You have asked lately how the mind could ever have made the ego. This is
a perfectly reasonable question; in fact, the best question you could
ask. There is, however, no point in giving an historical answer because
the past does not matter in human terms, and history would not exist if
the same errors were not being repeated in the present. Abstract thought
applies to knowledge because knowledge is completely impersonal, and
examples are irrelevant to its understanding. Perception, however, is
always specific, and therefore quite concrete.

Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject to
enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone he
perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction is a process
which literally alters both, because they were not made either BY or
WITH the unalterable. It is particularly important to realize that this
alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes
place IN THE MIND as when it involves physical presence. THINKING about
another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is
physical interaction. There could be no better example of the fact that
the ego is an idea, though not a reality-based thought.

Your own present state is a good example of how the mind made the ego.
You DO have knowledge at times, but when you throw it away it is as if
you never had it. This willfulness is so apparent that one need only
perceive it to see that it DOES happen. If it can occur that way in the
present, why is it surprising that it occurred that way in the past?
Psychology rests on the principle of the continuity of behavior.
Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar, but hardly to
something that has occurred with such persistence. I am using your
present state of how the mind CAN work, provided you fully recognize
that it NEED not work that way. Why are you surprised that something
happened in the dim past when it is so clearly happening right now?

You forget the love that animals have for their own offspring, and the
need they feel to protect them. This is because they regard them as part
of themselves. No-one disowns something he regards as a very real part
of himself. Man reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls;– with
love, protection and great charity. The reaction of man to the self he
made is not at all surprising. In fact it duplicates, in many ways, how
he will one day react to his REAL creations, which are as timeless as he
is. The question is not HOW man responds to his ego, but what he believes
he IS.

Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief
at all, you ARE regarding it from an ego viewpoint. When teaching is no
longer necessary, you will merely KNOW God. Belief that there IS another
way is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. That is
because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego
is NOT the self. Undermining the ego’s thought system MUST be perceived
as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage
if you take away a knife or a scissors, even though they may well harm
themselves if you do not. The speed-up has placed you in the same
position.

You are NOT prepared, and in this sense you ARE babies. You have no
sense of real self-preservation, and are very likely to decide that you
need precisely what would hurt you most. Whether you know it now or not,
however, you HAVE willed to cooperate in a concerted and very
commendable effort to become both harmLESS and helpFUL, two attributes
which MUST go together. Your attitudes, even toward this, are
necessarily conflicted because ALL attitudes are ego-based. This will
not last. Be patient awhile, and remember that the outcome is as certain
as God.

Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance CAN be truly
charitable. This is quite obvious when you consider the concepts
involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will do without
it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, then, you give only
because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, so
that you can do without the thing you give. “Giving to get” is an
inescapable law of the ego, which ALWAYS evaluates itself in relation to
other egos, and is therefore continually preoccupied with the scarcity
principle which gave rise to it. This is the meaning of Freud’s “reality
principle,” since Freud thought of the ego as very weak and deprived,
capable of functioning ONLY as a thing in need.

The “reality principle” of the ego is not real at all. The ego is forced
to perceive the “reality” of other egos because it cannot establish the
reality of ITSELF. In fact, its whole perception of other egos AS real
is only an attempt to convince itself that IT is real. “Self esteem,” in
ego terms, means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into
accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This
“self esteem” is ALWAYS vulnerable to stress, a term which actually
refers to a condition in which the delusion of the ego’s reality is
threatened. This produces either ego deflation or ego inflation,
resulting in either withdrawal or attack.

The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that equality
is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. The ego NEVER gives
out of abundance, because it was made as a SUBSTITUTE for it. That is
why the concept of “getting” arose in the ego’s thought system. All
appetites are “getting” mechanisms, representing the ego’s need to
confirm itself. This is as true of bodily appetites as it is of the
so-called “higher” ego needs. Bodily appetites are NOT physical in
origin. The ego regards the body as its home and DOES try to satisfy
itself through the body, but the IDEA that this is possible is a
decision of the ego, which is completely confused about what is REALLY
possible. This accounts for its erratic nature.

The ego believes it is completely on its own, which is merely another
way of describing how it originated. This is such a fearful state that
it can only turn to other egos and try to unite with them in a feeble
attempt at identification, or attack them in an equally feeble show of
strength. It is NOT free, however, to consider the validity of the
premise itself because this premise is its FOUNDATION. The ego IS the
belief of the mind that it is completely on its own. Its ceaseless
attempts to gain the Soul’s acknowledgement, and thus to establish its
own existence, are utterly useless.

The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does not attack it;
it merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware
of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by “something” which is
greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a
delusion. The creations of God do not create myths, although the
creative efforts of man CAN turn to mythology. It can do so, however,
only under one condition; what man then makes is no longer creative.
Myths are entirely perceptions, and are so ambiguous in form and so
characteristically good and evil in nature that the most benevolent of
them is not without fearful components, if only by innuendo.

Myths and magic are closely associated in that myths are usually related
to the ego origins, and magic to the powers which the ego ascribes to
itself. Every mythological system includes some account of “the
creation,” and associates this with its particular perception of magic.
The “battle for survival” is nothing more than the ego’s struggle to
preserve itself and its interpretation of its own beginning. This
beginning is always associated with physical birth, because no-
one maintains that the ego existed before that point in time. The
religiously ego-oriented believe that the Soul existed before and will
continue to exist afterwards, after a temporary lapse in ego life. Some
actually believe that the Soul will be punished for this lapse, even
though in reality, it could not possibly know anything about it.

The term “salvation” does NOT apply to the Soul, which is not in danger,
and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more than
“right-mindedness,” which is not the One-Mindedness of the Soul, but
which must be accomplished before the One-Mindedness can be restored.
Right-mindedness dictates the next step automatically because right
perception is uniformly without attack, so that wrong-mindedness is
obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgement, and is laid aside
accordingly. The mind then has only ONE direction in which it can move.
The direction which the mind will take is always automatic, because it
cannot BUT be dictated by the thought system to which the mind adheres.

Every thought system has internal consistency, and this provides the
basis for the continuity of behavior. However, this is a matter of
reliability, and not validity. “Reliable behavior” is a meaningful
perception, as far as ego thinking goes. However, “valid behavior” is an
expression which is inherently contradictory, because validity is an END
and behavior is a MEANS. These cannot be combined logically because, when
an end has been attained, the means for its attainment are no longer
meaningful.

A hypothesis is either false or true, to be accepted or rejected
accordingly. If it is shown to be true it becomes a fact, after which
no-one attempts to evaluate it unless its status AS fact is questioned.
EVERY idea to which the ego has accorded the status of fact is
questionable, because facts are in the realm of knowledge.

Confusing realms of discourse is a thinking error which philosophers
have recognized for centuries. Psychologists are generally quite
deficient in this respect, as are many theologians. Data from one realm
of discourse do not mean anything in another because they can be
understood only WITHIN the thought system of which they are a part. That
is why psychologists are concentrating increasingly on the ego, in an
attempt to unify their clearly unrelated data. It need hardly be said
that an attempt to relate the unrelated CANNOT succeed.

The more recent ecological emphases are but another ingenious way of
trying to impose order on chaos. We have already credited the ego with
considerable ingenuity, though not with creativeness. It should,
however, be remembered that inventiveness is really wasted effort, even
in its most ingenious forms. We do not have to explain ANYTHING. This is
why we need not trouble ourselves with inventiveness. The highly
specific nature of invention is not worthy of the abstract creativity of
God’s creations.