Sailing Home

When we were younger, we used to have a couple of small sailboats that we’d take out on a reservoir called Bewl Water. At times, when the wind dropped, the person at the helm would pump the rudder to move us. It required a lot of energy for little forward motion. Thankfully, the wind would usually pick up and begin carrying the boat away effortlessly.

This is a good metaphor for the ego and the self. The ego is the thing that thinks incessantly. For many of us, it does not let up; it thinks, thinks, thinks about every possible scenario, every future eventuality, every action well taken or mistaken. Allowing the ego to run the show, like pumping the rudder, is incredibly exhausting.

So often it is the ego, this incessant thought machine, that compels our decisions. With the pretence of reason and logic, it comes to conclusions firmly locked in time and space. There are a couple of reasons that the ego should not be in control.

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) by Winslow Homer (1873-6)

Firstly, its access to true reason and true logic is an illusion. It cannot know all the facts. It works from a limited data set – memories, experiences, past mishaps and successes, present feelings – and draws a deeply flawed conclusion that appears useful. Secondly, the ego, so firmly locked in space and time, insists that a decision must be reached now, or very soon, about what to do; about the person we are in a relationship with (stay or leave), about the trip we want to take (book the flight now or don’t), about the food we want (buy it now).

The ego should not be compelling our decisions. The self, which is the wind in our sails, should propel us forward. The self is the portion of us that has access to the divine, access to eternity (it is not based in time; it acts when the time is just right, and eternity is never in a rush). Being divine, it is an ephemeral thing, difficult, perhaps impossible, to discern with our logical minds. But it guides like the wind; invisible, general, communicating through intuition and long term feeling. This force knows patterns, and it will guide us where we need to go (which isn’t always where the ego would like). All we need is faith that it is there, and patience while it chooses the right moment to act. Then suddenly, a thought, a decision, or a perspective bubbles up from seemingly nowhere, and we know what to do. And if nothing happens, if no decision is made, perhaps that is for the best.

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