Your Ego is Ruining Your Life
Elaine Pagels wrote a book called Beyond Belief about the gospel of Thomas, a series of sayings believed to be Jesus’s secret teachings. One of these sayings is particularly stirring. It goes:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
There’s good news and bad news here.
The good news is: You already have what you need.
The bad news is: You carry a certain responsibility to bring it forth and use it well while you’re alive. The failure (unwillingness?) to do so results in a deeply dissatisfying and unhappy life.
Most of us are familiar with this kind of pain — the pain that comes from neglecting our own magic, our higher calling. It’s the hardest kind of pain because there’s no one else to blame for it — the responsibility rests within us — and pain loves to place to blame. There’s relief in it.
The truth is, we usually know what we need to do but we find ways to block our knowing, to distract ourselves, to look elsewhere. The issue is rarely about not knowing. The issue is about resisting what we know. Which is just another way of saying: we’re afraid.
