Learning from life

The Ego's identification with its own psyche

Last month's topic ended with the observation that there is no evidence of experiences that show an attraction of the spiritual Ego towards evil: in this life the Ego can certainly operate – under the influence of the human psyche's negative polarity – in such a way as to cause pains and sufferings to others, and not infrequently also to itself, but this happens either as a result of the limits of its faculties of discernment, which force it to identify with the psychic dynamics that control it, or because it erroneously attributes a positive value to its actions, in this case too due to lack of adequate cognitive resources. As we have already observed, the psyche induces the Ego to instinctively orient itself by following a compass that indicates as advantageous a direction that often does not coincide with the psyche's positive polarity. However in some cases the Ego, while being aware of the fact that its actions and choices can cause damage and suffering to others, is convinced that it has no alternatives: in some way these are forms of defense of the well-being, integrity and the very survival of one's own organism, needs for which the Ego feels responsible throughout its life. This shows how the conflictuality of the human psyche, determined by the splitting of consciousness into a multitude of organisms, is intrinsically connected with our organic life, to the point of being able to make the Ego completely forget its spiritual component, as often occurs in our days, even in the cultures we consider the most advanced. In fact, it takes a particular courage and a remarkable fortitude to put the life of one's organism at risk, in order not to cause harm, injury and pain to the organism of others. However, it is still a matter of dynamics concerning human organisms, their way of functioning, and the involvement of the conscious Ego in this strange game in which suffering and the pursuit of human pleasure and happiness play such an important role.

Obviously the psyche itself, through the collective conditioning programs, induces the Ego to believe that the identification with its own psyche's dynamics is normal and natural. The socio-cultural programming tools try to implement, in some cases through more or less indulgent forms of persuasion, in other cases through coercion, a series of standard models to which the psyche's dynamics of each member of a certain social group should adapt. The same psyche, in its individual fragmentation, then produces all those contradictory and conflicting exceptions that prevent the Ego of many people from adapting to these models, even if it still continues to identify itself with the psychic dynamics that directly involve it. In a rather strange way, it is as if the human psyche were trying to establish and defend a certain degree of order, which is ever challenged by the chaotic and conflicting dynamics originating from the bipolar tension that characterizes it. Given this state of affairs, the Ego should first of all understand that its condition of identification with its own psyche's dynamics, which correspond to a very narrow range of attunements in the human psyche, must be extended to every other Ego, even if the other identifies itself with very different psychic attunements. Due to the intrinsically bipolar character of the psyche's energy, in many cases this problem cannot be solved through the so-called understanding of the other's reasons, precisely because in this way the chaos caused by the psyche's fragmentation would be increased: in fact the psyche's negative polarity, by its nature, cannot recognize anything other than itself and its own reasons. This is particularly evident in the animal world, in which the human organism also has its roots: in nature, the carnivore can consider a different animal not as something similar to itself, but as a prey and a source of food to feed on, after killing and devouring it.

Under the psyches's dominion, everything that happens in human affairs is unavoidable, for better or for worse: careful observers of the dynamics of the human psyche cannot delude themselves that the positive polarity be able to eliminate the negative one once and for good – like not infrequently those whose Egos identify with the attunements linked to the polarity of good believe they can do – precisely because of the bipolar character of psyche's energy. However, one can reasonably operate in such a way as to keep the tension between the two poles of the psyche within acceptable margins, in order to avoid the violent, destructive, uncontrollable and chaotic conflicts that occur when the tension exceeds these limits. In these conditions, the Ego's identification with its own psychic dynamics creates the conditions for all the conflicts and discords that can occur between single individuals or organized social groups. Therefore, the Ego can more or less consciously continue to live and meet its destiny while remaining faithful to the psyche's dynamics with which it identifies, whether positive or negative, or it can begin a path of differentiation, not so much towards the psyche in general – since it is very easy to distance oneself from the psychic attunements of others, in particular when they do not coincide with ours – but rather with regard to the psychic dynamics that it directly experiences through its own consciousness. Since the control that the psyche exerts over the Ego manifests itself through the organism's various needs (survival, integrity and well-being), and in particular through the nervous system and the brain, the psyche's reactions to these attempts by of the Ego to free itself to some extent from the identification with its own psyche's dynamics should not surprise us: the Ego must train and prepare to face some form of retaliation. As always, the psyche can try to intimidate the Ego, showing it the sufferings it will face if it does not comply with its psyche's demands, or it can ensnare it with the lure of the pleasures that the psyche can provide through the satisfaction of its desires (generated, moreover, by the same psyche).

