pride and shame

Identification brings pride or shame

Identification is the basic process of the ego. The ego creates itself and sustains itself through identifying with things. In itself it is nothing, and so these identifications are really all there is to the ego. And one rather strange aspect of this process of identifying is that it always seems to come with a feeling of pride, or if not pride then its opposite shame.

It's as if the ego identification can never be a neutral thing. And this is why many people are proud about their family, or proud about their job. They can be proud about a nation, a religion, their status in society, the size of their bank account, their house, their car. It's absurd: a car. It's just a mass produced mechanical thing. Yet someone can be proud of it. And that pride is an is an indication that one has become identified with it. And vice versa, when we identify with something, that pride will be there.

The ego wants to feel good about itself. At least that's usually the surface side of the ego. That's like the light side of the moon, when there is also a dark side to it as well. Or perhaps a better analogy would be: the pride of the ego is the side of the moon that is facing the Earth. It's always the same side of the moon that's facing the Earth, and so there is the far side of the moon which we have never seen. And that far side of the moon is like the shame side of ego. And this tends to relate to the shadow aspects of our psychology. And the curious thing is we are also identifying with these dark elements, the shameful parts.

The shame is really just the opposite polarity of pride. It's a yin-yang type pair, the same fundamental energy within oneself, manifesting as the opposite, the opposite pole. And when we identify with something, it's going to produce one of these two feelings: either of pride or of shame. And if it's of pride, that identification will tend to be lodged in our ego, in the side that is facing the world, that we're prepared to show to the world. And if it's shame that's coming with the identification, that aspect of our ego, that identification, will tend to be lodged in the shadow, on the far side of the ego, the part that we don't want to show.

In a sense, this pride and shame, the psychological energy of these feelings, is what is sustaining the identifications, and therefore sustaining our ego, our sense of self as a separate little individual. And so part of our work in our spiritual inquiry is to look into ourself and see where are we feeling pride, where are we feeling shame.

In truth there is no valid reason to be proud of anything. Nor is there any valid reason to feel shame over anything. Seeing things as they really are, there is a great equanimity. These feelings of pride and shame can melt away. And when that happens, the identifications melt away too. And with that melting away, the ego can no longer be.