Well that is the question,
to be or not to be. Russell in Candle of Vision (p5-7) describes the ego as a mean and
miserable boy, and I can't get the thought out of my mind:
“I began to be astonished with myself, for, walking along
country roads, intense and passionate imaginations of another world, of an
interior nature began to overpower me. They were like strangers who suddenly
enter a house, who brush aside the doorkeeper, and who will not be denied. Soon
I knew they were the rightful owners and heirs of the house of the body, and
the doorkeeper was only one who was for a time in charge, who had neglected his
duty, and who had pretended to ownership. The boy who existed before was an
alien. He hid himself when the pilgrim of eternity took up his abode in the
dwelling. Yet, whenever the true owner was absent, the sly creature reappeared
and boasted himself as master once more... I listened with my whole being, and then these
apparitions would fade away and I would be the mean and miserable boy once
more...Yet such is human nature that I still felt vanity as if this vision was
mine, and I acted like one who comes across the treasure-house of a king, and
spends the treasure as if it were his own. We may indeed have a personal
wisdom, but spiritual vision is not to speak of as ours any more than we can
say at the rising of the sun: 'This glory is mine.'”
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