What do we acquire as we grow up from our infancy, a state of Totality? An Ego or Identity, as we start to respond to our name. Our Ego/identity is the knowledge, experience, skills, personality, character, values, that our Intellect acquires. Perception of  our identity by our family members as well as of our close friends also becomes  part of our Ego. *

A major part of our Ego are desires and expectations, belief systems, likes and dislikes, good and bad classifications, acceptable norms for people and situations! Our emotions and feelings are also part of our Ego.

Our Ego resides in both the subconscious memory as well as in our consciousness. When a stimuli happens, Ego responds or rather reacts automatically from our subconscious memory. Most of our emotions and feelings surface from the Ego residing in our subconsciousness.

However, Ego can also respond with activity, emotions and feelings from consciousness. But, the thinking and activity done by our Ego even in consciousness will be self centered. Perchance, if the activity  is not self centered then our Ego is actually allowing our Conscious Intellect to respond holistically!

Sadly, our extremely competent, universal, infinite, Conscious Intellect remains hidden while our Ego continues to react or act selfishly to manage our daily situations and our life. But we can activate our Conscious Intellect by becoming aware of our thoughts, words, actions as well as our emotions and feelings. This will help in purifying all of them to serve the best interests of the humanity. It also helps in resolving difficult situations which may not get resolved by our Ego as it is generally disturbed if the life situations are not as per its expectations and norms!

Our Ego can also be compared with a Volcano with a massive fire of numerous desires and expectations burning in its belly. Like a Volcano, our Ego can erupt and then the flow of words and actions, like hot, molten Lava, can destroy relationships, damage our Intellect and body. In extreme cases it can also completely destroy our Body along with the Intellect!

To manage this fire within our Ego, our Conscious Intellect needs to be more Aware and Acceptable of our own Ego as well as understand the dangerous and overwhelming power that our Ego has over our Intellect and our body.  This Awareness, Acceptance & Understanding will make us live life consciously with the help of our Intellect. Good, enjoyable, interactive and supportive living then becomes a way of life with us!

The building of our Ego, or the conditioning of our Intellect, is the process of our inborn, unconditioned Intellect identifying itself with our body instead of its origin, The Totality- The Totality

The only imperfection in our life is our Ego. The bigger our Ego is, the more imperfect we are! When our Ego dissolves back into The Totality, then we are perfect in every way including health of our body – The Totality *

Our desiring Ego, which we think we are, is our own intellectually created illusion! The only reality is The Desireless Totality which we all truly are! –The Totality *

When we erase our Ego from our Intellect, only then we are living our life fully. Otherwise our life is full of limitations. – The Totality *

Our Ego is simply a name of a program in our Intellect. Unfortunately, this program, which has desires, emotions and feelings, overwhelms our Intellect and runs (also read, ruins!) our life. This programming, our Ego, can easily be erased by being Alive in the now! – The Totality * 

A great life is when we live in the now, the present moment. Then we are free from the clutches of our normally aggressive Ego which automatically becomes passive. – The Totality *

When we are born, we all are Divine with a clean and peaceful Intellect only. We have no specific identity, beliefs, norms, conditioning and programming. That is why every child appears very beautiful to us. The sparkle in the eyes of the child and the glow of their bodies is evident to all! A child stays mostly in the present moment, in a state of awareness, which is the natural state we are all born with!

Soon, loving but unconscious parenting starts and with that our Intellect starts building a specific identity, socially acceptable behaviour patterns, belief systems, norms and other conditioning! Sadly, the sparkle and the glow start fading in most of us! We also spend more time in our past or in our future, losing out on the magnificent state of present moment awareness, a state which simplifies our life!

Our false identity is created by our Intellect on the basis of inputs from our loving (but not discerning) parents, relatives, friends, teachers and others who we come in contact with. Inputs also come from our own observations, learning, education and experiences.

This self created identity, conditioning or programming can be called as our ‘Ego’. It takes charge and responds to life situations subconsciously and automatically as per its programming. When it detects a threatening situation it generally reacts! However, if we want to act proactively, then we have to make a special conscious effort to awaken and utilise our Intellect! Difficult and complicated situations will require the use of our Intellect and it is desirable to use it to make a logical and rational decisions so that the resultant actions will be more appropriate than the reactive actions of our Ego!

It is rather difficult for most of us to define our ‘Ego’ as our own Ego tries to define itself! Our Ego’s definition of our the Ego needs to be evaluated with some doubt and caution! We really need to use our Intellect to define our Ego.

