The Final Fear On The Path To Peace

by Michael Goodspeed

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
~JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Of all the marvelous achievements of Gene Roddenberry’s, Star Trek, its long list of memorable villains is among its best. Most Trekkies agree that the most innately frightening of the show’s “bad guys” is the Borg. Part machine and part humanoid, the Borg are creatures void of emotion or compassion. They function as a single hive-mind, with no regard for wishes or desires of other life forms. Their goal is not to kill their enemies, but to “assimilate” them into the collective.

In arguably the greatest episode of Star Trek’s second installment, The Next Generation, the crew of the Enterprise captures a young male Borg. Separated from the collective, it is confused, frightened, and lonely. It communicates freely with Enterprise engineer Geordi La Forge, and the two begin to develop a tentative understanding of one another. The Borg is even given the name, Hugh.

In a scene for the ages, Geordi explains to Hugh why he and other humans have no wish to be assimilated.

“We are all separate individuals. I am Geordi. I choose what I want to do with my life. I make decisions for myself. For people like me, losing that individuality is almost worse than dying.”

This statement neatly encapsulates why the Borg are so singularly terrifying. What could be more horrific than having one’s unique identity, one’s sense of self, permanently wiped out? To have one’s consciousness “blended in” and inextricably “fused” with other minds does indeed seem a fate worse than death.

This is a fear that inevitably arises for almost anyone attempting to walk a spiritual path. Most religions and spiritual thought systems teach “selflessness” in one form or another. Eastern scriptures such as Buddhism and Hinduism promote the abdication of ego in favor of a Self that is unified with all of Creation. Christ taught that our unique and separate identities are real, but that the Self must abdicate all interests that oppose God’s. And all of the recognized great “avatars” preached service over greed, kindness over cruelty, and humility over pride.

In the earliest days of my spiritual seeking, I encountered my own, personal Borg, and I worried that my entire sense of self would be annihilated. All of the material that I studied - including A Course in Miracles and many books by its disciples - promoted “egolessness” as the only path to Enlightenment. I found this terrifying, because I felt that it threatened my very existence. I imagined myself floating in some empty void, becoming faceless and indistinguishable from all the other assimilated “Borg,” feeling and thinking nothing, swallowed by an infinite nothingness.

The source of this terror now seems obvious to me. Like most of us on planet Earth, I have always felt defined by my “specialness,” or the qualities that make me “better” than everyone else. Competitive drive has always been the motivation behind my behaviors; I’ve never wanted to do anything that would not help me to “win,” and thus achieve external recognition from others. From my perspective, abdicating this aspect of my personality would be no different than joining the Borg’s “collective.” What sane person would want to be just another “cow in the herd” or “drop in the ocean?” How could I feel loved if others didn’t view me as “special?”

But this fear arose from a fundamental misunderstanding of the real choice I was facing. Nowhere in A Course in Miracles does it tell us to not be individuals, or to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. It never implies that there is a blending together of consciousnesses or a loss of one’s unique identity. It simply states that the ego is a mechanism of the mind that will always prevent us from finding peace. It keeps us locked in competition and an endless seeking of external rewards, blinding us to the gifts that already lay inside us.

The textbook of ACIM reads, “The ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of ‘getting’ arose in the ego’s thought system.”

The Course further states, “Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. This is obvious when you consider what is involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will have to do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give only because you believe you are somehow getting something better, and can therefore do without the thing you gave.”

I believe these concepts have always been validated in the real world. I have never seen an act of greed or cruelty that did not have egotism as its root cause. This stems from the fallacious belief that in order to win, another is required to lose. An ego believes that its greatness can only be validated by its superiority to others.

That is why ego is in a constant state of defensiveness and self aggrandizement. It has to be reminded of its greatness by external validation and self-inflation. Without these things, it loses its hold on us. Spirit is superior to ego, in that spirit is quietly aware of its own intrinsic beauty and power; no external confirmation is required.

The ego can only reign if one believes he was not made perfect and whole by the Creator. It is a tool for acquisition, and hence, it keeps its owner in a perpetual state of seeking and expectation. When one realizes everything he will ever need is already inside himself—perfect, incorruptible, and eternal—the stranglehold of the ego is loosened, and it becomes possible to live in the present moment, where all things that are real reside.

I have never said to myself, “I am going to starve and burn my ego to death.” Indeed, most people will not find discussions of ego abdication very interesting or helpful. My desire for specialness has been lessened by my ability to quietly recognize the rewards that are always present inside myself. I still have an ego, to be sure, but it is no longer a tyrant, dictating my every thought and action. I tell myself I will not make any decisions that go against God’s plan, because to do so is to act against my own best interests.

I have not found on this path a Borg or a boogeyman around every corner. My identity, my self-awareness, and my unique talents have not been diminished by my desire to live a more humble life. Quite to the contrary, I believe my personality has grown more dynamic, stronger, and interesting as I’ve increasingly focused my energy on service to others. The great “collective,” as it were, has not robbed me of my sense of self; it has enhanced it. Best of all, I’m no longer burdened by the guilt and self-doubt that arises from constant comparisons and competition with others.

One of the most beautiful analogies to the human condition is that of a great orchestra performing in unity. In the book, The Book of James, author Susy Smith writes, “Each man is a separate entity with conscious existence apart from every other man, and he will remain so. He will eventually progress to such heights of greatness that he achieves unity with all other men in the state of Divine Consciousness; but this is unity in the way that members of an orchestra perform in unity, or a choir sings in unity.”

Smith continues, “Souls never merge with one another or into the whole. Each spirit is always a unit that knows itself to be one and individual, yet at the same time it is a functioning, self-operating, cooperating, working unit in the overall Divinity.”

We must realize that, like the Borg, we DO live in a single collective; like it or not, every action of an individual affects the whole. If the human race is performing a cosmic symphony, its sound will be most beautiful when each and every one of us learns to play his unique and equally critical role in harmony.

Michael Goodspeed...
 a freelance writer can be contacted at: goodspeed743@aol.com