Can Ego Ever Be Mature?

Q: Hi Robert. I have a question. Can an Ego ever be mature? This relates to something you have said, that you have met very few adults in your life. Could you elaborate on this please, and thanks.

A: Yes, an ego is mature when it recognizes its own limitations. That is what I mean by a real adult.

Q: Can you know that ego itself is a limitation? And that by living only from this very individual and personal position you put yourself in real limitation?

A: All the great minds have known their limitations and said so explicitly. Lao Tzu, Socrates, Einstein, etc.

The limitation is not “ego,” but the human mind itself, which evolved to survive and reproduce and has no ability to know answers to ultimate metaphysical questions. Ego is a psychological fact, not a limitation.

There is no such thing as objectivity, Gonzalo. Objectivity and selflessness are fantasies that "spiritual" people like to indulge in. There is nothing else but a "personal position." So far as we know, it begins at birth and ends at death. The personal position can be more or less comprehensive and aware, and can even attain deep understanding, but cannot disappear.

The ones who claim to be speaking "objectively" are lying to themselves and hence, lying to others. No one knows what any of this is, how it got here, where it's headed (if anywhere). Those who speak as if they did know are the biggest fools of all.

Q: It seems hard to admit that we are so limited, so many traditions and "spiritual masters" have proclaimed that we could be free from so much conditioning and live free.

A: I am saying that it’s possible to be free of some conditioning, but not all of it. Much takes place invisibly, as fears, desires, and the rest bubble up to the surface from depths we cannot fully fathom. As perceptions, feelings, and thoughts come to awareness—come to be noticed—the “I of enunciation takes credit and ownership, as if it had created those perceptions, feelings, and thoughts.

By the I of enunciation, I mean whatever is experienced and referenced as the word “I.” The inevitable limitations I point to must arise because the I of enunciation never thinks just what it thinks it thinks and never simply is what it thinks itself to be. We are, at least for the most part, flying blind.

An adult, as I have said, recognizes that limitation and does not assign much importance to metaphysical conjecture or spiritual speculation.

Q: It is good to observe our minds at work. Knowing that much of our thoughts are just repetitive patterns that don’t mean much and then not following them. It is just a constant observation and knowledge of our own minds.

A: Yes. That is what the keen minds have said throughout the ages:

Not knowing is true knowledge.

Presuming to know is a disease.

First, realize that you are sick;

then you can move toward health.

--Lao Tzu

Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.

---Sophocles

Depending on nothing, find your own mind.

---Dogen

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

---Immanuel Kant

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.

---Albert Einstein

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.

----Richard Fynman

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything, or becoming anything.

---Ramana Maharshi

https://luthar.com/.../you-know-that-you-know-nothing.../

The chief problem with religion and spirituality is that lesser minds cannot comprehend human limitation, but want to imagine that some “master” had it all figured out. That’s nonsense. The real “masters” were entirely aware of their ignorance of ultimate matters. They spoke with the language of their times and places and from their personal backgrounds and experiences. That is all one really has to offer.

Q: That is really good from Ramana.

A: Yes. It’s honest and helpful. Maharshi spoke from his background in his language. I speak from mine, but we are saying the same thing.

Q: Thanks, Robert. As always interesting chatting with you, and it makes my thinking clearer.

A: My pleasure. The "secret" is to know that only the best minds speak truthfully. The others lie to themselves constantly and so lie to others without even knowing it. Don’t let the self-appointed teachers, preachers, and gurus hypnotize you with their declarations of certainty. Certainty is the sign of a second-rate mind.