To be able to differentiate itself from its own psychic dynamics, the Ego must first of all be able to establish a channel of communication with its spiritual ally: it could also be said that, if the Ego feels the need to distance itself from the psychic dynamics that involve it, this happens due to the influence of his spiritual counterpart. This process therefore depends on the level of intensity with which this spiritual entity associated with the Ego (which can be called the guide, the ally, the spirit, the guardian, etc.) manages to enter within the range of action of human consciousness. Certain programs of cultural conditioning prevalent in our time or in the recent past, yet always created by the human psyche, come to deny the very existence of a spiritual Ego, trying to convince the conscious Ego that its existence not only is linked to that of its organism during this life (which is indubitable), but that it will certainly be annihilated when its organism will undergo the disintegration of death: as a matter of fact, we can certainly say that the end of our body will also mark the end of the Ego's subjection to the human psyche. At the same time, the conscious Ego should also be wary of most traditional religious interpretations of the spiritual existence, determined by either polarity of the human psyche: by its very nature, religion is a human phenomenon conditioned by the organic existence of the Ego, and therefore by all those experiences of suffering, desire for happiness, uncertainty for the future, fear of death, and submission to the psyche's demands that derive from it. In fact, as we will see shortly, once the Ego has freed itself from the bipolarity of the human psyche and has managed to reach the Spirit dimension, its experiences radically change.

Why does the Ego have to experience the human psyche?

In the reports on the NDEs of the past months we have seen how such experiences constitute a valid testimony of the experimentation, by the conscious Ego, of a dimension that has very different features from those to which we have become accustomed in the course of this life. Today we have access to many thousands of acconts of these experiences which, despite their subjectivity, often contain some elements of coherence that we have already had occasion to highlight in our quotes. In particular, the sense of reality experienced is such that the Ego does not in any way doubt the actual existence of the Spirit dimension, to the point that, in comparison, it is the very reality of human life, in its changing temporariness, to possibly be regarded as illusory. Another very interesting aspect is given by the Ego's feeling of having finally returned home, that is, in that dimension that is most congenial to it and with which it undoubtedly feels more in harmony, compared to what it had to experience in its human life: the reluctance and opposition with which the Ego receives the proposal – often felt as an imposition – of having to resume that path of organic life that was (so happily for it) interrupted, bear witness to this. We have also highlighted how, on the basis of these testimonies, the Spirit dimension is completely free from that bipolarity that characterizes the human psyche, to the point that there seems to be a sharp separation between those two dimensions: everything, in the Spirit dimension, is permeated by a single energy – perceived as a light that radiates an infinite, absolute and unconditional creative love – to which even the least bit of conflicting element is foreign. It is therefore an energy that cannot in any way be contaminated by elements alien to it: least of all by the negative polarity of the human psyche.

The fact that information relating to experiences in the Spirit dimension becomes part of the endowment of knowledge that the Ego can already dispose of during its human life, when it has yet to deal with the psyche's controlling power, produces some interesting consequences. In fact, it may happen that the Ego, throughout its life, is not even aware of the existence of such experiences, or that – in the light of the interpretation induced by some already well assimilated mental programs of cultural conditioning – such experiences are hastily liquidated by the Ego as illusory fantasies, produced by the brain of an organism in critical conditions, which cannot alter the worldview determined by the psyche's attunements with which the Ego continues to identify itself. But not infrequently, when the Ego becomes aware of the possibility of experiencing the Spirit dimension, even without having experienced it directly, its orientation towards human life and the dynamics of the psyche in which it is involved undergoes some changes. In fact, the power that the human psyche exerts over the Ego is largely determined by the belief that the only possibility of existence as a conscious subject offered to the Ego is linked to the life of its own organism. The possibility of a continuity of the existence of the conscious Ego – without the self-perception of its identity vanishing – in a dimension other than that of organic life, undermines this conviction, to the consolidation of which the human psyche has devoted remarkable resources and energies. Consequently, all those dynamics of psychic origin by which the Ego felt attracted or flattered, or towards which it had feelings of rejection and repulsion (while remaining subject to the control of its own psyche), lose that character of absolute values or non-values that conditioned its choices, and are reduced to relative, occasional, accidental and impermanent phenomena, destined to lose importance, and perhaps even meaning, once this organic life is over.

