Dismantle Your Ego for $600

I have felt helped at times in my life by the work of Cheri Huber. At other times I have felt hurt by it, such as when my ex-wife used one of her books to, unbeknownst to me, help her "remove her dependency on Scott." I happened to be using the same book to help me quit nail biting and my ex-wife picked it up (so I learned in a marriage counselor's office) and began using it to "free" herself from . . . me.

I have read most of Cheri's many books, listened to her radio shows, written in to her radio show and participated in one of her email classes. I have compared her work with my own intuition and experience and with the work of other practitioners and thinkers in the fields of psychology and Buddhism.

Here is an excerpt from a recent email class description from her Living Compassion Web site:

The cost of $600 is due before the class begins. We require payment up front so that later on, when the voices of ego are trying to talk you out of participating, you will remember that significant financial commitment, and the voices won't so easily sabotage your effort. Remember, this class is designed to dismantle the ego. To dismantle the ego, the ego cannot be in charge of decisions about dismantling the ego.

You might think the added justification for the $600 cost is totally unnecessary (I do) and the reason given to be a bit disingenuous or contrived. That doesn't interest me, though, as much as that last line:

"To dismantle the ego, the ego cannot be in charge of decisions about dismantling the ego."

So who is dismantling the ego? Who am I if I am not my ego? Does this other me work, pay bills, feed my hunger, feel my pain, take care of my needs?

For me, someone who has fervently attempted to escape, transcend, dismantle or dissolve the ego by various means in this lifetime, that statement reveals a delusion in Huber's view of reality. There is no one to dismantle the ego but the ego. There's no one else to be in charge of decisions about dismantling the ego but my ego. Oh, except Cheri Huber or someone else to whom you delegate your ego's decision-making.

Nathaniel Branden did a good job addressing the issue of ego dissolution in the last chapter of his psychology book "Honoring the Self: Self-Esteem and Personal Tranformation" (1985). He specifically addresses the New Age concept (usually associated with Buddhism) of self-transcendence, which is just another word for "ego dismantling." If the self is transcended, who is doing the transcending?