What exactly is an ego? How do you separate yourself from an ego?

Hello and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind blog and today I would like to share with you my understanding on the nature of ego from a more straightforward perspective.

There is a lot of attention paid to the ego in modern society and while we are often told that having an ego will advance our place in the world, very few talk about the humbleness of being ‘ego-less’ and of the many great people, who every day without recognition or respect, silently bring greatness into our ego focused world.

So How Loud is Your Ego?

Have you asked yourself, why is it so difficult to hear the encouraging prompts from that small voice’ that humbly offers positive and constructive solutions, and why instead we only seem to hear the blaring insults from our ego?

Would life really be blissful if we didn’t have the ego constantly shouting out thoughts that are full of gloomy overtones?

And would we become Enlightened Beings if we didn’t have the ego acting as interpreter of our experiences?

But for some strange reason that reality seems to belong in the twilight zone of science fiction, and we seem to mostly only hear that loud and bloated ego, goading us as we float powerless, gripped in anxiety and distrust or wallowing in righteous indignation.

It is difficult to say how much of our life is wasted while we spend hours reflecting on unchangeable circumstance from the past or how much of our life we have given over to the control of the ego.

The days, if not months and years spent in self-doubt or fear – is time lost to this invisible task master. Even a broader understanding brought about by study, backed up by contemplation and meditation has seldom brought more than a momentary respite from the ego.

So, why is that?

• According to dictionary.com ego represents self-esteem, as in a person’s idea of importance or self-worth – so that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, ego becomes a problem when it turns into an inflated opinion of self and bloats into an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

• Dictionary dot com also defines the ego as distinguishing itself from the selves of others and also from the objects of its thoughts. Note the words "objects of its thought" because we commonly assume ego and the mind which is an object are one and the same.

So if our mind is separate from ego, is ego even real, is it really some illusive part of who we are, or is it quite literally an illusion, in a similar way to what darkness is when you turn on the lights. Is it really there, or is it our own creation, an illusion that only has power when you give it your full attention.

 

So what about the Ego versus our Thoughts?

I rather think of ego as a rolling mass of emotions that bubble up into thoughts that then infect and distort our view of the world, these distorted thoughts are then compounded with experiences.

We become attached to these experiences and even carry them around like badges of honor, we tell stories of our experiences, often even exaggerating the experience, just to give it more social weight.

Then it all sinks back down mixing and blending with new emotions and bubbles up again, but this time it’s not raw emotions that bubble up, the emotions are now tinted with experience, and this taint is the ego.

The ego isn’t a part of the mind, it never existed until we allowed it to become attached through our emotions and infect our thoughts, and then we allow this nonexistent thing to infect our mind or consciousness.

Ego links its invisible webs of illusion and seeps into our lives to steal our attention. Building a network of connections and memories that continues to grow and develop throughout a lifetime, stealing piece by piece, our very soul and distorting reality, slowly over a life time it poisons the mind and the body.

So, Can we really rid ourselves of the ego? Can we empty ourselves of this parasite?

After a life time of poison can we really divest ourselves of the ego, shedding it like a snake sheds its skin, and leaving our true self free to manifest.

The tricky thing about the ego is that its invisible, when you look into the mirror you can’t see it, if you scream at it to go way, who’s doing the screaming?

You or the ego?

And as soon as you get distracted by life, you forget about the ego, but ask yourself, who created the distraction?

Maybe you will read about an incantation that will magically cleanse you of the ego, almost like taking a pill and the ego is gone. But ask yourself who really found the magic pill? You or did the ego distract you again?

Maybe you’ve tried meditation, but those pesky thoughts keep popping into your head, and you try really hard but they disturb your concentration and you give up in frustration.

So is there a Way Out?

And why is it so difficult to be egoless, and why have we become so comfortable with our ego roommate?

The answer is simple emotional survival

As society has become more complex and we have evolved beyond simple hunters and gathers. – Socially things have also became complex. Yes it’s still all about eating and breeding, but we have also found that apart from fighting actual real predators we also have had to compete with each other on an emotional and social level.

This is where ego comes into play, we needed to not only remember but also to be able to appear to genuinely enact and react to certain behaviors at an emotional level, because how you interact with others could be the different between getting the girl or boy you wanted and earning the resources needed for a family.

You see, just when we think where better than the animals, we find that we still have all the same motives. It’s quite funny really, all that complex evolution and for what? So a bag of bones can breed Lol.

What, so now I’m tell you that ego is a good thing, right?

No, I’m not saying that,

But in order to put ego in its proper perspective. We need to know why.

We need to understand ourselves.

And I am not going to give you a magic pill, but now that you can see why you have an ego, you can understand your motives, and as some old Greek once said, “know thy self”.

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Related posts:

The Human Agreement | Where Do Our Thoughts Come From? | Suffering and Spirituality is a False Idea | The Impeccability of Stalking Awareness | Life’s too Short to Waste on Negative People | What is Rational Thinking: Rational Side of Awareness | How to Become Self-Realized in a World Full of Phonies |

Infinite Duality: why Humanity is Bound by Dualistic Awareness

References

 // IMAGE S O U R C E:  woman-mask-face-soul-286747,  License to use Creative Commons Zero - CC0 © Artist kai kalhh | www.pixabay.com, Image title: woman mask face