Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 7

Shawn Tedrow

I felt that it would be worthwhile that we revisit in more detail, Axel’s reaction to the challenging revelation he encountered, and squeeze-out glimpses of human nature, that we all participate with.

After Axel understood what the coded ancient runic manuscript was saying, he then said:

Stupefaction! Terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly blow. What! That which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate!....

Ah!" I cried, springing up. "But no! no! My uncle shall never know it. He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he would take me with him, and we should never get back. No, never! never!"

My over-excitement was beyond all description.

"No! no! it shall not be," I declared energetically; "and as it is in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I will do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might discover the key. I will destroy it."

There was a little fire left on the hearth. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemm's parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all upon the coals and utterly destroy and abolish this dangerous secret.

Then the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.

As you can see, the voice of the call to alchemy is not a welcome moment. Do you know what is interesting? We in fear, spend most of our life's efforts in defense from a spiritual transformational experience happening to us. We have our guards out in full force, and ward off ecstasy, in defense of our psychological egocentric-self until the end. Like Axel, we try to destroy and abolish its presence and its revolutionary effect on our life. That is the nature of our ego.

Why is the voice of the call to alchemy so unwelcomed into our life? Transpersonal transformation involves one life descending into death to give way to another life rising. It is the daunting sense of our life falling into oblivion, why the voice of alchemy is not welcomed. Axel said, “he would take me with him, and we would never get back”. It is the fear of death that Axel is wrestling with. The fear of once he steps into the cocoon of the volcano, “he will never come back”.

This is why we resist change and alchemy in our life. We want to hold onto our “self”, (no matter how dysfunctional it is) from never coming back and going into oblivion. We misunderstand life’s volcanic cocoon of darkness that is coming our way and do not trust its mysterious process of metamorphism, that when the ego gets crushed, unification with Tao rises.

Axel then calls his uncle a tyrant. This represents the view of looking through the eye of our ego at alchemy. Life looks like a tyrant in relationship to its movement on our life towards transformation. A definition of a tyrant is: A usurper and absolute ruler who governs without restrictions. That is how our ego-identity views Tao. We do not want to surrender our will to The Way because it would mean that we will lose complete control of our self to the tyrant of life. Ego does not want to lose control that it thinks it has. Again, this viewpoint is through the eyes of our ego.

Ego and The Way are in opposite polarities. It is like trying to put together a north and south magnet together. It can’t happen. The ego cannot surrender to Tao. Ego must undergo a spiritual regeneration of its constructed constitution to return to compatibility and union with the Source from which it came.

Realignment with Tao is not done by accepting and affirming ego, and going with its flow. Its flow is dysfunctional in relationship to Tao. This caterpillar, called the ego, cannot fly in tandem on the wings of Tao until it goes through a Metamorphosis change.

When Axel was about to throw and destroy the text into the fire, it says; “Then the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.” This represents our need for spiritual companionship and fellowship that keeps us accountable and marching forward toward alchemy. Without it, we tend to only listen to the inclinations of our ego and repel transformational change.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.