we didn’t put things into “good box/bad box” but the Eden myth lets us know humankind chose knowledge of good and evil over life, chose wanting to put things into logical boxes over wanting to trust in God/The Universe itself.

“Humans are primarily primed to be emotionally relationally led survival based beings. Egos don’t want to accept this which is where it all goes wrong. Sadly our world is obsessed with logic. The more they rely on logic the harder it is” Quotes from a conversation from the other day. Note it isn’t logic that is bad but the obsession with, the relying totally on logic that is the problem.

What is Ego though?

Ego is your idea or opinion of yourself, especially your feeling of your own importance and ability:

in psychoanalysis, the part of a person’s mind that tries to match the hidden desires (= wishes) of the id (= part of the unconscious mind) with the demands of the real world

Meaning of ego in English https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ego

But this gets skewed when we have allowed ourselves to be shaped by outside influences – what are parents/friends/teachers/colleagues said about us, what we read on the internet/in newspapers/magazines/books of how we “should be”, when we listen to adverts of what we “need” to be happy. Then we slide logic into the mix and we get confused. We are listening to all those outside influences and not listening to our hearts, not hearing who are true, genuine self is . [see the picture]

NOTE – we are not to be our “best self” but our most genuine self. Best goes back to the good box/bad box, right/wrong mentality. My genuine self is true to me and through that of course I will be giving off a calm energy which will help those around me to be their most genuine selves.

So if our world is obsessed with logic how to we “fix the broken systems”? How do we get to that place of “spiritual and cultural transformation”?

I don’t think we can think this through, that we can logically find an answer. I think it is time to move to a different place, to a place of mystery, of deep spirituality, of not needing to understand but trusting that there is a better way, but something greater than us can bring us to this point. I think we need to stop putting our trust in what we can do and start resting in God/The Universe/Whatever higher power you wish to call it.

How do we do that you may be asking? Because ask you will because that is logical. I’m not sure that many religious organisations can help because there is too much emphasis based on “having the answers” to give to the world, rather than living out the answer, rather than loving people unconditionally – that isn’t logical.

Let us step into the mystery of God, of the Son of God walking the earth, even the death and resurrection of Jesus to be a mystery not to be something that we can say “he died because of this”. Though I do think it is alright to say “One of the many reasons Jesus died is to reconcile us to God but there are many other things that I don’t understand and don’t get and that’s ok”.

Let’s start saying “I don’t know and that’s ok” more and more. Let’s start working on getting rid of the rubbish that stops us from being our genuine selves, that makes us afraid to trust our hearts. Let’s be bold and know there is more than we know but we want to connect with that more than.

I wonder what would happen if we all did that?