The prospect of being able to access the Spirit dimension should be attractive and fascinating for anyone who is currently in a position to experience this organic life. However, even taking into account the limited intellectual resources (that is, cognitive and interpretative) available to the conscious Ego even in those cases in which it is endowed with an intelligence above the norm, the fact of having to experience the dynamics of the human psyche is felt by the Ego as an enigma of which a satisfactory understanding escapes it: in this regard, even the information that we can obtain from the reports of the NDEs focused on the experimentation of the Spirit dimension are not particularly illuminating, because – as we have seen in the quoted accounts – they generally refer to an assessment of the importance of organic life based on the subjective feelings of the experimenters. As we have already highlighted, that absolute knowledge, indubitable in its evidence, on the meaning and importance of human life that is sometimes infused into the Ego while it is in the Spirit dimension, is then inexorably lost once the Ego has come back to the dimension of organic life, pointing out the separation between these two dimensions, between which the conscious Ego seems to perform the function of a connecting bridge. The various psychic dynamics connected with organic life are a common experience for every conscious Ego who finds itself living in this world, without it usually having any clear and well-defined memory of its existence – previous, parallel or outside of time – in the Spirit dimension. However, in the case of those (and they are still a minority) who, after having had the opportunity to directly experience the Spirit dimension, have been reconnected with their organism, the memories of those experiences remain very much alive, and represent for the Ego a heritage, a value, and sometimes a burden, which condition its subsequent experiences, orientations and choices in the course of human life.

In an attempt to find an answer to the question of what are the reasons why the Ego must experience the various effects of the psyche's energy, with all the contradictions and conflicts caused by its bipolarity and the splitting of consciousness into a multitude of organisms, I have already advanced the hypothesis that organic life is indispensable for the formation, consolidation and progress of the conscious Ego, as a prerequisite for its subsequent possible transfer to the Spirit dimension, once freed from its body. I have also compared the human organism to an egg in which the embryo – that is, the Ego – is formed, nourished and developed until it transforms itself into the chick that breaks the egg's shell, which has now become a prison, to be born at a new autonomous life (see this page of the blog 2019, in the paragraph The Ego's liberation and death). However, this is a hypothesis that leaves several questions unresolved, also due to its elitist character: only a few eggs could give birth to chicks, while most of them would turn into omelettes, that is, nourishment for the psyche's energy. And what about all those cases in which a disease or trauma prematurely interrupts a life, preventing the Ego from continuing on its evolutionary path? Furthermore, much of the information we can draw from the NDEs tend to disprove this hypothesis, suggesting that every Ego, by the very fact of having become conscious in the course of its human life, can be welcomed into the Spirit dimension. It would therefore seem that a spiritual nature should be recognized to every Ego, regardless of whether it realizes it or not in the course of its human life. Consequently, even the Ego's orientation towards the bipolarity of the human psyche would have a relative importance, if it is true that the Spirit does not judge but understands, does not punish but welcomes with infinite love, possibly leaving to the Ego the task of evaluate its own actions in the light of that process of life review that often (but not always) occurs during the NDEs.

These substantial and profound differences between the Spirit dimension and that of organic life, dominated by the human psyche, lead us to some important reflections, determined precisely by the fact that our Ego is currently experiencing the psyche's dimension, and not that of the Spirit. Certainly the Spirit appears to us, in its immutable and unalterable perfection, as a form of energy that cannot in any way be influenced and contaminated by the human psyche's bipolarity. It seems to us that the very fact of thinking that an energy such as that of the Spirit can be disturbed or worried by the problems and misfortunes inherent in organic life, to the point of directly intervening to free the Ego from the psyche's domination, can be attributed to a childish naivety on the part of the Ego. At the same time, we are surprised by the decision – with all evidence attributable to the Spirit – to send the Ego back, often against the latter's manifest will, to the dimension of organic life, to complete what is rather generically indicated as a task or a mission, and in any case as something that must have a certain importance for the Ego, but perhaps also for the same Spirit. We cannot doubt that in the Spirit dimension there certainly is an adequate level of knowledge of what the various experiences of organic life represent for the Ego: not only the life reviews imply that everything that the Ego has experienced through its own consciousness is transmitted, recorded and preserved also in the spirit dimension, but the same intense, resolute and vigorous complaints of the Ego facing of the prospect of having to return to organic life after having experienced the Spirit dimension (that is, after returning home), are clear and evident manifestations of the difficulties met by the Ego in living under the dominion of the human psyche. It seems to us that all these elements lead to a conclusion: the Ego is temporarily sent to experience the dimension of organic life because, in some way, it needs to grow and develop those resources that help it to get by on its own.

