{{d*@*b}},

How does meditation work into this? Would you consider that "consciously counteracting" the ego? It seems to me, to some degree, that you are talking about what Jung called "the shadow."

sshenry,

Maybe I'm reading what you wrote incorrectly. The first time that I read your post, I read it as "What if you reach a point where you CAN'T simply let go," and then I re-read it.

Either way, can you give an example, if you have one in mind?

As far as NOT being able to let go, the first thing that came to mind for me is the thought of a mother watching a child struggling with an illness. When my youngest sister was 5 she had cancer -- what they call "Wilms tumor." She was sick, and my parents were very grieved. They kept asking what they had done, and trying to find a way to understand and accept it. They were both Christian and both believed in Heaven, although they really did not want to see her suffer or die.

It seems like there are times when it IS VERY difficult to "simply let go" but I do believe there are lessons to be learned even in difficult situations (maybe ESPECIALLY then). It is very difficult (unless someone isn't entirely sane) to experience someone else's suffering, and even more difficult to experience the reality that, ultimately, the reality is that you are powerless to do anything about it.

Sometimes it seems that the knowledge that we ARE powerless to do certain things serves to bring a sort of peace of mind that we seldom experience otherwise. Very often it is the very act of holding on to the idea that we CAN do something that brings suffering. (And just saying this, I look at my own life and all the pain and suffering that I went through surrounding my divorce, and the idea that I must have done something to cause it to happen and must just not have seen a way to "fix" it. That went on for quite a while.)

Still, I don't know if it is the *ego* that is the source of the suffering.

I was watching the movie "Trust the Man" last night. It stars David Duchovny and Julianne Moore. Anyway, I was just thinking about all the stories and all the lives -- how people can sometimes be so SCREWED UP... and make so many mistakes, cause each other and themselves so much pain, and how beautiful it can be at the same time... There is so much beauty and so much potential in humanity, and it seems to me that people often miss all the beauty and the art and poetry and magick in life because we focus so much on the negative -- the wars, the hunger, the dis-ease, the mistakes... It seems to me that there are such things as "beautiful mistakes" -- those painful moments in life that we come through and survive and learn and grow and share... and how life is beautiful even at the worst of times. Sometimes pain can be beautiful simply because we all experience it and share that experience. It might be part of the human condition, but we ARE ALL HUMAN, so we're all in the same boat.

We love, we lose, we hurt, we cry, we feel... and ultimately we die. Still, it is an experience we all share, and it binds us in ways to every other living thing. I think the precious thing about the ego is that we can REALIZE it.

__________________
I Wanna Be Special. Just like Everybody Else!