1. Beyond Ego
READING I
Many people say they want to change. However, few want to get outside their comfort zone. How many
of us are willing to live in a "vast, open, insecurity" for very long? The reality is that we carry with us
evolved tendencies that used to make sense for survival, but now hold us back. Starting to change these
deeply ingrained patterns is a very big deal. For example:
• The habit of wanting certainty instead of wanting what we don't know.
• The habit of wanting to feel safe and secure instead of taking risks.
• The habit of wanting to keep things (relationships and jobs, etc.) the same instead of evolving
beyond what we know we have outgrown but may not want to admit.
• The habit of looking to the past to solve problems instead of moving into the unknown future.
• The habit of blaming others for challenges and problems instead of looking to ourselves, then
opening to unknown possibilities and generative interactions with others.
• The habit of avoiding difficult truths instead of facing them.
• The habit of thinking small and short term instead of seeing larger contexts.
• The habit of over-focusing on small disagreements that can derail relationships and projects
instead of focusing on big things that can make a difference.
• The habit of being driven by personal concerns and fears instead of focusing on what is best for
the whole.
All of these habits are connected to our ego in some way. The ego wants to keep everything the same.
Our primary motivation is self-preservation and comfort, even when we can sense beauty and possibility
on the other side. If we look at the problem of ego, we see it is really a problem of motivation. We use
the habits to contract or pull away from what can transform. In order to embrace change, we need to
discover a greater motivating force that is more powerful and compelling than the ego. We need to
awaken to a larger evolutionary and spiritual motivation. In our awakening, we are released from the
prison of our self-centered lives.
Craig Hamilton, The Key to Evolving Beyond Ego
READING II:
“The ability to stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is
foundational for spiritual seeing…The growing consensus is that, whatever you call it, such calm
egoless seeing is invariably characteristic of people at the highest levels of doing and loving in
all cultures and religions. They are the ones we call sages or wise…They see like the mystics
see. Once you know that the one thing the ego hates more than anything else is change, it makes
perfect sense why most people hunker down into mere survival…defended and defensive selves
will do anything rather than change—even acting against their own best interests. Ego is just
another word for blindness. The ego self is by my definition the unobserved self, because once
you see it, the game is over. The ego must remain unseen and disguised to be effective in
protecting itself. Most people have not been offered a different mind, only different behaviors,
beliefs, and belonging systems. They do not necessarily nourish us, much less transform us. But
they invariably secure us and validate us where we already are.”
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 32-33; 90-91

2. READING III:
“The Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo said, ‘In order to see, you have to stop being in the
middle of the picture.’ This means we have to step outside of ourselves, put some distance
between ourselves and our thoughts, so we can assess their heritage and test them for
authenticity. Because the consciousness of a leader as a tremendous impact on the consciousness
of the organization, every leader must do the deep and personal work of clarifying his or her own
thoughts, so that when we speak, every word has a ring of clarity, every statement has a purpose
and air of authenticity. This requires a looking inward that both grounds and balances our
outward actions. …Freeing ourselves from illusion may seem like an esoteric concept that has
nothing to do with leadership, but that’s because one of the biggest illusions we suffer from is the
notion that what goes on inside us has little to do with who we are on the outside. …It is
awareness, not effort, that dissolves the illusions.”
Jan Phillips, The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader, pp. 3-4.
READING IV:
Final integration is a state of transcultural maturity far beyond mere social adjustment, which
always implies partiality and compromise. The one who is “fully born”…apprehends life fully
and wholly from an inner ground that is at once more universal than the empirical ego and yet
entirely his [her] own. He [she] is in a certain sense “cosmic” and “universal”. He [she] has
attained a deeper, fuller identity than that of the limited ego-self which is only a fragment of his
[her] being. He [she] is in a certain sense identified with everybody: or in the familiar language
of the New Testament, he [she] is “all things to all people”. …The state of insight which is final
integration implies an openness, an emptiness, a poverty…which leaves one entirely docile to the
Spirit and hence, a potential instrument for unusual creativity. The one who has attained final
integration is no longer limited by the culture in which he [she] has grown up. He [she] has a
unified vision and experience of the one truth shining out in all its various manifestations, some
clearer than others, some more definite and more certain than others. He does not set these
partial views up in opposition to each other but unifies them in a dialectic or an insight of
complementarity. With this view of life he [she] is able to bring perspective, liberty, and
spontaneity into the lives of others. The finally integrated person is a peacemaker, and that is
why there is such a desperate need for our leaders to become such persons of insight.
Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action, pp. 206-207
Reflect and Dialogue:
 What images, words, or phrases in these readings resonate most with you, and why?
 What habit(s) for avoiding change feels most familiar in your life or to your team?
 In your experience, how does learning to “see” help to diminish the power of ego and
develop a new mind?
 What experiences do you have of leaders or team members “standing back and
observing their own dramas” or stepping out of themselves and “the middle of the
picture”?
 What impact did a leader or others being able to do this have on the group or
organization?
 Merton describes a desperate need for “integrated” and mature leaders who have moved
beyond the limits of ego to a place that is more universal, open, empty, creative, free,
unified, peaceful, and insightful. How does this larger perspective of leadership speak
to you?