Whether the Ego is subject to the dynamics of the human psyche, with their legacy of conflicts and suffering, or whether it is at the service of a training program wanted by a higher form of authority, it is still forced to deal with forms of energy against which the resources at its disposal are very scarce. The relief and happiness the Ego feels when it knows it has returned to the protective and welcoming dimension of the Spirit, where his essence – now free from any concern – is able to manifest and expand itself, are therefore well understandable. Equally understandable is the Ego's negative reaction to the idea of having to submit again to the burdensome experience of organic life: the apparent justification given to it, that it has a task or a mission to carry out, often fails to make it willingly accept what is requested of it (and not infrequently imposed on it). It therefore seems quite reasonable to us, also in the light of the ways in which the multitude of currently living human organisms (with all their needs) are formed, to ask ourselves whether the experience of organic life on planet Earth is in any case a free and voluntary choice by the Ego in its spiritual form, or whether it is an imposition that the Ego reluctantly undergoes in spite of itself, as happens for not a few of those who have to return to this life after having experienced the Spirit dimension. The first hypothesis is supported by those who believe, also in the light of their own experiences in that dimension, that the spiritual Ego has voluntarily signed with the Spirit a sort of contract that allows them to experience organic life under certain conditions, which include – among other things – that the conscious Ego is formed and developed from scratch in the first phase of life, devoid of the memories of previous experiences, either in a spiritual form or in some other organic form. In this respect, organic life is even considered as a gift, requested by the spiritual Ego and granted by the Spirit.

It could be assumed that, once the Ego had reached a certain level of spiritual maturity, its will tends to identify with that of the Spirit, and therefore it could willingly accept to come or return to the dimension of organic life, to fulfill the mission that has been assigned to it, whatever it may be. If, on the other hand, the Ego has not yet reached that level, as often happens, its individual will is strongly influenced by the state of bliss in which it is in the Spirit dimension, compared with the condition of discomfort that has been or will be experienced during organic life, and consequently the Ego's will would try to oppose (in many cases in vain) that of the Spirit. However, these are only conjectures, since none of us, until we directly experience the Spirit dimension, can say something certain and verifiable about it. In any case, as long as we are in the condition of having to experience the various dynamics of the human psyche, we ask ourselves if and when the conscious Ego will be able to reach that level of maturity that can allow it to take full responsibility for its own existence on the basis of a reasonable knowledge of the path to follow. As we have seen, the Ego cannot place its trust in the same psyche, which tends to imprison it in her own dynamics determined by organic life, using it for purposes that are always related to a future of humankind that remains enigmatic, unclear and uncertain. Much more reasonably, the Ego can count on the Spirit guide, trusting that the latter, in addition to offering it support, help and encouragement in facing the tests that the Ego has to endure, also enlightens it with the knowledge necessary to find the path to follow, equipping it with the required resources to follow it. And it is here that some difficulties of a certain importance seem to intervene, because – once sent or recalled to the dimension of organic life, and therefore under the dominion of the human psyche – the Ego in many cases loses the capacity for orientation determined by the acquired knowledge in the Spirit dimension.

