What is the Ego?

[Otis]

Dear all,

 

Kate brought this up in another thread, and I thought it worthy of its own topic. What do the Bums mean when we use the word "ego"? How does/did it come about? What is its' purpose? Its limitations? Do we need to "kill" the ego? Surrender it?

 

What is the relationship between the ego and the body? Between the ego and the spirit? Between the ego and delusion?

 

much love,

 

otis

[Gerard]

Don't think of it but be aware of it and acknowledge its impermanence and lack of real substance, and you eventually will return to the Source. Don't restrain it because that will make grow stronger deep in our unconscious, like craving for lust and avoid sex altogether thinking it is a bad thing.

 

Ego = is not a bad thing, it is a survival mechanism, but in spiritual practice is a hindrance since it interferes with higher wisdom which is not limited by the boundaries of the human mind. Place it the same importance as dead leaves in autumn:

 

 

[C T]

Puppet, puppeteer, audience and props. Life perhaps?

 

Not one is more significant than the other.

 

That which designate importance, differences in levels and roles, higher and lower, self and other... mesmerized by apparitions and concepts, projections and mirages, one gets lost in the differentiations and nuances of existence, and seek to find, or mend a way back to wholeness, simplicity, to oneness, to wisdom, to God... is this all ego's grand play?

 

Even if a piece of cloth is cut into a thousand smaller pieces, is each one of this thousand pieces essentially diminished as material?

 

In truth, things are as they are.

 

Unfortunately, we often cannot resist the temptation to want to make sense of things.. to analyze and dissect, to understand and segregate.... And this is the birth of perceptions of fragmentation, where we choose to assign roles - puppet, puppeteer, audience and props.

 

Its good to have discernment, but attachments and aversions that follow this seems to fulfill the ego's hunger. When attachments and aversions are left behind, liken to when one is taking a leisurely stroll thru the forest, or sitting on the dunes watching a sunset, which does not have to be anything special or magnificent btw, does the ego then still demand attention for separation and exclusiveness?

 

Hence, where is the difference between communing in, and with nature, and interacting among the 'crowd' within the framework of mundanity?

 

Ego is that which prevents one from seeing the seamless, inseparable nature of things. As things are.

 

And as things are, fragmentation cannot be any less equal than wholeness (or oneness).

 

When one is okay within both views, then struggle ceases.

 

When struggle and strife is pacified, ego 'dies'....

 

 

 

Just musing....

Edited March 26, 2011 by CowTao

[Marblehead]

Really nice comments already.

 

My understanding is that ego is self-awareness.

 

However, ego leads to thoughts of separateness. The stronger the ego the greater that thoughts of separateness.

 

And I agree that some ego is good as it is the instinct of survival. (Sure, only temporary but still ...)

[Jetsun]

It appears to me that the harder my ego clings on and tries to control reality the more my muscles tense especially in the face and head, so I wonder if the ego tries to make itself real and permanent through body tension, yet the body will die so one day those tensions will be released which is why we try to avoid all thought about our own physical death.

 

What the ego actually is I wonder if it is just an attitude to life or an opinion about the way life should be. When we are very young we have no ego but then we start to learn that some things are more acceptable than others so we try to get rid of the things less acceptable by willing them to be different through repression, so it is like an set of beliefs which believes in its own power to mould reality in the way we like. It requires force to try to mould reality so I wonder if the essence of the ego is aggressive energy.

[manitou]

Maybe ego was developed from birth and before as a self-protecting mechanism, a framework for the human personality or expression. At some point in time a baby will flinch if something is coming at him. Maybe this is the onset of the growth of ego.

 

I liken it to growing a tomato plant. It needs a structure to hold it up, a cone of support. Maybe this is what the ego is for. There's no doubt we need it, even if just to avoid oncoming traffic. The structure apparently must be there for self-preservation. But this brings up the notion of the concept of Half and Half; this is the ox that we must ride. Not too little, not too much. The delicate balancing act of the Tao; or maybe a butterfly landing on a bubble.

 

Character defects such as narcissism, selfishness, arrogance, the 'yang' movers, serve to increase the structure so that the beginnings can no longer be seen. This is why inner work has to be done to get to the place of Sight. The opposite defects, the other side of the coin, are the victim personalities, the ones feeling sorry for themselves and wearing this like a shield as well - the yin defects.