Many of us think that we do not have an Ego! This is not possible! All of us require an identity, conditioning and programming to respond and live life quickly and rapidly! We probably mistakenly think that Ego means that we are being extremely proud of our own self! Also, many of us think that only others have an Ego, husbands think that their wives have an Ego and vice versa! It is always the other person who has an Ego, never our own self! But the fact is that, all of of us need and have an Ego to live in a society!

Some misunderstand Ego to mean Self Esteem or Self Respect, others may think of it negatively as Pride!

Three other meaningful definitions are listed herein:

Buddhism – The ‘Ego’ is an elusive mental phenomenon with which we identify and cling due to ignorance.

Dr. Wayne Dyer – Ego is simply an idea of who you are that you carry around with you.

Osho – (Ego is) the reflection, what others think (of us)…. The Ego is just a belief in your specialness, in your personality, a belief in yourself – and the belief is utterly false, not based on truth at all.

Shefali Tsabary PhD – a picture we hold of ourselves that may be far from who we are in our essential being.

It will help each one of us to get a deeper clarity by attempting to define and understand our Ego. This understanding will help us lead a better quality of life as the ups and downs of life will have lower dramatic effects on us!

The Ego needs to be progressively shed in favor of re-emergence of our True Self from the mists of childhood – Shefali Tsabary PhD

Ego is, when our Intellect is either in the past or in the future. Ego vanishes, when our Intellect is in the now, the present moment, implying that our Intellect is aware and fully accepting the situation that exists now! – The Totality *

The ‘I’ created by our Intellect within itself from external inputs is what is called ‘Ego’. Our Ego is in both, our subconsciousness as well as in our consciousness- The Totality * 180717

Our Intellect downloads our identity from the environment. Most of us unknowingly stop with only a partial download and this identity is called our Ego. A few of us download the complete identity which is The Totality and this makes us live our life fully! –The Totality * 220817

Our Ego is partial Divinity! It is Divinity with limitations and desires.- The Totality * 010518

Our Ego resists change – The Totality * 100518

We become sad or angry not because of our circumstances. We become sad or angry because of our circumstances not meeting the planned requirements of our Ego. Likewise, we have fear not because of imagining the circumstances that may happen in the future, but because we imagine that the circumstances that will happen in the future will not meet our Ego’s requirements. -The Totality * 100518

Since childhood we are all curious and inquisitive about our external environment which includes other persons, starting with our mother, as well as other objects,. This is the natural characteristic of the normal Intellect we are all born with. This is the basis of our learning and developing as we are growing older.

To turn the focus of our curiosity inwards from the outward direction sometimes takes a crisis, trauma or pain to occur within us. Very few lucky ones turn inward due to proper guidance from the people that love us, like our parents, teachers, friends and others. However, many of us run through our lives without looking inwards at all!

A very important  question for all of us is ‘Who am I, really’?

When we say ‘I’, who do we mean? Is it our body or Intellect we are born with? Or is there something new we have created during our childhood and which stays with us for most of our life? If there is, what shall we call it? Maybe we can call it as our ‘Ego’?

Wikipedia states ‘Ego is a Latin word meaning “I“, cognate with the Greek “Εγώ (Ego)” meaning “I”, often used in English to mean the “self”, “identity” or other related concepts‘.

We need to deliberate on this important question to come up with our own answer to discover and understand our own self for  living live fully and in freedom!

We have been conditioned to believe that being part of religious singing, chanting or discussion groups, attending religious discourses, reading holy books, regularly visiting Temples, Churches, Mosques etc are good and noble activities.  These do make us feel good temporarily and give us the feeling that we are good persons as we indulge in such activities.

However, do these group and institutionalized activities resolve our situations of fear of our death and of our loved ones, fear of loss of reputation, wealth and other possessions; anger and hurt Ego, anxiety and worry about our past as well as our future; greed, jealousy, hatred, unhappiness and depression etc.?

Perhaps the answer is, no they do not!

Discovering ourselves can be the answer! Unfortunately, it is not a group activity which most of us enjoy, but it is a very private affair! It is like taking a deep dive within our self to understand who we  are and why and how do we function? The strange thing is that if we buy a new gadget, we study it properly to understand the how and why of the gadget. But when it comes to our own self, we do not have the time or the inclination!

Siddharta left his rich social environment, his kingdom, to be in solitude for several years before he discovered himself, became enlightened, under a Boddhi tree! Siddharta became a Buddha due to his own private and personal effort!

Does that mean we also have to leave everything and everyone behind for this purpose? No, but let us try and remain in emotional and physical solitude in the little time we get to ourselves daily rather than choosing to spend that time also in group activities!

P.S. There is a flow and pattern so please start with the first post titled ‘Discover!’