Conflicts Between the Spiritual and Material Ego
These roles or personas, which develop subconsciously, create a variety of beliefs and subsequent needs and emotions. Most of our personas manage to cooperate enough so that we can function without serious inner turmoil, but there are times in our lives when we experience inner conflicts in which two or more parts of our being have conflicting needs.
Many of these conflicts have to do with the differing needs between our “spiritual” personas and our “material” personas. We place these words in quotation marks because all personas live in ignorance, and thus are all material. The so-called “spiritual” personas are trying to be spiritual, or in some cases, only to appear spiritual.
One part of ourselves wants to improve our character and lifestyle, and proceed spiritually, while the other might prefer to remain in the familiar, conditioned types of behavior and activities where it finds security, pleasure and affirmation. Let’s call the first part the spiritual ego and the second the material ego. We want these two to meet, to open up to each other and become one.
We do not intend to imply that the spiritual ego is higher or more spiritual than the material ego. In some cases, the opposite may be true, as the spiritual ego might be simply seeking security, pleasure and affirmation in other ways. The spiritual ego may occasionally be even more afraid or attached to persons and situations than the material ego; however, this is not always the case.
CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL PERSONAS
The spiritual ego feels the conflict most intensely (if we didn’t desire spiritual growth or self-improvement we would not have a conflict), and usually creates feelings of self rejection, failure and