In the way it is normally formed, through the development of its organism, the conscious Ego seems to be more a product of the many facets of the human psyche than an emissary of the Spirit, with a mission to fulfill in this dimension. In this respect, there is a substantial difference between the Ego, as it is formed and develops during human life, and the Ego that is reconnected to its organism after having experienced the Spirit dimension, bringing with it – in the form of particularly well-recorded memories – the information relating to experiences lived in that dimension. It should be remembered that we have accounts of NDEs relating to all ages, also by children of three or four years, when the conscious Ego is still in a very early stage of its formation: therefore it cannot be argued that to experience the Spirit dimension, an Ego already well formed and endowed with an evolved consciousness is required. On the other hand, it is also true that the randomness, at least apparent, with which the NDEs that imply a more or less profound experimentation of the Spirit dimension occur, does not help the understanding of the role assigned to each Ego in the course of organic life: as we have seen, this role, in most cases, is determined by the psyche's attunements with which the Ego identifies itself, which can keep the Ego in the dark about its spiritual nature, or even inspire an adverse reaction to the same idea to be able to exist in a form other than organic. Consequently, it is as if the Ego, once associated with an organism and being in a condition of potential development, was left by the Spirit at the mercy of the human psyche, so that it can experience its effects in the most intense possible way: only later, and for reasons that are not very clear to us, the Spirit decides that the Ego can be informed, already during its organic life, about the existence of the spiritual dimension and the possibility of experiencing it once this life is over. Therefore, what is considered that should be forgotten by the Ego in order to allow it to fully live under the psyche's control and at the service of the same, is then proposed to it so that it can remember the existence of the Spirit dimension to which it yearns to be able to return.

The Ego learns to know itself

In these conditions, we are faced with a complex framework: starting from a situation in which it recognized itself as a conscious subject, involved in the psyche's dynamics experienced through consciousness, the Ego could feel the need to free itself from the state of identification with its own psyche, to which the very functioning of the organism by which its human adventure had originated obliged it. The commitment in this path of distancing itself from the attunements of the psyche that destiny had reserved for it led the Ego to consider the death of its own organism as an opportunity for a definitive liberation from the psyche's bipolar dynamics: under this aspect, the testimonies relating to the homecoming in the Spirit dimension can be considered a confirmation of the fact that the truest essence of the conscious Ego has a spiritual origin, and therefore cannot feel in harmony with the effects of a bipolar energy like that of the psyche. But these same testimonies do not clarify the reasons why the Ego, once it has reached the spiritual dimension, must be urged – and sometimes forced – to repeat several times the experience of having to confront itself with the dynamics of the human psyche, each time through the formation and development of a new conscious Ego. Obviously, it is possible that these reasons, which remain enigmatic for us during our human life, become clear and evident once the Ego has been accepted into the Spirit dimension. Furthermore, it is understandable how the Ego can hold that the same disproportion existing between the numinous and divine power of the Spirit's energy and its own limited resources, justifies its uncritical submission to the Spirit's higher will, with which the Ego identifies, even more so when one considers that the Ego cannot escape its own human destiny: that same destiny that leads it to confront another superior power, that of the human psyche, to which the Ego is not infrequently willing to attribute divine features.

As we have already observed, the attribution to the Ego of the mission of reducing the power of the psyche's negative polarity to the advantage of the positive one is due to a cultural interpretation based on the process of civilization and evolution of humankind. However, from the point of view of the spiritual origin of the conscious Ego, it should be deduced that each Ego would engage to a certain extent in this process, which therefore should occur in a progressive and constant way. But in the very moment in which the Ego is subjected to the dynamics of the human psyche, the psyche's negative polarity may exert on it an attraction as strong as that of the positive polarity, to the point that the tension between the two poles can never be entirely eliminated, and occasionally exceeds the warning level. This state of affairs means that the same psyche has created a personification of evil as an antagonist of that good which, always in the context of the psyche's dynamics, is often identified with the divinity, thus forcing the Ego to attribute a sort of divine reality also to evil, since the latter has an effective power of involvement and domination over the Ego of not a few people. It is evident how the Spirit be completely alien to these dynamics of the bipolar psyche: everything, in the Spirit dimension, is permeated by a single form of energy that is experienced by the Ego as perfection, harmony and love, and therefore any tension generated by the psyche's bipolarity is abandoned when the Ego can return to the spiritual dimension. It is immediately understood how a punitive function of the Spirit cannot exist, since the latter cannot be in disagreement with itself or with its own emanations, towards which it shows an absolute and unconditional love. At the most we can ask ourselves if the conscious Ego, once its human adventure is over, is always able to reach the Spirit dimension, or if it risks being ensnared in the labyrinth of the experiences originated from the psyche.

