Ask: Could you please explain the difference between the ontological and psychological ego?

         “Please explain the difference between ontological ego and psychological ego. I've reread your blogs and asked ChatGPT but I'm still confused.”—Anonymous

 

Your confusion is understandable. I would not know this distinction if the ontological ego had not fallen away. So, I’m not sure the difference can be conveyed.

The psychological ego, or the ego thought system, is easier to discern because it is what blathers away in your mind much of the time. The ego thought system is what you must deal with to improve your living experience; it is what psychology and A Course in Miracles address. It is all that you can address.

The ontological ego is harder to describe because it is an experience of existence—a living experience. It is not just thoughts and feelings, but the I/me experience. It may help you understand if I say that Liz fell away here. The person who was here is simply gone. Many who have the experience of the ontological ego falling away change their names to something they feel is spiritually significant because they feel this. I have not been moved to do so and simply see “Liz” as the body/personality now. Certainly, the people around me think of this body and personality as Liz and really have no clue that the one who used to be here is gone. This shows what the Course says, we make an ego not just for ourselves but for others, too. For this mind (this conscious awareness), the body/personality of Liz is just a cypher, an empty shell—as is everyone else. This is not a bad-feeling emptiness, just a fact. There’s no one home!

Nothing makes this clearer than Liz interacting with her ex-wife. It does not feel here that she is “my” ex-wife, but rather the widow of the one who fell away. It has been this way since the moment of The Break and what followed, the sensation of dismantling someone else’s life while everyone around me mistook the body/personality for her. It does not feel here that certain feelings for others are gone, but rather that the one who felt those feelings is gone, leaving only the memory that those things were felt here once. The one who fell away has not been replaced by someone else, either. Instead, there is just this space—this conscious awareness—wholeness, and the remnants of ego’s world and  thought system, which continue to fall away.

What this experience revealed is that there is more here, right now, in everyone’s conscious awareness, than the “I” experience, because nothing new showed up when ego fell away. The “I” experience had taken central stage for a while, but it was never the only thing here. Its centeredness blocked the awareness that there was more here than it because everything in consciousness was thought to be one thing, the “I”. But it turns out the “I” was only something appearing in consciousness, as are Liz and the remnants of the ego thought system.

Don’t worry about understanding this. The ontological ego is not discernable until it falls away or at least begins to. This is not something you can make happen. What you can address is the ego thought system, and you want to do so if you want to improve your living experience. And that is what the Course is for.

  

>>>> 

If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in this newsletter/blog.

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