He cast out devils and could casually number how many in each person.  She had seven, he had twelve, and some even worse than that.  Basic Christian psychology.  It takes its base in the Buddha's wisdom on the nature of Self, on all the cluttering stuff of egos.  And it would seem that any journey of intelligence, that of those of thought and expression, would sooner or later come upon that sense, of the reality of people being that it is very easy for them to let in egotistical identities.  Interesting, from the Christian point of view, that these egotist selves that grow within are not just one, but numerable entities.

Of course, as Jesus said, you have to remote the mote, the beam, the dust, the stick of wood, out of your own eye before you can help someone else sweep out his or her own.  Perhaps, too, they can be like splinters, working their way to the surface.  Gradually, it seems, you become aware of them, in other people, in your self.  As you see them in other people, along with the pull that they have, you see the clutter of your own within.

It could be an embarrassing business.  The things you clung to, in your mind, may have well valued as a writer philosopher seeker of wisdom and truth and witness to deeper reality and the ways of the Universes, suddenly go poof, at least in the way you had defined the tensions caused by the ego selfish devil-genie within.  And maybe such things aren't so devilish, just a part of your atomic ticking, the set up for a transformation, so that like the poor madman whose legions have been cast out into the herd of swine, you too can sit there rubbing your forehead, saying, "Jesus…  thank you," back to the greatest form of normal you've ever experienced.  Maybe you had to chew on such things for the sake of ultimately working out your own balance.  And perhaps relief comes in additional forms in that finally you do not judge yourself for having made mistakes in interpersonal relationships, because as the ultimate truth shows anyway, that there is no fixed Self, no identity you have to fill in order to be a full human being.


Of course, the Christian story is not complete without that Christ running up against the great egos of the day, the powers that be both in the Roman Empire and those of the authorities of the local religious structure.  is it then that he makes what might be interpreted as a final gesture of being egoless, free from devils, free of selfish agenda, for if he had he might have saved himself, if possible.  Of course, being egoless does not entail being free of pain.