Role Playing

The only problem with not castrating
a gigantic ego is that it will surely become amorous and father a hundred screaming ideas and kids who will then all quickly grow up and skillfully proceed to run up every imaginable debt and complication of which your brain can conceive.—Hafiz

In order to fully appreciate the healing power of stress you are going to have to come to terms with the fantastic trick you have played on yourself by creating the illusion that is the ego. When you entered the world in your skin suit you became a member of an actor’s guild of epic proportions. If we peek behind the curtain to see that big bad ego wizard, we find that he is afraid you will find out that it is all just smoke and mirrors.

Alan Watts stated that ego is nothing more than "futility married to an illusion." He suggests that the feeling created by this illusion is that of chronic tension in the body as we contract ourselves against the world around us. It gives us a sense of being in control. This tension is our stress Seeing through this illusion is the key to unlocking the healing power of stress.

Often when people discover that the self they have invested so much in is nothing but a mental phantom, they turn to self-loathing in order to try and shake themselves free from their pain. This is merely the ego taking on the role of victim, and only increases stress as you try to run away from yourself. The wiser course is to make friends with it and use the advice of Arjuna Gargh, to look at it as the "crazy uncle" who often gives you really bad advice. This makes perfect sense if you think about it. Has anyone talked you into anything even close to the insane things you have convinced yourself you should do? Be honest; you know that it was you who told you that eating nothing but cheeseburgers would help you lose weight. You know you were behind the decision to seek inner peace by having the word "om" tatooed on your forehead. And surely you remember the time that you convinced yourself that no one would notice the comb-over.

If you find that you have grown weary of yourself and your efforts to "act right," you might want to take a look at the roles you are playing in life and take a break from those that are causing you the most pain. Don’t worry about losing yourself should you drop the robe of the ego, it is because of the ego that you feel disguised in the first place. Once you step out of character you immediately step into the truth; you are nothing less than a divine essence pretending to be human. Oh, and by the way, I read the reviews and you were "marvelous, darling, simply marvelous!"