Ok, I'm gonna take a bit of a risk with this thread and I hope at least some other people are honest enough with themselves to realize maybe they have this issue as well and not think I'm a big jerk. Hopefully?

I wanna talk about the ego. Some of you who have studied Theosophy or other systems may think of the Ego as the causal body or the higher self. Some others may think of the ego as the part of us that isn't especially bad, but is our everyday mind and personality that we need to let go of in times like meditation and when trying to contact our higher self. Some of these things are connected, but for this thread I'm referring to the everyday use of the word that people use when they talk about someone being arrogant, having a big ego, etc.

This part of myself is something I struggle with more than many things in my spiritual development. No matter how much I try to be humble and follow the many teachings that say we are all connected and we are all one and I should not judge others, and so on and so forth, if I am really honest with myself, I'm constantly wanting to be and even thinking I'm better than other people in various ways. As a healer, I want to be "the one", the guy who revolutionizes healing throughout the world, who makes the big discovery, who heals the world, eliminates disease, is praised by everyone for doing such great things, who has all the answers, who sounds wise and wonderful and teaches people amazing insightful things.

On the other side of this, I have made some big mistakes in my life that I often hate myself for, and beat myself up about it. So logically I know that I'm not at all better than anyone and with the tiniest twist of fate or situation I could be in any of the worst situations people end up in and get judged for - homeless, addicted, abusive, a criminal, ostracized for my race or gender or sexual orientation, or any number of things.

Ideally, I should not be in either one of these mindsets. I should not be thinking I'm better than anyone, and I should not be thinking I'm worse than anyone and beating up on myself. They are probably both ego related.

Anyway, my point is that I think this is one of the biggest hurdles to spiritual development in general - constantly working to understand and deeply integrate the idea that we are both brilliantly special and completely insignificant in the big scheme of things, WITHOUT either hating ourselves for the bad things or putting ourselves "above" others for the good things.

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that most healers and spiritually-oriented people, particularly healers and spiritually-oriented people, have this within them on some level or another to think they are a better healer than the next person, or that they are more enlightened than the next person and therefore people should listen to them more than others, and so on...but(and this is still my ego talking) I kinda hope I'm right so I don't just sound like an arrogant jerk.

Anyway, it's late and I'm just in a mood to blurt out things on my mind, so I was thinking about this...