Each human being has a specific work to do--to express the uniqueness that is himself. It can be delegated to no one else. In doing it, if he uses the opportunity aright, he may be led to the great Uniqueness which is superpersonal, beyond his ego and behind all egos. The Notebooks 1:5.19
AD: There’s a very positive statement about your ego. … Each and every person is a very special and unique interpretation or manifestation of his or her own higher self. So there are no two egos that are alike.
The Natal Horoscope indicates this. Then he points out that there’s a special work delegated to that person. The Hindus would call that your dharma. .. And if you do that faithfully and correctly, it could lead you to the reality which is behind your ego as well as to the reality which is behind every ego.
Uniqueness here doesn’t refer to the fact that you have to be a certain kind of tradesman or merchant. It refers to something that has to be worked out in you. We try to understand that in terms of the chart, the particular ideas that you’re working out. That’s your special uniqueness. You must express it and that means working in the world, and doing whatever it is you have to do. And generally you’ll have to do it.
AH: Is it possible not to express them?
AD: Yes, it’s possible. A person can deviate, yes…. It could be circumstance. It could be many reasons. But generally the tendency is for us to follow through what our uniqueness is because there’s a compelling reason that’s operating, through which we feel that this is the way we best are. That’s usually your destiny: the living out of the ideas that you embody, the special uniqueness that you are.
… There is special uniqueness that an individual lives, and the closer it conforms to the World-Idea, the closer it conforms to the great Uniqueness. Your ego is part of the World-Idea. As it evolves it will conform more and not less to the World-Idea. The great Uniqueness is the intelligible world in each and every soul. Eventually you’ll be pushed right into the World-Idea and be like part and parcel of the World-Idea. Then you are the great Uniqueness. When you stop seeing yourself as a personality, distinct and separate from everyone else, and you can see that also from within the realm of the whole of the impersonal, then you are at the level of the great Uniqueness.
The ego is a part of the divine order of existence. It must emerge, grow, enslave, and finally be enslaved. (v6, 8:1.165)
H.S.: How do you understand that? The ego is part of the divine order of existence.
ANTHONY: Well, it’s part of the World-Idea, part of the divine order of things--the Divine Idea of the World. It’s going to have to grow, it’s going to have to develop, refine itself, dominate the soul, and then in turn be dominated by the soul.
The World-Idea is constantly being evolved until it approaches the goal that the Idea’s trying to achieve. And since the ego is an idea or part of the Idea, the Universal Idea, the World-Idea, it too has to go through that improvement and evolution. As the world, so to speak, evolves closer and closer to the paradigms that have been set for it, so the egos within that world have to evolve.
This offers a much more complete and wholesome notion of what the ego is, rather than the limited perspectives that say either it doesn’t exist or it’s not real or it’s this, that, or the other. PB is building up a tremendous, holistic view of what the ego is, what its role is, what it’s like, what’s supposed to happen. When he gets finished with all the remarks he makes on the ego, you come away with a balanced idea of what it’s all about, instead of these naive notions--it doesn’t exist, it does exist, this that and the other thing--which are really cliches and propaganda that have nothing to do with the issue.
Place of Ego in World-Order: from The Notebooks of Paul Brunton
How can a person fully express himself unless he fully develops himself? The spiritual evolution which requires him to abandon the ego runs parallel to the mental evolution which requires him to perfect it. (8:1.158)
The highest goal of the quest is not illumination gained by destruction of the ego but rather by perfection of the ego. It is the function of egoism which is to be destroyed, not that which functions. The ego's rulership is to go, not the ego itself. 8.1.189
It is both true and untrue that we cannot take up the ego with us into the life of mystical illumination. The ego is after all only a reflection, extremely limited and often distorted, of the Higher Self . . . but still it is a reflection. If we could bring it into correct alignment with, and submission to, the Higher Self, it would then be no hindrance to the illumined life. The ego cannot, indeed, be destroyed so long as we need its services while in the flesh; but it can be subjugated and turned into a servant instead of permitting it to remain a master. When this is understood, the philosophical ideal of a fully developed, mastered, and richly rounded ego acting as a channel for the inspiration and guidance of the Higher Self will be better appreciated. A poverty-stricken ego will naturally form a more limited channel for the expression of the Higher Self than would a more evolved one. The real enemy to be overcome is not the entity ego, but the function of egoism. 8:1.206
The ego to which he is so attached turns out on enquiry to be none other than the presence of World-Mind within his own heart. If identification is then shifted by constant practice from one to the other, he has achieved the purpose of life. Notebooks 8.1.127
Let them not waste so many words about or against this little ego of ours, decrying its character or denying its existence, but try to understand what is really happening in its short life. Let them find out what is actually being wrought out within and around it. Let them recognize that the Governor of the World is related to it and that we are steeped in the Divinity whether we are aware of it or not. 8:1.130
UNIQUENESS MORE COMMENTS (Avery)
Each person’s chart is unique. There is a unique set of circumstances and lessons to learn, designed to enhance your evolutionary journey and to express the soul’s deep divine intention, or “divine name” as the Sufi’s call it. In Hinduism, this unique work for you, delegated to you, is your dharma. In the Gita, Krishna says “better is one’s own dharma…” It is better to do one’s dharma as a chimney sweep and enjoy it, as in Mary Poppins, then to take on some high falutin image of perfection and glory which we have taken on from someone else (parents, society, jealousy, etc.) This is why it is so important to get to know yourself, accept yourself, and in the words of the book title: “start where you are.” As the guide says in Pathworks lecture on Ideal Image, our most basic source of conflict and unhappiness is having an ideal image, which is so different from the reality at hand. In a very deep way, the uniqueness we see in the natal configuration is an expression, of course to a limited extent, of the souls vision in the Nous. (get AD quote from Jung paper.) This is the soul’s true intention, the unique idea that is being unfolded through lifetimes, and perhaps only one slice of it in any given life. We can see this as the true uniqueness and individuality which is seeking fulfillment. Through becoming this unique idea, really being yourself, you find the deeper universal Uniqueness. This seems a paradox, perhaps. The more you become yourself, an individual, your own unique being, the more universal you become. And we may also say the reverse. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is both the incarnation of the impersonal being Avalokiteshvara, universal compassion: and also a unique individual. Each degree in his chart rings with direct literal expression in his life. Yet he brings out the universal expression of each unique idea. In a way PB is echoing, and His Holiness is an illustration of, the famous statement of Plotinus that “each idea is a unique form of the entire Nous intelligence.” And in Corbin, we remember that each being participates in God through the special and unique form of the divine which is his own Divine name, his own lord. Through the name by which he is named, the soul is joined to the divine.
Finally, we may bring in the perspective of the matrix of Mystery: each individual center of experience is a specially constituted expression of Being’s Mystery. This “mystery of being” is the great Uniqueness which is also the “nature of mind.” Not the individual mind, but the nature of uniqueness itself. We may also speculate that uniqueness, individuation and centering, is a divine universal attribute, which we can taste when we come to our own uniqueness. In philosophic astrology it is also the essence of the number 5 and the fifth house.
Because it is put forth by the Overself, the ego expresses the Uniqueness of Soul. Ego is the center through which Soul is getting to know itself:
i.Unfolding its unique vision and powers
ii.Assimilating the wisdom and love of the world-idea (will satisfy us at every level…_”)
Looking into Mind Copyright 2019