 

Both sides of the coin serve to obfuscate our view of the original Intent. My thought is that it's our responsibility to do the internal housecleaning from the inside out, to make sure that ego stays within a minimal perspective so that vision can be achieved.

[Birch]

Maybe ego was developed from birth and before as a self-protecting mechanism, a framework for the human personality or expression. At some point in time a baby will flinch if something is coming at him. Maybe this is the onset of the growth of ego.

 

I liken it to growing a tomato plant. It needs a structure to hold it up, a cone of support. Maybe this is what the ego is for. There's no doubt we need it, even if just to avoid oncoming traffic. The structure apparently must be there for self-preservation. But this brings up the notion of the concept of Half and Half; this is the ox that we must ride. Not too little, not too much. The delicate balancing act of the Tao; or maybe a butterfly landing on a bubble.

 

Character defects such as narcissism, selfishness, arrogance, the 'yang' movers, serve to increase the structure so that the beginnings can no longer be seen. This is why inner work has to be done to get to the place of Sight. The opposite defects, the other side of the coin, are the victim personalities, the ones feeling sorry for themselves and wearing this like a shield as well - the yin defects.

 

Both sides of the coin serve to obfuscate our view of the original Intent. My thought is that it's our responsibility to do the internal housecleaning from the inside out, to make sure that ego stays within a minimal perspective so that vision can be achieved.

Very nicely articulated and agreed with :-)

[~9~]

IMO, ego is a vessel for awareness, a vehicle of experience and is nessesary. I believe when most refer to ego, they are refering more to self-importance than the actual "ego". IMO the refereces in spiritual speak about the ego is not the removal, disintegration, dismantling of ego but rather moving beyond or transcending the ego as the sole means of awareness. The ego is not gone, or for that matter altered or somehow healed etc... but rather awareness which is retained as expereince is not limited to the container of ego. Awareness develops beyond the ego, and the ego is a nessesary step for this transcendance to occur. It occurs with the ego, not inpsite of it.

[Otis]

In the beginning, there was the word...

 

I think language gave rise to the ego. Language was this great new technology, that allowed man to work cooperatively, as never before. The problem is: technology has a way of reprogramming the brains of the people who use it.

 

Prior to language, there was the world, without conceptual separation. "You", "me", "good", "bad" did not exist, just life as one stream, with different flavors.

 

Once we had language, then there was separation, there was duality, there were concepts of pursue and avoid, virtue and vice.

 

This technology made us more powerful as a community, and sped up education, but the individual human now was alienated from life. We were taught by language, and formed beliefs made up of language. We began to mistake the concepts for the real thing, to mistake the dualities as describing how life is and/or should be. The further removed we were from experiential education, the more important the conceptual world became, and the less important the actual world.

 

Soon, we started resenting the actual world for not living up to our conceptual world. We blamed life for not being kind enough. We had to create deities to help us control life. We had to create demons to explain suffering. We turned ourselves into a divine species, more important than all others. We retreated from the natural world, further and further into our technologies and belief systems.

 

Eventually, especially in the West, we got so alienated from the natural, that we started seeing natural functions as gross, ungodly, below us. Our purpose was to be rational, to think our way through every problem, to design solutions, rather than find the ones that were already in the world. Our body was to be covered up, as much as possible, and kept removed from the environment, and from each others' eyes. And our body and desires were conceptually sliced up: into useful parts and sinful parts, so we were no longer whole. We were now considered born impure, animalistic, and only conditioning (and the grace of God) could get us to virtue.

Edited March 26, 2011 by Otis

[Otis]

Here's another question for the Bums:

 

Is the "you" that is reading this, who may create a response, is that "you" your ego? Or is that really You?

 

When are you not your ego? Or are "you" always the ego, but within the greater You?

[manitou]

In the beginning, there was the word...

 

I think language gave rise to the ego. Language was this great new technology, that allowed man to work cooperatively, as never before. The problem is: technology has a way of reprogramming the brains of the people who use it.

 

That's an interesting comment. Imagine little robototrons working in a factory day after day, doing the same chore. Surely one part of the brain would diminish over a long period of time.

 

Prior to language, there was the world, without conceptual separation. "You", "me", "good", "bad" did not exist, just life as one stream, with different flavors.

