Perhaps my biggest ego quality is arrogance. I know it and it is hard to incinerate. I approached this morning's meditation feeling some despair. I asked for help—from a Siddha guru in spirit and the one who is presently alive.
It felt good to ask for help from what for me is a "higher power." (Side note: I just finished a thrilling thriller called Assassinations Anonymous by Rob Hart about a killer who is attending a 12-step program to stop killing. It is an ingenious way of dramatizing what it takes to change, and in 12-step programs, that requires requesting help from a higher power which can be anything you feel is bigger than you are. For me, that is my gurus.)
I felt their presence, but it wasn't helping much. Still my arrogance was spinning. Then Gordon Parks, the late photojournalist who I wrote about last February, came in in the form of a great light that pierced my heart so deeply I cried.
I felt small and contracted after that. When I tried to straighten, I felt nausea in my stomach. I guess I have to fully experience my arrogance as a process of letting it go.
Arrogance is a very different thing from determination. Gordon Parks lived his life with enormous determination but zero arrogance.