The Ego
This is the identity or image we want other people to have of us, and even if it’s correct it can still give one a sense of entitlement, which is counterproductive. The unnecessary problems in life arise, because of the ego’s relentless pursuit of fulfillment and acknowledgement. It is so stealthy that it will cling to any direction your interests take you, and scavenge any concepts that best suits its agenda. It’s a creature of your own making, and it is changing and acclimating all the time, and if it's not dialing down with maturity it becomes immature, blind, and stubborn. Maturity is a beautiful thing, but the ego can stunt your maturity anywhere along the way. You can see it everyday with the publicized workers acting like children, because their ego took a stance early in their public development. A big ego in tandem with an unstable mind can manufacture up a wide range of distortions and delusions, completed with a self inflation tactic to push their personal agenda at people. The world is full of narcissistic people, and we will always be misled by them and our own ego (narcissism) until we realize how counterproductive it is to a peaceful life.
The stable and wise mind is our greatest weapon in cutting through the nonsense of an inflated ego, and stability should be cultivated by meditation, contemplation, and/or medication, if one is too chemically challenged. This can help the mind become stable if yours is cycling too much, and this will give you the help you need in your spiritual pursuits. Meditation helps you get away from the craziness, away from the manic doer, and that's not easy. I realize the fact that the ego is helpful in our lives, and helps us get ahead, but at the same time we can get backed into a corner, further away from contentment. The ego has many aliases like anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, desire, and issues to many to mention, yet for some reason we hang on to the ego like a miser and his money. These problems come from a high anxiety level or high energy level that carries a lot of emotions behind them, so making a good decision is very unlikely. If you are still making emotional decisions late in life you will always find yourself struggling and self destructive. Since the ego is capable of changing it takes detachment and critical thinking to reprogram it. The fact is you can survive better in life without the personal dictator by using wisdom and compassion to keep yourself respectful and respected. You see we talked ourselves into this corner now we have to talk ourselves out of it by changing our internal dialogue.
Aligned with the truth we can contemplate positive results, superimposing a new belief system designed to keep you grounded and friendly. Meditation is proven technique used to give you more mental strength, so you can change thought direction, which is what spirituality is all about. You won’t want anything to do with that ugly creature (the ego) when death draws near anyways, because your true nature is divinity, which is the opposite of duality (the negative and the positive). Assimilation into Eternity will be halted by your own petty fears and desires, which will want something else, so due diligence is required. All the ego’s that ever existed since time immortal in the universe didn’t mean a thing and never will; all will be forgotten like it never happened in the first place. The ego is a fictitious player in a fictitious play.
The stable and wise mind is our greatest weapon in cutting through the nonsense of an inflated ego, and stability should be cultivated by meditation, contemplation, and/or medication, if one is too chemically challenged. This can help the mind become stable if yours is cycling too much, and this will give you the help you need in your spiritual pursuits. Meditation helps you get away from the craziness, away from the manic doer, and that's not easy. I realize the fact that the ego is helpful in our lives, and helps us get ahead, but at the same time we can get backed into a corner, further away from contentment. The ego has many aliases like anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, desire, and issues to many to mention, yet for some reason we hang on to the ego like a miser and his money. These problems come from a high anxiety level or high energy level that carries a lot of emotions behind them, so making a good decision is very unlikely. If you are still making emotional decisions late in life you will always find yourself struggling and self destructive. Since the ego is capable of changing it takes detachment and critical thinking to reprogram it. The fact is you can survive better in life without the personal dictator by using wisdom and compassion to keep yourself respectful and respected. You see we talked ourselves into this corner now we have to talk ourselves out of it by changing our internal dialogue.
Aligned with the truth we can contemplate positive results, superimposing a new belief system designed to keep you grounded and friendly. Meditation is proven technique used to give you more mental strength, so you can change thought direction, which is what spirituality is all about. You won’t want anything to do with that ugly creature (the ego) when death draws near anyways, because your true nature is divinity, which is the opposite of duality (the negative and the positive). Assimilation into Eternity will be halted by your own petty fears and desires, which will want something else, so due diligence is required. All the ego’s that ever existed since time immortal in the universe didn’t mean a thing and never will; all will be forgotten like it never happened in the first place. The ego is a fictitious player in a fictitious play.
The ego certainly clings.
Is there any way to directly overcome it ? Or is the only way to stay firmly aware ?
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The ego will raise its ugly head in any field you choose and being aware of that and working at meditation will help you to recognize it, and allow you to head it off at the pass. Just to know this like you do is a very important step.
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Thanks for the response Kurt.
Yesterday I gave a try to 'I am' and it was easy and I intend to make it a practice. A subtle thing it made me notice was the highjacking of thoughts by the ego. When an animated thought arose I noticed it was taken over by the ego. 'I am' evens out my energy to allow thoughts to be without ego, a gem of a finding. Thankyou!
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Who is the doer in the absence of ego ? How can we do something without a sense of ownership ? I'm trying to understand what is non-ego or if there can be such a thing.
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When the doer is absent in this manner it lies beneath the surface as the latent ego, its there, but at a subservient level, because the mind no longer needs it, that being the unstable and fragile support system, which it use to view as prudent to your welfare. It is actually simple but elusive ;o) like a lot of this stuff is, yet seemingly hard to do, which is to let life lead you without identifying with the outcome. Because when you identify with the outcome your caught up in a catch ‘22’, and all the desires and fears that come from owning it, this validates it as significant to your personal development, but your already fully developed.
What do we own anyways, does it stay long and do we really have control over it? How much control over your life do you really have? Seems like everything is on loan and the unknown is calling the shots.
You want a deep understanding of the situation that knows there is nothing good enough to superimpose over our Eternal identity. And, since we are complete, perfect, lacking nothing, why give in to this very limited and unstable character fraught with imperfections. So it’s really a change away from the changing identification, going back to the original changeless One, but the body and mind are still attached, so being totally egoless only happens when you go beyond, so there will be an ego residue or mind habit that creeps up from time to time only to be ignored.
When Self-realization happened, it was like the Self in-tandem with the mind glared at the ego and said : What’s all the fuss about?…..No answer….nothing…because the ego slinked submissively and quietly away like a sneaky villain it is, now bowing down to the new order.
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Exactly what I was thinking, but ever so elusive
Ego is so natural that it would need the kind of persistence you speak about to get it off the throne. It is subtle and a trickster. But I believe it cannot be more powerful than the self. Only it's very difficult to see this from where I am. At this point I don't want even the good ego that I've been allowing to be. I tried 'I am' but I need more support so lately I'm fixing my mind on the universe and offering everything to it at every moment. It is working for now.
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Also, Dr. Chopra says we have the divine and diabolical within us, which I agree. But now I'm thinking it's more like the good and the diabolical are part of the ego, and the divine is beyond this ?
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You’re right, and that’s what he meant, the divine and the ego. The good and the bad are the pieces of the ego, and when you’re on the spiritual path both have to be ignored, because the divine is another step beyond both, or in back of this. The Divine is without any of the sensations that energy gives us, and it’s not something that’s felt, and you are that Space, but its unperceivable by anything made of energy, so it is beyond, and it can only be known through itself.
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This was a useful post and I think it is rather easy to see from the other comments as well that this post is well written and useful. Keep up the good work.
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Ego has the power to destroy lives and relationship, and it is necessary to keep our mind free of this evil, meditation surely helps out a lot.
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