 

Once we had language, then there was separation, there was duality, there were concepts of pursue and avoid, virtue and vice.

 

This technology made us more powerful as a community, and sped up education, but the individual human now was alienated from life. We were taught by language, and formed beliefs made up of language. We began to mistake the concepts for the real thing, to mistake the dualities as describing how life is and/or should be. The further removed we were from experiential education, the more important the conceptual world became, and the less important the actual world.

 

It occurs to me that not only has our academic knowledge and education sped up, our emotional dynamics must certainly have been affected too. We are virtually spending most of our lives looking into a box of some sort, whether it's TV or a mobile device. We (collectively) are living our lives virtually, through watching sit-coms, watching movies, playing games - anything that involves emotions. The emotions we experience now probably fluctuate much more on a day to day basis than those of the indigenous - or perhaps not! With all the trauma they had to endure on a daily basis, maybe this is Tao's way of us staying in touch with those baser emotions through watching it virtually in some media. This is an interesting question...

 

Soon, we started resenting the actual world for not living up to our conceptual world. We blamed life for not being kind enough. We had to create deities to help us control life. We had to create demons to explain suffering. We turned ourselves into a divine species, more important than all others. We retreated from the natural world, further and further into our technologies and belief systems.

 

My god, there's enough for 10 threads in that paragraph. I wouldn't know where to start, lol.

 

Eventually, especially in the West, we got so alienated from the natural, that we started seeing natural functions as gross, ungodly, below us. Our purpose was to be rational, to think our way through every problem, to design solutions, rather than find the ones that were already in the world. Our body was to be covered up, as much as possible, and kept removed from the environment, and from each others' eyes. And our body and desires were conceptually sliced up: into useful parts and sinful parts, so we were no longer whole. We were now considered born impure, animalistic, and only conditioning (and the grace of God) could get us to virtue.

 

A well thought out conclusion, Otis. You've described the parts that we are left to deal with. Personally, I had to do it through a breakdown, but they're actually kind of wonderful because it gives a whole new place to start.

[Simple_Jack]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Marblehead]

Here's another question for the Bums:

 

Is the "you" that is reading this, who may create a response, is that "you" your ego? Or is that really You?

 

When are you not your ego? Or are "you" always the ego, but within the greater You?

 

Hi Otis,

 

For me, the ego and the physical 'self' is one and the same as long as we do not inflate our ego to a greater status than our body (including our mind) can support. However, I think that the world of Spirituality is beyond the ego.

[Marblehead]

P.S. I'm not trying to convert you mofo's!

 

Don't worry. I'm not even paying any attention to you. Hehehe.

 

(Not true but I just couldn't help saying it. The devil made me do it.)

[manitou]

 

(Not true but I just couldn't help saying it. The devil made me do it.)

 

 

How very dual of you.

[Simple_Jack]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Otis]

Manitou wrote: We are virtually spending most of our lives looking into a box of some sort, whether it's TV or a mobile device. We (collectively) are living our lives virtually, through watching sit-coms, watching movies, playing games - anything that involves emotions.

Yeah, who knows in what ways we are programming ourselves now? I know some people who have grown so dependent on their GPS systems, that they've lost the ability to navigate on their own.

 

The emotions we experience now probably fluctuate much more on a day to day basis than those of the indigenous - or perhaps not! With all the trauma they had to endure on a daily basis, maybe this is Tao's way of us staying in touch with those baser emotions through watching it virtually in some media. This is an interesting question...

Yeah, I think that horror movies, for example, serve a purpose by activating certain systems in the human body that would otherwise go unstimulated. In pre-language humanity, we'd witness (and cause) gruesome death, on a regular basis. We would chase and be chased. Now, we usually only get that emotional charge vicariously, through news and entertainment.

[Otis]

It appears to me that the harder my ego clings on and tries to control reality the more my muscles tense especially in the face and head...

Good observation. I notice the same (and freedom emerging when my body moves on its own). IME, moving while in ego is like riding a bike with the brakes always on.

 

From that, I take it that the part of my brain which I refer to as "me" (i.e. the ego) is a language-oriented area, but not a physical movement area. It tries to control the body's movement (because it thinks it's the whole "me" and therefore needs to be in control), but it isn't designed for the job, and so it ends up getting in the body's way.

