December 15, 2020
I had an epiphany last night about the nature of ego; of vanity; of its place in us. Looking at myself, with active attention, I seem to see it’s function. Of course, we all know some of what it’s for: it helps us sociobiologically. It helps us establish a place in the society and that improves our ability to survive, to take advantage of the survival synergism of “the village”, the pack, the community. But its deeper purpose is to serve the default functionality of humanity, in the world. If Gurdjieff is right we’re here, when not reaching for something better, to emit an energy that is used by the cosmos to stem the attenuation of the Absolute created by time; to plug the leak in the dike. When I consider the arising of single cell, then multicell life, the arising of the structure of DNA, the general, overall pattern of biological evolution, it does seem designed. It is not a matter of every event, biological or not, being ordained; nor of everything quite designed, and intended; it’s a matter of a machinery set to working, long ago; chugging away, to create life: a rather inefficient machine that yet accomplishing its agenda to create life and sentience, thin on the ground though it may be in some parts of the universe–as a means to an end. One of the primary devices for driving a human being onward to some unknown goal, would seem to be the ego. The ego, and its substructure vanity, really does seem like a designed piece of machinery for governing automatic action; for pushing it along. That is the default setting. But there is something else included in the package that must be activated and is also intended: that a certain percentage of three-brained beings will develop the option, supported by magnetic center perhaps, of attaining to a sort of “specialist” status in the great factory of the universe. They can create a finer energy and thereby move on to be more fully useful at a higher level. With subsequent rewards.