The Ego-Less SELF

By Cardwell C. Nuckols, Ph.D.

We have become so accustomed to ego-based emotions, such as misery, worry, fear and conflict, that we believe these are our normal states. But this is not how it is supposed to be. We were born to be happy and to love unconditionally. So how can we return to a nonlinear state of happiness and peace when everything around us says that nothing is more important than me, me, me?

The Ego-Less SELF is a journey of discovery and a return to the deepest truth. It looks closely at the notion of spiritual transformation by first showing you how the ego develops over time to cause suffering in our lives. Once the ego is stripped away, the pathways to the self — heart, mind, and action — can begin to work.

With a broad range of spiritual influences, from the Bible to Zen Buddhism, The Ego-Less SELF sets out to deflate the ego to let the true self shine through. You will begin to learn how to get rid of resentments, surrender the ego’s unconscious programs for happiness, and employ simple techniques to increase contact with consciousness.

The road to self is not about trying to acquire anything, but rather the willingness to surrender all of our egoistic ways, thus taking us back to that which we are — the purest self.

From the Author’s Perspective

I believe it is a human trait to wonder about our purpose here on earth and to fascinate about how we were created. Most of us, from time to time, feel the spiritual urge to connect with this Creator and to find a peace and tranquility beyond our current understanding. Our desire – coming from a sense of lack – is to transcend our current understanding and to merge into a greater awareness.

To transcend requires an intimate relationship with God immanent, or the Christ within all of us. I use the term Self to describe this virgin point inside us all. You might call it the soul, Atman, consciousness or Buddha-nature. A nonlinear physicist would use the term Zero Point Field.

From the spiritual perspective, the ego is the source of all misery and suffering. The spiritual approaches I have had the opportunity to study– Hinduism, Buddhism, Alcoholics Anonymous, contemplative Christianity and the Tao – all stress a basic principle. Reality as we understand it is an illusion, and one must get past the false-self or ego in order to engage the true Self. The true Self exists in the moment and is peace, unconditional love and joy.

Jesus said, “If you want to save your life, you will bring yourself to ruin. But if you bring yourself to nothing, you will find out who you are” (Matthew 10:39). If you want to conserve your perception of reality found in the egoic view of the world you will find ruin, but if you are courageous enough to search beyond the ego you will discover your true Self.

In Steps Six and Seven of Alcoholics Anonymous, one can find a similar strategy. Step Six speaks of our willingness to remove character defects (ego): Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step Seven asks our Higher Power to do so: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. If one works Step Six and Seven with great vertical depth, the process can lead you to the serenity of the Self.

This book, The Ego-Less Self: Achieving Peace and Tranquility Beyond All Understanding, serves as a guide to those interested in transcending the ego in order to discover their true essence – the Self within. This guide establishes the causes of human suffering and misery as:

• Becoming attached to worldly items, while diverting energy more correctly applied to the God of one’s understanding, to one’s spiritual growth and to our loved ones. Addiction is such an attachment.
• Believing happiness is found outside of the Self. Our search for transcendence often starts with sublimation in the direction of earthly things, such as college degrees, houses, cars and alcohol and drugs. It is a false belief of the ego that these possessions will give us peace, happiness and joy.
• Living in the past and future deprives us of the connection to life only found in the moment. How often have we heard, “My life should have, could have or ought to have been different, and my future…” All guilt resides in the past, and fear is an illusion about something that could occur in the future. Only in the moment can we be connected to God and experience peace.
• The ego is formed approximately between the ages of two and 10. Its worldview is based upon messages given to us by our primary caregivers, nationality, culture, religion and neighborhood. We come to believe what the significant influences in our life tell us we are. Believing our personalities (egos) are truly the essence of who we are disallows us from seeing the true self hidden inside.

Transcending the ego and moving toward Self involves deflation of egoic programs and strategies. The Ego-Less Self: Achieving Peace and Tranquility Beyond All Understanding provides many approaches toward dissolution of the ego including:

• By understanding that the ego internalizes all good and externalizes all bad, the spiritual aspirant can bring the unconscious functions of the ego into conscious awareness. This approach invalidates the secondary gain of the ego, which is negative emotion – anger, rage anxiety, depression and the resulting resentments – used to blame other people, places and circumstances for personal misery. Acceptance and surrender bring about conscious control of outcome.
• Early in life the ego develops “unconscious programs for happiness” that depend on others to make us happy. By ridding ourselves of such programs we allow the spiritual Self to regulate our lives. These programs leading to suffering and personal misery are:
  • POWER AND CONTROL: This program involves a fear of losing safety and control, leaving the person to believe they cannot be happy unless they can dictate what is going to happen in every situation
  • AFFECTION AND ESTEEM: This basic fear of being unworthy leads to a self-critical, perfectionistic approach to the world, fueled by the belief one can never be good enough. When this fails, the only other acceptable strategy is to quit.
  • SECURITY AND SURVIVAL: Fueled by a fear of aloneness and disconnection, this individual is always looking for someone or something (employment, relationship and the like) to him or her them feel protected and secure. Unfortunately, the world offers no such guarantees.
• Much of what transpires as one migrates further along the spiritual path cannot be accomplished in the mind. The movement is away from linear realization to the nonlinear concept of oneness. Life’s dualities (perception of opposites, of separate-self, creating the concepts of you-and-me and us-and-them, and giving people and things inherent existence, for example) lead to blame, labeling and prejudice toward those who do not look, act or think the way we believe they should. As the ego’s worldview is replaced by the unity of the Self, we see sameness and harmony, leading to peace and understanding.

The Self-God immanent, or the Christ in you, cannot be acquired. It is your gift given to you lovingly by the God of your understanding. All you have to do is accept its presence. By removing the clouds of the ego and its endless morass of self-definitions, the Self shines through in radiant fashion. It is nonlinear, peaceful, loving and understanding. It is unconditional love – not an emotion, but a way of being in the world.

The book can be purchased at most major book sellers including at the publisher’s website: http://www.hcibooks.com/p-4049-the-ego-less-self.aspx and on the author’s spiritual site: www.cnuckols.com. Questions regarding the book can be addressed to the author at cnuckols@elitecorp.org.