 

That's why I see authentic movement practices as so important, so "I" (i.e. my ego) can spend time getting out of the way, allowing my body (i.e. the movement areas of my brain & body) to be back in control of the tasks that it's supposed to do.

[Marblehead]

 

From that, I take it that the part of my brain which I refer to as "me" (i.e. the ego) is a language-oriented area, but not a physical movement area. It tries to control the body's movement (because it thinks it's the whole "me" and therefore needs to be in control), but it isn't designed for the job, and so it ends up getting in the body's way.

 

That's why I see authentic movement practices as so important, so "I" (i.e. my ego) can spend time getting out of the way, allowing my body (i.e. the movement areas of my brain & body) to be back in control of the tasks that it's supposed to do.

 

Excellent observation, I think.

[Aaron]

Hello Otis,

 

Very nice topic. I think when one asks this question it's very important to keep in mind that one's cultural perspective plays a large part in the definition of ego. Since others have already given an excellent example of the Buddhist and to a lesser extent Taoists view ego, I will instead try to explain it as I view it.

 

I believe that ego is a small part of our consciousness, the part that we create to define ourselves according to our cultural understanding. Ego is a tool we create that allows us to interact with others around us. We are not the only creatures that have ego, animals have ego, if not in the same way. The difference between ego and self, is that ego is not the entirety of self, but rather those aspects that we identify with. It is literally our identity.

 

Beyond ego there is the rest of us, what some call the subconscious. There also resides the opposite of ego, the shadow, as Jungians are prone to call it, that part of us that contains those desires and wants that are not culturally acceptable and thus hidden and denied.

 

Both the ego and shadow reside within our conscious mind. The key thing to remember is that ego and shadow, as I've stated, aren't the entirety of everything. They aren't even awareness, but rather a carefully detailed persona that we create for ourselves. We are taught to create this persona when we are young. We view the different roles people play in society and determine where we fit into those roles.

 

I am a boy, so I should play with guns and toy soldiers. I have a mother and father, so I should get married and become a father. It's wrong to steal and lie, so I should be an honest person. The list goes on. Men are astronauts, cowboys, and doctors. Women are housewives, teachers, and nurses. Of course social constructs have changed over the last few decades, so these personae are becoming less strict, but they are still there.

 

Beyond the ego there is also us, the actual us that exists hidden below the carefully defined borders of our ego. It is the part of us that shudders when we experience something without knowing why. It is the us that we do not even know exists, except in those rare moments when time begins to slip away and we can experience the full nature of who we are, like when we are dreaming.

 

Many of the philosophical schools in the East and the mystical traditions of the West focus on understanding the parts we are not aware of, the subconscious, in order to fully understand our connection with the world around us. That is what's meant by looking within, understanding our true nature, the nature that existed before we began to construct our ego as a necessity.

 

Anyways, I could go into further detail, but this thread isn't about deconstructing the ego, but rather defining it, so I will leave it at that.

 

I hope life is treating you well,

 

Aaron

Edited March 27, 2011 by Twinner

[Stigweard]

Hello Otis,

 

Very nice topic. I think when one asks this question it's very important to keep in mind that one's cultural perspective plays a large part in the definition of ego. Since others have already given an excellent example of the Buddhist and to a lesser extent Taoists view ego, I will instead try to explain it as I view it.

 

I believe that ego is a small part of our consciousness, the part that we create to define ourselves according to our cultural understanding. Ego is a tool we create that allows us to interact with others around us. We are not the only creatures that have ego, animals have ego, if not in the same way. The difference between ego and self, is that ego is not the entirety of self, but rather those aspects that we identify with. It is literally our identity.

 

Beyond ego there is the rest of us, what some call the subconscious. There also resides the opposite of ego, the shadow, as Jungians are prone to call it, that part of us that contains those desires and wants that are not culturally acceptable and thus hidden and denied.

 

Both the ego and shadow reside within our conscious mind. The key thing to remember is that ego and shadow, as I've stated, aren't the entirety of everything. They aren't even awareness, but rather a carefully detailed persona that we create for ourselves. We are taught to create this persona when we are young. We view the different roles people play in society and determine where we fit into those roles.