Once involved in the dynamics of the human psyche determined by organic life, the Ego seems to be able to count only on its own resources and on the connection with other human beings, always in the context of the interaction ways allowed by the same psyche. Yet, as we have seen, not only are there remarkable differences in the way in which the different Egos orient themselves when confronted with the human psyche, but also the orientation of the single Ego, connected with its organism, can radically change in the various stages of life. These differences and these changes are sometimes interpreted and explained as effects of the influence of a spiritual counterpart associated with the conscious Ego, which would interfere with the psyche's usual attunements, succeeding in convincing the Ego to orient itself in one direction or another. However, in the absence of deeper and more satisfying knowledge of how the psyche is attuned through a person's mental activity, we are usually unable to distinguish between the inspirations of authentically spiritual origin and the psyche's normal dynamics: for this reason, a critical and detached attitude on the part of the Ego towards everything that is processed by its mind, both in the form of thought and – above all – as an emotional and sentimental involvement, is always advisable, even when it is not easy to implement. This detachment by no means implies a rejection of the products of our mental activity, but rather a cautious vigilance on the effects that they determine over time on the orientations and the evolutionary path of the conscious Ego, which must feel supported, aided, valued and confirmed in the knowledge of its own essence by the consequences of the choices determined by its own changes of orientation, if these are really due to the inspiring influence of its spiritual guide. What the Ego feels the need for during this life is a stable, determined, reliable and coherent ally, capable of strongly supporting it while it faces the bizarre tensions and changes induced by the bipolar nature of the human psyche.

When the Ego becomes aware that it has the resources to try to free itself from the condition of a human automaton, forced to identify with the dynamics of its own psyche by the needs of its organism, it also realizes that the training that is required of it in the gym of this life has the purpose of making it grow as a spiritual entity gifted with its own autonomy. The true freedom that is offered to the Ego does not in fact consist in trying to obtain what suits it best in the game of carrot and stick in which it is involved by the human psyche: a game that can even be interesting, sometimes pleasant, not infrequently painful, but which in any case shows various grotesque and demeaning aspects, especially towards the Ego's spiritual nature, which often runs the risk of being sacrificed to the needs of the organism. If the Ego manages to strengthen until it is able to create a crack from within in the shell of the psychic dynamics that imprison it, it feels the thrill of true liberation: it is as if the dense fog that enveloped it had cleared away, revealing a new and fascinating landscape, all to be explored, which at the same time represents something to experience and something that has been created by itself. The subjectivity of the Ego, which has now become a free spirit, can transform itself into objectivity, as a manifestation and expression of the same Spirit, no longer fragmented into a plurality of identities, each enclosed in a bubble that imprisons it and isolates it from the others. Obviously, this form of spiritual freedom not only implies that the Ego has freed itself from organic life, but also that it has reached an evolutionary maturity sufficient to allow it to have a full confidence in its own existence and in its creative cleverness. Once this spiritual freedom has been effectively reached by the Ego, there will no longer be any divergence between the Spirit's will and that of the spiritual Ego: the latter shall in fact feel in perfect harmony with its own experiences, determined by its own creativity, as a manifestation of the Spirit's infinite creativity.

Therefore human life could be considered as a process by which the conscious Ego is given the opportunity to transform itself from the psyche's Ego – that is, controlled by the dynamics of the human psyche – to the spiritual Ego, nearly freed from the psyche's conditionings and ready to separate from that organism from which it originated, and through which it was able to experience a particular range of human life attunements. For many of those who have had an NDE, this transformation process has been greatly accelerated by the surplus of energy received in the Spirit dimension: however this impulse of spiritual energy can also generate or accentuate an incompatibility between the Ego and the psyche's dimension which must always be dealt with once the Ego comes back to organic life, especially if its organism is still young. In its most harmonious form, this process of transformation of the Ego goes on slowly but constantly, especially in the second half of life, when the Ego, while seeking its own spiritual identity freed from the psyche's control, can continue to take care of the vital needs and the proper functioning of its own organism. In the end, even the separation of the Ego from the organism in which it was formed and developed, and through which it experienced the dimension of human life, should occur in a harmonious and conscious way, under the guidance of an Ego well aware of its spiritual essence. Obviously, this process of spiritual maturation of the Ego can be considered the more successful the more the Ego also manages to free itself from that condition of spiritual infantilism (and subjection to the psyche) by virtue of which it often invokes – and with little results – the Spirit's direct intervention to protect it in the difficulties of life: the support of the Spirit can always be asked, but in such a way that it can play the role of inner guide, helping the Ego in its path of spiritual evolution.

