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