If you’ve ever watched the Peter Pan film where Peter is trying to recapture his shadow which has somehow become detached, you’ll remember he chased his shadow all the way into the Real World from “Never-Never Land” and ended up in Wendy’s bedroom. Wendy helped Peter to recapture his shadow and sewed it back on so it couldn’t escape again after which Wendy and her brothers also ended up in “Never-Never Land”.
Fortunately for us, our shadows tend to stay where they are and don’t try to escape! The point is, though, we can’t do without our shadow, can we? Wherever there is light there our shadow is also. This, I feel, was what JM Barrie, Peter Pan’s author, was trying to tell us. Where we go, our shadow-selves go also. Does that put you in mind of something else we can’t seemingly get rid of? If you said the Ego then you are spot on.
Do you remember in cartoons when someone is faced with a decision such as whether to eat chocolate or drink another beer or tell a lie and so forth, and up pops a little Angel and a little Devil on their shoulders? Remember that? You still see it from time to time, not as often as you used to. They represented our Conscious, didn’t they? The Angel would be saying something like “Don’t do it, you know how bad you’ll feel when you next weigh yourself.” The little impish Devil, on the other hand, would be saying something like “What total rubbish! It’s tastes so good it would be a shame not to have at least a little nibble. C’mom, what harm can that do? You know you want to!” The cartoon character would be agreeing with both in turn and end up completely confused so it would go on until the Angel’s advice would be taken and all would end well.
Now, I don’t know if you ever noticed, but the Angel was usually on the right shoulder and the Devil on the left. Notice anything about that? Think of Critical and Intuitive Minds, where are they said to be? If you said Left Brain, Right Brain you are correct! Now isn’t that interesting that the Angel should be on the right shoulder, or Intuitive and Creative side, whilst the Devil is over on the left where Critical Analytical or the so-called Monkey Mind resides?
OK, you might be thinking, that’s interesting but what’s your point? My point is this, when we are connected to or interacting with Spirit it’s usually via our Creative Intuitive Mind or Right Brain, right? So, if that’s the Right Brain sorted, who’s in charge of or who are we communicating with via our Right Brain? The Devil perhaps? Ah, but who or what is the Devil?
The word Satan literally means Liar, so it’s not a name. Lucifer is only used in the Latin Vulgate as far as the Bible is concerned, otherwise the term Satan is used or, as in the Greek Septuagint, Morning Star or Shining One is how it’s translated. Let’s not forget that the whole Bible was translated into Latin in the Fourth Century and stayed that way for centuries. In fact, there wasn’t even a depiction of this so-called Satan until Dante painted his Inferno in 1472 which, incidentally, gave the Catholic Church a new revenue stream in the form of being paid by worshipers to avoid Purgatory!
Our Egos are an integral part of who and what we are whilst we are here on this Earth, or University of Life as I like to call it. I mentioned in the introduction how I use EGO to mean Earth Guide Only and how that makes total sense, but that’s ok for me to say. Therefore, in this chapter I’m going to explain how it all comes together and how I reach that conclusion, starting with what the Ego is. Don’t worry, what follows isn’t some dry and dusty academic definition from a Psychoanalytic point of view, I don’t have those qualifications. I do have a healthy interest in how people tick and tock and have gleaned a few things over the past six and half plus decades, but they’re not totally relevant for what I’m about to share. Although they have helped.
My intention is to help you view your Ego in a new way, a different way from all the negative stuff surrounding it which is propagated by psychiatrists, religious teachings, inspirational speakers and even by spiritual teachers all around this world. Our Ego gets a bad Rap, exactly in the same way Eve, she of Eden fame, also gets the blame for all the ills and negative stuff in the world. That sounds like a bit of a correlation, don’t you think? Eve Bad, Ego Bad, Adam Good, Spirit Good. Stuff like that gets my little cogs a-whirring and I probe deeper, mainly through meditation and conversing with my Guides, and I get Insights.
Namaste,
Jeremy Sadler-Scott
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