As we have said, when the Ego reaches a certain level in its spiritual evolution, the fog constituted by the psyche's dynamics in which it was previously ensnared fades away, revealing to it, already in the course of its human life, the incredible and phantasmagoric charm of a mental universe in which everything is interconnected, in a magical complexity where it – as a conscious subject – can play a leading role. Although nothing has changed in the events of the world and in the way they manifest themselves, the Spirit's light which begins to reflect itself in the Ego not only makes its worldview to be radically transformed, but also reveals to the Ego a new way of feeling the meaning of its existence, both within and beyond organic life. In the light of this transformation, which can manifest itself in the form of an almost instantaneous revelation in its fullness, organic life is perceived as a particular and fragmentary – but in no way less interesting – aspect of a creative existence that can show up as reality in any form. The Ego, as a conscious subject, is an active part of this creative existence, to a greater extent the more its consciousness enriches, develops and evolves. Therefore organic life can be interpreted as an opportunity offered by the same Spirit to the Ego, so that it can implement this process of enrichment, evolution and – one could say – purification of its own consciousness. It is possible that it is a cyclical process, by virtue of which a certain nucleus of consciousness initially emanated in a raw state, passing through various cycles of psychic experiences, each produced by the connection with a particular organism, with each cycle acquires a higher level of refinement, until the state of final (spiritual) purity required by the Spirit is reached.

If the Ego feels comfortable and finally home in the Spirit dimension, it is because it is recharged there by an energy that makes it feel fully fulfilled, satisfied, loved and blissful, in a timeless condition. Instead in the dimension of organic life it is continually subject to the tensions generated by the psyche, and the passing of time means that even any states of relative happiness are not permanent, but alternate with other states of worry or suffering. In most cases, the consciousness available to the Ego is not sufficiently advanced and powerful to be able to shed light on the psyche's dynamics that involve the Ego, and cannot even guess the mission that has been assigned to it: to act as an intermediary between two dimensions so different as that of the Spirit and that of the human psyche. In these cases, life is accepted as it shows itself in the banality of its routine, mainly determined by the organism's needs, and the Ego relies on its own psychic representations, whatever they may be, in case it should feel the need to find a meaning in its own human adventure. Strange as it may seem, in our age most people find themselves in a condition that we could define as infantilism in the development of consciousness, and complete submission of the Ego to the psyche's dynamics that involve it, even when these manifest themselves in the more crude, irrational and violent way, in any case harmful to the dignity to which every human being should aspire. If the purpose of the process of exposing the Ego to the psyche's bipolar energy is to get a consciousness gradually more and more pure, evidently we live in an era in which a large quantity of raw material is being fed into the refining plant, but the product's overall quality is still poor and full of slag.

But in the event that the Ego has a consciousness of sufficiently advanced quality, it can use the tension created by the bipolarity of the psyche's energy as an impulse for its own growth, based on the search for a real essence that can prove to be stable and safe, not  only in relation to the dynamics of the human psyche, but also in facing any other experience in which it may possibly be involved once its organic life is over. If this essence of the Ego is of a spiritual origin, the affinity of the Ego for the Spirit dimension will induce it, already in the course of this life, to undertake a path of love or knowledge that will lead it towards its goal. Anyway, in loyally seeking the identity of its own essence without allowing itself to be confused or misled by the psyche's dynamics that continually try to involve it, the Ego cannot lie to itself, nor attributing to itself qualities that it does not have (even if it might wish to have them), nor taking on his shoulders responsibilities that do not belong to it, or guilt feelings for events that go beyond its control ability: in a nutshell, the Ego can be neither better nor worse than it is. In the evolutionary search for its own essence, the Ego must certainly not allow itself to be misled by the stimuli coming from the psyche's negative polarity, but it must also be very cautious towards the attraction determined by the positive polarity: in fact, it should not be forgotten that the Spirit is not a bipolar energy, and consequently, if the essence of the Ego is of spiritual origin, it will discover and recognize its authentic value in what it is, once freed from the psyche's slag – of one or the other sign – with which it is encrusted. Once the core of its own spiritual essence has been reached, even what the Ego does during human life becomes a direct consequence of what it is, while the opposite does not seem to be true: forced virtuous behaviors and actions, despite being in accordance with the psyche's positive polarity, and while contributing to a certain social order, are not sufficient to determine an authentic growth of the Ego.

top of page