We're invincible until we are not. And once we've had that fatal blow to our ego, its death is certain. We allow it to play its part in its ego game, but we've moved on. We live more and more out of our true selves, making us elders, saints, and sages.
We begin life without our ego, and we will leave this life without our ego. Spirituality helps us to put our ego in its place until this happens. The name usually given to our ego is our false self. I call it our fallen self because being 'time born', it can only exist in the time and space of duality, as opposed to timeless eternity. Eternity surrounds our time and space continuum much like a dot on a white piece of paper. Eternity is everpresent here and now behind our temporal matrix, but we're usually unaware of it until we see a baby born or an evening sunset, or surfing on the ocean, having that ah-ha moment of transcendence. These natural thin places and times usually lead us to the Eternals of spirituality and faith. It is said, 'faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'
Can we live without our egos?
Of course, we can. We were born without it and we will die without it. Spirituality and faith help us to mitigate its directing our lives.
Who we really are, is children of light, born of the Father of lights, light that awakens and illuminates us from within. Awakening burns up our old dark preconceptions, bringing us into this living moment, this eternal Presence.
Now, being baptized with fire is something we would never choose, or wish on anyone, but as certain as death, it will come to us all. Everything in our lives will be tested with fire. Every stick and stubble of our temporal life will be burned up, but I see God's eternal healing behind our temporal suffering. We are precious to God. God is faithful, and all our reasons for our's and others' suffering can't be answered in this life. I suffer even in my transcendence, but I also find unspeakable joy arising within me.
One of my heart's heroes suffered every moment I knew her, but her joy sparkled in her eyes, and life was always about creating connection and community. She learned to hold her deep suffering in one hand and transcendent joy in the other.
I saw the joy and pain in my beloved Elizabeth's eyes as she made her journey from time into eternity. The tears of love when she could not speak.
Walking With Wisdom ~ Baptized With Fire
Fire is the nature of Love, pure and holy, shining like Moses' face seeing the back of the Holy One. Our God is a consuming fire. Love burns with a shekinah glory. Love undoes us. Love dismantles our ego, our arrogant pride, and our posturing. When love humbles us to the grave, love will also lift us up, in wholeness and oneness with all that God is.
All deconstruction has to do with our ego and the removal of all the dysfunctional systems it has built within us and around us. But make no mistake: Love Wins. Though we fail and we will, Love never fails.