The Road Less Traveled
    A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
M. Scott Peck, M.D.

More About Ego Boundaries

- Falling in love is very, very close to real love
- Real love involves ego boundaries
    - Extension of one's limits
- Beloved object must first become beloved
    - Attracted toward, invested in and committed to an object outside of ourselves
    - This is "cathexis"
    - We "cathect" the beloved object
- Enlargement of the self
    - After many years of loving and extending our limits, we gradually incorporate the external world to make it part of ourselves
    - The more we love, the more blurred becomes the distinction between the self and the world
    - We begin more and more to feel the ecstasy of "falling in love"
    - "Mystical union" with the entire world may be established
    - Feelings are more gentle and less dramatic, much more stable and lasting
- Mysticism: a belief that reality is oneness
    - Mystics believe that true reality can only be known by experiencing the oneness through a giving up of ego boundaries
    - Danger of this path: can be a sort of regression to childhood
- Ego boundaries must be hardened before they can be softened
    - Identity must be established before it can be transcended
    - One must find one's self before one can lose it
- Lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through the persistent exercise of real love
- Falling in love and sexual intercourse give us foretaste of more lasting mystical ecstasy that can be ours after a lifetime of love

The ecstasy associated with the temporary collapse of our ego boundaries when we fall in love is a foretaste of the joy that we will eventually feel after a lifetime of love.  We may eventually achieve more of a mystical union with the world that is more lasting and stable than the temporary experience of falling in love.