The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

close to our hearts, they do not come from our hearts. They come instead from that insidious mental monster called the Ego.
    The Ego is a mental entity, a crude and ruthless ghost masquerading as our “self.” It is a mental construct, produced by socialization, which rewards and punishes us with feelings of self-worth. The Ego lives by comparison. It identifies with events in our past—our personal history—and then compares our history to the histories of others. This comparison leaves us feeling better than or worse than, but not equal to, others.
    Naturally, the Ego wants to make us think we are better than others. Yet, making us feel inferior is just as much a tool of the Ego as feeling superior. If the Ego feels we don’t measure up, it will punish us, but at the same time, it will separate itself from our failing and somehow shirk the blame. It will fabricate justifications regarding why we have fallen short. The Ego may not always be able to pretend outright superiority, but it has plenty of tricks to ensure its dominance even amid feelings of inferiority. Substantial amounts of energy and attention go into the petty maintenance of the Ego. Not only is valuable attention wasted, but the whole process creates a state of separation from reality. Consequently, performance suffers.
    Many discussions of the Ego appear in the books of Carlos Castaneda, and I’ll refer to these books many times. In his first few books, Castaneda, a graduate student in California, describes his experiences with don Juan Matus. Although Castaneda originally sought out don Juan during an anthropological study of medicinal plants, his relationship with the old Indian quickly turned into an apprenticeship. Much of this apprenticeship involved don Juan breaking Castaneda’s old habits of thought and perception, and freeing him from his Ego. The Ego’s games are so plentiful and powerful that don Juan calls the Ego the “1000-headed dragon.” I find this to be a very helpful image.
    In order to reclaim the energy that the Ego wastes, we must usurp its power and dethrone it. In exchange for the Ego, we call upon the Higher Self. The Higher Self isn’t competitive, defensive, or conniving, as the Ego is. It sees through such petty ploys. The Higher Self derives self-worth not from comparison with others, but from an internal focus that is based on valuing growth and learning. As you advance along the path of warriorship, you will increasingly replace Ego-based behavior with behavior that is under the guidance of the Higher Self.
    The development of my personal Ego is not unusual. While growing up I was conditioned to believe, “I am an Ilgner and that’s special.” My great grandfather Paul owned a huge vegetable and fruit processing company in Germany in the early 1900s, and was a multi-millionaire. His son, my grandfather Gerhard, was an accomplished pianist who traveled the world. After World War II, the family fortune was lost, but my father, Harry, having grown up in a rich household, still saw himself as different and “better than.” He was talented in several water sports including skiing, skating, sailing, and swimming. The sense of superiority came from both sides of my family. My mother’s mother, Vania, was a prominent opera singer in Europe, and my mother, Kornelia, was a very talented artist. All through my childhood, I perceived an Ilgner as “better.” We didn’t do things like everyone else and there was a pervasive sense of being superior.

    Climbing on the Whitesides Headwall, western North Carolina. The route is called The Warrior’s Way. Photo: Jeff Achey
    Even as I became an adult, this flawed thinking continued. Local climbers considered me to be a bold climber who put up scary routes, which fed my sense of superiority. Ironically, there were long stretches of time when I felt inferior. I was caught in an external value system which forced me to see myself as either better than or worse than others. I compared my externals to the externals of others, concocting weak schemes why I was more or less valuable than someone else. These justifications led away from understanding and seeing the interconnectedness of the world.
    Everyone can recall certain moments that leave lasting grooves in the gray matter. One such moment revealed how asinine I could act when driven by my Ego. I had just gotten out of the Army in 1980, having served in Korea during peacetime. I was driving through town with some friends