Oh, that needy ego

In my last post I wrote about Thomas Keating's teachings on the false self, that bundle of high roads to happiness consisting of gratifying the instincts ingrained in us as children for security, power/control, affection/esteem, and approval.  I am not a psychologist, so I can take no position on the scientific accuracy of this description of the ego, but I am an alcoholic and I can certainly assert that, for me at least, it is very useful.

One of the things I find most useful about this description of the false self is how every time I look at it it deepens.  When I look, for example, at my need for security I think of money.  Now, that makes some sense, since I am unemployed and have none, but I was shocked recently to read the following:

For example, the need for security can be expressed  materialistically in an overwhelming focus on possessions, emotionally in over-attachment to  people, intellectually in the need always to be right, socially in the desire for status, religiously in a legalistic attitude, and even spiritually in an attachment to spiritual consolation. This is all to the detriment of true human freedom. (David Frenette, Three Contemplative Waves)

Whoof!  Here I had been struggling to avoid all the little obsessions and projects my false self was building around money and possessions and I was ignoring all those other forms of Avarice that my ego had been offering as sure-fire get-happy-quick schemes.  

As always, there is a lot of work to do, a lot of grace to acknowledge.