No Ego, No Problem

Especially amongst spiritual seekers, this quest to transcend the ego is an ongoing battle. Ever notice? Somehow that slippery little devil continues to arise time and time again. And, the more we struggle to be done with it, the more it seems to rear its ugly head, right? I talk with people who say things like "that's just my ego" or "if I could just get past my ego". And I always have to laugh and usually my question to those kinds of comments is "where is this ego you're talking about?" For most individuals that's where the picture turns fuzzy and there's silence. The very interesting discovery that one makes when investigating the ego is that there really is no place to find it, no characteristic that defines it, and no real substance to it at all. So why do so many believe in it, and set out to get beyond it? There are many reasons, but at the most fundamental level we created an imaginary self through our thinking, through our experience and this fictitious self is believed to be truly existing. But, I am here to tell you it is not. The created notion of a self is what we're always trying to transcend, but we can never transcend it because it's nowhere to be found. In addition to chasing this ghost called ego we also have to create another ghost called "me" whose job it is to get beyond its alterior identity and into the Enlightened state. Well, what we come to see, eventually, after perhaps eons of searching, struggling, clawing, scraping is that this whole endeavor to transcend has been absolutely fruitless. It's at this point that we finally begin to mature. When we finally begin to see that this effort to destroy has not worked, we are empowered to discover the truth of the matter. And the truth is, that no matter how hard we try we can never kill off the ego, and in surrendering to that essential truth there is a relaxation of the drive to change, or to get more, or to be better and there arises the possibiity to see ourselves as we are, flawed...unenlightened...mistaken, and to be humbled so deeply that our vision becomes very very clear. And our vision being clear is synonymous with seeing that in truth there is no ego, not one to transcend and not one to do the transcending. There is no self and Self...there is only One Self in which no separate self resides. You realize that the Self in you is the Self in other, and the Self in the trees, and air, and trash and in all the good things and all the bad things. Uh-oh!
When we begin to see that all is One Essence, we're going to have a very hard time coming up with things to get rid of and things to transcend. When there's nothing left to get rid of, we are ready to allow our whole being to unfold in harmony-ego and all! Having no problem with anything is the way of non-resistance. With no resistance to anything, really fully non-resistant, we are free. And freedom is what we have sought all along. When we truly welcome the entirety of our experience, that which we have sought to eliminate finds its place inside our life. With no problem, there's no ego to be fixed. And from THAT view, everything is taken care of.