Body and Mind
What does the body have to do with the ego? There is a strong correlation between physiology and psychology, between body and mind, and the mind is where the interior experience of ego takes place. According to one of the most advanced understandings of Integral Metatheory:
Every mind has its body
As your physiology matures, your brain can function at higher levels, which means your mind can function at higher levels. As your mind matures, your ego can also mature. This process of parallel maturation of body & mind has been happening, well, since the very beginning, since the time of the Big Bang. But, for our purposes of discussing ego maturity, we can narrow our evolutionary timeline down to the last quarter-million years. Watch this video:
Ego Development
The way we see ourselves, and the way we understand what life is about, shifts as we move through developmental stages. Our values, our worldviews, and our sense of self change as we mature from infant to child, to adult. In other words, the ego develops over time in stages. Some stages are more mature than others. The more mature stages are characterized by increasingly mature values, mature worldviews, and mature senses of self. And it’s all correlated with physiological development of our brain & body.
We evaluated the “ego maturity” of students in The NHU by using validated tests of ego development. For example, the “construct-aware” stage of development, according to Susanne Cook-Greuter is the first stage that “sees through the function of the ego to make us feel safe, important, and permanent.” We also evaluated the brain changes associated with evolving into the construct-aware stage of development and compared it with other stages of development. The Construct-Aware group shows an increase in 40hz gamma-wave-activity in the temporal area and in the temporoparietal junction in the left hemisphere as well.
Ego Maturity
An immature ego doesn’t know who you really are and, therefore, doesn’t know who anyone is! “They must be enemies!” Your ego projects its immaturity onto others (who are in the same boat as you) and the only option it sees is defense from attack through attacking. And because this thought pattern is based in the illusion of separation, it leads to sadness, isolation, and meaninglessness.
As the ego matures, it moves through self-actualization, self-transcendence, and into nondual unitary integrated showing up in the world, which means one transcends and includes all the previously “immature” aspects but from a place of higher life altitude, integrated horizontally and vertically. It means that “defense” can be sourced from mutual invulnerability, and “attack” can be sourced from willful agency to create non-dual, unitary, integrated, Heaven on Earth for yourself and for the entire world.
PraxisAletheia
There are practices that awaken higher functions of the brain and mind which allow for maturation of the ego. At PraxisAletheia: A Mystery School at the Leading Edge of Evolution, we teach these practices and more. Watch this webinar to see if you are a good fit for PraxisAletheia: The Mystery School at the Leading Edge of Evolution. We are currently offering early enrollment into the class beginning February 6th, 2023, with a substantial reduction in tuition
Early enrollment ends on Thursday, July 14th, 2022
Click here to watch the webinar and apply for admission into PraxisAletheia.
REFERENCES
Cook-Greuter, S. (2018) The Construct-Aware Stage of Ego Development and its Relationship to the Fool Archetype. Integral Review, August 2018, Vol. 14, No. 1
Both my parents had ego problems. And, I’ve seen those passed onto my sister and brother. What this lacks is the ego’s need for excitement – often like what Trumpers are doing now – making it up just to incite themselves. Then, there’s the “sealing off” – they are right and won’t listen to any evidence contrary to their beliefs. Then, there’s the ego that will self-sacrifice – when others peoples egos will not but are willingly to sacrifice the young, the innocent, or anyone who trusts in them just to see what happens. You write of egos evolving, but the needed research is in why egos don’t want to evolve and the damage they do to society in the meantime.
Mary, thank you for your comment. “One without an ego is a psychotic.” So, while we may be able to identify people with “ego problems” the alternative is much worse and would do a lot more damage to society. Also, when seen as functional, the ego is playing its role in society including its resistance to evolution. Research already exists on the ego’s resistance to change & evolution. And we already know what to do about it. There are a few ways to summarize the research. According to neuroscientists, the lower-brain/lower-mind(ego) complex resists change because “SAMENESS=SAFETY.” Resisting change is a survival strategy. This is known. Furthermore, Dr. Susanne Cook-Grueter, who works with us to assess ego development and leadership maturity, has performed decades of research on the ego. According to her “Ego underlies the universal drive to explain everything and make us feel safe, important, and to belong.” Again, a change to the ego is a change to safety, importance, and belonging. The solution is to awaken the Higher Brain & Higher Mind which gives access to higher, more universal explanations that have more meaning and let us belong to something greater. Are you in any of our programs yet?
Everything you wrote here is True
Everything that is truly True is also Beautiful and Good. Experiences of what is True Beautiful and Good are filtered through our epochal stage of development which varies in individuals. The highest Truth (Beauty and Goodness) for a human is the highest truth experienced through the highest epochal stage of development. This is why PraxisAletheia (and all of our programs) are focused on Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, and Showing Up (WUGUCUSU). The Showing Up path comes along for the ride.
I find these statements interesting……
And i contemplate the resistance” portion effectiveness….. particularly on the application of NPD….
Of course being used after “proper motivation” has been enforced.
And with reverse view of “resistance” to change…. With use of the Maslow hierarchy, application to homeostasis, wonder exactly what motivations you put pressures on…….?
We help people develop horizontally & vertically by giving them access to new, evolutionary mechanisms in the Higher Brain (which is a complex of structures that includes the prefrontal cortex) which give rise to a higher mind, then teach practices for leveraging new emergent capacities. The upper strata of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy are self-actualization and self-transcendence. It seems NPD is nearly the opposite of self-transcendence and perhaps a refusal to ascend (for fear of change) to these upper strata of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. If there were no resistance to ascending this hierarchy of needs and reaching homeostasis at each successive stratum, there’d be no need for development, nor the motivation for development. But there is a need. We provide solutions, Chris.
Happy to be on the path! Deep into rabbit hole up we go exposing our shadows! Freedom and ultimate Truth r the prize !