house of cards conclusion

In this series we have been looking at various aspects of the ego. The ego is a complex structure with many layers, many facets, and yet all these different aspects of the ego rest upon one another. And in this series, we have compared this great structure to a house of cards.

Did you ever build a house of cards – leaning playing cards one against another, adding a roof, building another layer on top? Great structures could be constructed this way, and yet the whole structure was utterly fragile, because one card pulled out completely would cause all the others to come tumbling down. There is nothing solid in a house of cards. And so it is with our ego. On the one hand it is a huge structure, dominating our life, controlling almost everything we do, influencing how we are feeling life, determining our enjoyment of life. It is a huge house of cards, a grand palace. And yet, ultimately, it is groundless. It can only exist because one aspect leans against another. All the aspects of the ego form a big circle resting one upon the next, and yet without any absolute foundation. It is a relative world, a relative dwelling place, this house of cards, this sense of self, this ego.

And when the time is right, when we have lived enough this way, the way of the ego with its drama, with its great hopes, with its great tragedies, when we have suffered enough, when we have ached with longing and when we have shed enough tears of anguish, then the time comes for the house of cards to be blown away by a fresh wind. And we can help that process along, when we become aware of one of these playing cards, the game of the ego, playing out in our life. If we become aware of one of these cards, we can try to uproot it. We can do what we can to pull out one or two of these cards and help the process of the collapse of the ego. And it can happen. It can happen, that this great palace can come tumbling down. It can disappear and be gone. And in its place, nothing so grand, nothing so structured, nothing so known, but in its place comes a space, and a simplicity, and a truth.