The loose talk about detachment from the ego coming from modern expounders or propagandists, both Eastern and Western, of the ancient "philosophy" is sometimes delusory, sometimes derisory, too often illusory, and too seldom practised or practicable. These persons are theoreticians, dreamers, who use their own egos to tell others to get rid of theirs! As if anyone could! But what one can do--and ought to--with the ego is beyond their wisdom. For, being based on the philosophy of truth, it is the only practicable way. When examined, the ego is found to be a complex of body and thought, physical senses and mental tendencies. Preaching to men that they should detach themselves from all these things is usually wasted energy, for the consciousness is so linked with them that it cannot be taken away from them. How could anyone be active in the world without them! Detachment--if full and real--would mean having no awareness of the world: the ego is a necessary part of existence. If a man were utterly freed from his ego, he would become utterly unable to attend to the ordinary affairs of his own existence! But let us turn aside from this nonsense and look at the body and the world in the light of the philosophy of truth. We learn that they are only appearances within the personal experience, that at the end this is mental despite its solidity and intensity, that the "I" is reducible to a single thought, that its relation to, and dependence on, its real being and essence can be brought to light, that the mind can then be re-educated and controlled so that the ego falls back into its proper place, no longer tyrannizing over him. This may happen by itself in a sudden sunburst or, more likely, slowly imperceptibly, and subtly. This process can be called detachment and his work is to co-operate with it. But remember: the understanding gained from reflection upon the philosophy of truth, combined with the meditations prescribed by it, detaches him naturally. There is no forced, artificial, and false effort.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1 : What Am I? > # 196