 

I am a boy, so I should play with guns and toy soldiers. I have a mother and father, so I should get married and become a father. It's wrong to steal and lie, so I should be an honest person. The list goes on. Men are astronauts, cowboys, and doctors. Women are housewives, teachers, and nurses. Of course social constructs have changed over the last few decades, so these personae are becoming less strict, but they are still there.

 

Beyond the ego there is also us, the actual us that exists hidden below the carefully defined borders of our ego. It is the part of us that shudders when we experience something without knowing why. It is the us that we do not even know exists, except in those rare moments when time begins to slip away and we can experience the full nature of who we are, like when we are dreaming.

 

Many of the philosophical schools in the East and the mystical traditions of the West focus on understanding the parts we are not aware of, the subconscious, in order to fully understand our connection with the world around us. That is what's meant by looking within, understanding our true nature, the nature that existed before we began to construct our ego as a necessity.

 

Anyways, I could go into further detail, but this thread isn't about deconstructing the ego, but rather defining it, so I will leave it at that.

 

I hope life is treating you well,

 

Aaron

Excellent comments Aaron, I agree with what you are saying here.

 

I understand the "ego" to be a sense of self-importance founded on the sum total of conceptual self-description. It is a narcissistic fixation to the conglomerate of words that define us as "this is who I am and this is my world."

 

And yes it is merely a sliver of what you may call our consciousness, and yet it's enmeshed bonds are so tightly woven around our portals of perception, and the incessant clatter of descriptive self-dialogue is so "loud," that the greater parts of our consciousness doesn't even get a "look in".

 

And I will also agree with you that part of any cultivation that aspires to integrate ones complete potential for "consciousness" must include an effective process of dissolving the fixations of this rigid, conceptually based "ego". I have given some of my thoughts on the matter over here:

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/16119-the-way-of-the-warrior/page__view__findpost__p__220955

 

[Otis]

What the ego actually is I wonder if it is just an attitude to life or an opinion about the way life should be. When we are very young we have no ego but then we start to learn that some things are more acceptable than others so we try to get rid of the things less acceptable by willing them to be different through repression, so it is like an set of beliefs which believes in its own power to mould reality in the way we like. It requires force to try to mould reality so I wonder if the essence of the ego is aggressive energy.

This is very much how I view ego, as basically my interpretive lens for seeing and interacting with reality.

 

Or, I could say: ego is the action of mistaking my internal simulacrum of reality, for what is actually out there.

[Otis]

Hey Aaron. Great points; I'm in much agreement.

 

A question about this:

 

Beyond the ego there is also us, the actual us that exists hidden below the carefully defined borders of our ego. It is the part of us that shudders when we experience something without knowing why. It is the us that we do not even know exists, except in those rare moments when time begins to slip away and we can experience the full nature of who we are, like when we are dreaming.

My question is: if the ego obscures the actual us, does that suggest that the ego is something separate from the actual us?

 

Or is the "actual" self the ego self + all the other parts of self that I don't usually think of as "self"? If it is the latter, then what distinguishes the "actual self" from what there is right now, which is the sum total of all parts? Another way of asking this is: where does the ego go, when you perceive your "actual self"?

 

Anyways, I could go into further detail, but this thread isn't about deconstructing the ego, but rather defining it, so I will leave it at that.

Feel free to deconstruct!

[Otis]

I understand the "ego" to be a sense of self-importance founded on the sum total of conceptual self-description. It is a narcissistic fixation to the conglomerate of words that define us as "this is who I am and this is my world."

Yeah, whether I make myself into a martyr or a hero, I'm still elevating my importance.

 

And yes it is merely a sliver of what you may call our consciousness, and yet it's enmeshed bonds are so tightly woven around our portals of perception, and the incessant clatter of descriptive self-dialogue is so "loud," that the greater parts of our consciousness doesn't even get a "look in".

I think "loud" is a very good term for it. Loud and fast. The quickest, most insistent internal reaction (the one accompanied by all the alarms going off) to a crisis situation is often the worst response, but it is usually the most compelling one.

[Gerard]

Is the "you" that is reading this, who may create a response, is that "you" your ego? Or is that really You?

 

The environmentally/karmic created you. The real "you" is what you'll experience when you reach Nirvana or the conscious state of returning to the original SPIRIT. But you need to experience that...only you and not us or anyone else trying to explain it what it is really like since MY EXPERIENCE will be significantly different than yours or a certain yogi living in the constellation of Phoenix.