Game of Your Ego

As we grow up, we form a mental image of who we are based on our upbringing and cultural conditioning. We may refer to this phantom self the ego. It consists of mental activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking.

The term ego means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.

It means different things to different people. If you observe your mind, you’ll see that how it works. You do not run your life; the ego runs it. Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness, the watcher.

 

Only past and future matter, for ego.

The present moment hardly exists for the ego. Only the past and future are considered significant. The mind is so dysfunctional in ego mode, this is due to this complete inversion of the truth.

The ego is always concerned with keeping the past alive. Because without past, who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfilment there.

Even when the ego appears to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees. It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the lens of the past. Moreover, it reduces the present to a means to an end, and the end always lies in the mind’s projected future.

 

Ego has no inner connection with others.

The ego perceives itself as a separate fragment in a hostile universe. It has no real inner connection to any other being. Either it sees another being as a potential threat or it will try to use another being for its own ends.

The basic ego patterns are designed to fight against their own deep-seated fear and sense of incompleteness. The basic ego patterns are resistance, control, power, greed, defence, and attack. Some of the ego’s strategies are extremely clever, but they can never truly solve any problems. Because the ego itself is the problem.

Because of its phantom nature, the ego is very fragile and insecure. It perceives itself as being continuously threatened. This is the case even if the ego appears to be outwardly confident.

What is the message the body continuously receives from the ego? 

Danger! I am under threat. 

And what is the feeling generated by this continuous message? 

Fear, naturally.

 

Ego makes you feel incomplete.

An intrinsic part of the egoic mind is an ingrained sense of deficiency or incompleteness, of not being whole. In some people, this is conscious; in others, it is unconscious.

If it is conscious, it manifests as the constant, disturbing feeling of not being worthy or good enough. If it is unconscious, it will be felt indirectly as an intense craving, wanting, and needing.

In either case, people will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego-gratification. People will look for things to identify with in order to fill the hole they feel within.

In order to feel better about ourselves and more complete, we pursue things like possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship. But even after obtaining all these things, we soon find that the hole is still there and that it has no end. Then we are really in trouble because we cannot fool ourselves anymore.

As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease, at peace, or fulfilled. Only when you have obtained what you wanted and when a craving has just been fulfilled will you, for a brief period of time, be at peace and feel fulfilled.

 

Ego requires identifications with external things.

The ego is a derived sense of self, so it must identify with external things. It requires continual feeding and defense.

The most common ego identifications involve your possessions, your line of work, your social standing and recognition, your knowledge and education, your physical appearance, any special abilities you may have, your relationships, your personal and family history, your belief systems, and frequently also your political, nationalistic, racial, or other collective identifications.

But none of these are you. You will eventually have to give up all these things. Maybe you still find it difficult to believe. You’ll be able to verify the truth for yourself. When you feel death coming, you will know it.

Death is the removal of everything that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” and find that there is no death.

 

Ego is insecure and vulnerable.

The ego has endless needs. It feels vulnerable and threatened. So, it lives in a state of fear and want. Once you know how the basic dysfunction operates, there is no need to make it into a complex personal problem.

Of course, the ego loves that. It will easily attach itself to your problems since it is constantly looking for something to attach itself to so that it can maintain and strengthen its illusory sense of self. This explains why a significant portion of so many people’s senses of self are closely tied to their problems.

Once this has happened, the last thing they want is to become free of themselves; that would mean losing themselves. There can be a great deal of unconscious ego investment in pain and suffering.

When egos come together, whether in personal relationships or in organizations, “bad” things happen sooner or later. There will surely be drama of one kind or another, in the form of conflict, problems, power struggles, emotional or physical violence, and so on. There will be collective evils such as war, genocide, and exploitation and this is all due to massed unconsciousness.

Many types of illness are caused by the ego’s continuous resistance, which creates restrictions and blockages in the flow of energy through the body.

Fear has many causes: fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on. But the source of all fear is the ego’s fear of death or annihilation.

To the ego, death is always just around the corner. For instance, even something as seemingly unimportant and “normal” as the compulsive desire to win an argument and prove the other person wrong is due to the fear of death.

If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. As a result, you, as the ego, cannot afford to be mistaken. To err is to die.

 

Disarm the ego.

Since the ego’s primary purpose is to deceive you into believing that you are this separate self, it stands in the way of your efforts to achieve true serenity and happiness. So, work to disarm the ego.

Since the ego has been a part of you for a long time and is intertwined with you, the process of dissolving it can take time. But if you want to live your best life, it’s completely necessary and endlessly fulfilling.

The greater part of human suffering is unnecessary. As long as your life is controlled by your unobserved mind, it is self-created. The suffering you create right now is always a result of your unconscious resistance to what is and some type of non-acceptance.

On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. It represents negativity on an emotional level.

The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, which in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The present moment holds the key to liberation. The mind constantly tries to deny the present and get away from it.

The more you identify with your mind, the more you suffer. The ability to honour and embrace the present moment can help you become free of pain, suffering, and the egoic mind.

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