This is a daunting question which has been addressed by innumerable thinkers from ancient times until now, long before Darwin’s passage on this earth and his theory of evolution. Each philosopher proposed his or her own interpretation which, quite often, was in direct contradiction with that of a predecessor. Some, like Albert Camus professed (without affirming outright that he was an atheist) that he did not believe in God and found life to be absurd. Meanwhile, numerous religions developed over millenniums, each one having its own perception of the notion of God and of the soul of man.
I would not suggest that we all drop our daily tasks and preoccupations and plunge head on into intense meditation in order to discover our souls. For after all, we do have a physical body and share certain preoccupations with the animal kingdom, such as the need to survive. However, instead of looking for proof that we are also spiritual beings, why not simply take the time to discover our inner self? Such endless suppositions and interrogations all seem to stem from the fact that for most of us, growing up means losing contact with our inner self as the ego develops. Upon reaching adulthood, we keep wanting to compete with others (at work, in sports, and even at home). Indeed, this ego of ours must have a reason to be part of our development; but why do we all tend to further develop it and let it dominate us, dictating what we should do as it were?
In my fifty some years of teaching (languages and martial arts), I have come to realize that the most difficult obstacle to overcome when attempting to share my knowledge and experience with students, is this sense of pride attached to our domineering ego. It simply blocks or at least, hinders any appreciable learning. For me, learning is a two-way street. I constantly learn from my students and from anybody around me, including children. If the learning process is somewhat hindered in a setting where people have registered for a class, thereby implying that they are willing to learn from a person skilled in a given field, just imagine how learning is drastically blocked in everyday life, when someone expresses an opinion or makes a suggestion in a straightforward manner. “How dare you tell me what to do?” “Who does she think she is telling me to eat less fatty foods. She’s not my doctor.” The only things that such a domineering ego will allow are soft, discreet suggestions. But the problem is that this approach never works. As we will see in a later posts, in order to overcome such powerful urges such as alcoholism, bulimia, nicotine or gambling addiction, hoarding, etc.), you must reprogram your brain and completely scratch the old record with a nail, i.e., a shock treatment. What is this foolish idea (that we seem to entertain and strengthen) that we must PROTECT the ego? With such an attitude and this false sense of being right, no wonder we gradually lose track of our spiritual being as we grow up, thereby failing to reconcile and harmonize spirit and form (“form” being the physical world we live in, including our body).
In these posts, we will look at such questions and many other considerations about the ego which systematically block our spiritual progress even before we have reached adulthood. By surmounting such obstacles blinding us to our spiritual component, we will hopefully discover that our present body is no more than a temporary shell or vehicle for our spirit which is the actual bridge to our eternal reality.
I have used two techniques to keep us focussed on this lifelong endeavour of harmonizing with our ego: The first one is repetition. This will perhaps appear to some as poor communication. But again, spending almost a lifetime teaching languages and martial arts, I gradually understood and appreciated the merits of keeping focussed through repetition. The second technique is simplicity. It might impress some listeners if I were to constantly quote the numerous authors I had the privilege to learn from and their sometimes very complex ideas. But I really came to appreciate the KISS principle often stated in one of my ju-jitsu master classes by Professor Sylvain. To paraphrase his words, I would say that it takes a long time to learn to be simple. That notion will also be looked at further on during our regular encounters through these articles.
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