Our ego is one of the most intimidating and inscrutable realities we face in our lives. Countless philosophers, spiritualists, seekers and armchair prognosticators have tried to define its parameters and its meaning to our existence. We even have wonderful teachers -- like my friends at Gita Sutras -- attempting to actualize and excavate the nature of our ego for our most positive spiritual benefit.
Some would also rather do away with the whole idea of the ego altogether, but according to the teachings of the bhakti-yoga tradition, that is not possible. The Bhagavad-gita and countless other wisdom teachings of the bhakti tradition teach us that we are eternally individual spirit souls, currently going through a materialistic bodily experience. We always have an ego, or existence as a unique, individual being, but what we have to watch out for is our "false ego."
One of my teachers has explained the concept like this: We have two dogs in our heart. One is our actual ego, our reality as spirit soul, and one is the false ego, or our false identification with our temporary material body. Both dogs are barking to get our attention, and whichever one we pay attention to the most, or feed the most, becomes dominant in our consciousness. Or, as the Cherokee proverb says:
There is a battle of two wolves inside us all.
One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.
The wolf that wins? The one you feed.
At its essence, the false ego creates for us suffering, and according to the wisdom of the bhakti tradition, that is completely antithetical to our natural sense of being. As spirit souls, our substance is made of eternality (sat), knowledge (cit), and bliss (ananda), which is also the very same substance as God. Perhaps the greatest form of ananda we can experience is our direct loving relationship with God through His grace and mercy. How we gain access to this is defined by our practical understanding of our own ego-nature.
As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:
If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditioned life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost. (Chapter 18, Verse 58)
The false ego ... which is like a reflection of our true consciousness within matter, is the covering over the soul first supplied by material nature and is the juncture between our spiritual identity and our material existence. Any ego-identity in which we imagine ourselves the central figure is acceptable to our perverse consciousness.Thus the soul, constitutionally Krsna's eternal servant -- full of bliss, knowledge, and eternity -- becomes attracted to the material atmosphere and conditioned by it. He is then strictly controlled by the modes of material nature and experiences the self as if it were made of temporary matter.
Gaining access to our real sense of ego means doing all we can to develop our selfless spiritual character. This is actually our natural self, yet to be selfless in this dog-eat-dog world seems so unnatural, because we choose to absorb ourselves in the schemes of our false ego. This is why spiritual life is such a serious endeavor. We must have an everyday practice, whether it is the chanting of God's names, reading of holy scriptures, and service to our community and the less-fortunate, to help us excavate what is most dear and intimate to us, our real spiritual self.
Every moment of every day we are making a choice which dog to feed. Our spirituality begins and ends with our consciousness, so let us try to become more conscious of the very sense of self and identity we are developing in our lives together.
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Great article.
When there is no room for anyone elses!
Here are some great translations of the the Bhagavad-Gita that I can recommend too:
Bhagavad Gita: Talks Between the Soul and God by Ranchor Prime
http://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Talks-Between-Soul/dp/0956184618
Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord's Secret Love Song by Graham M. Schweig
http://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Beloved-Lords-Secret/dp/0060754257
its not always wise to turn to the other cheek...im sure Jesus implies this when he spoke to others back in his day
...the lord is slow to anger, saving his vengeance for his advisaries and his wrath for his enemies...Que Eres Sum...I will teach you of how to put you enemies at your feet...forgive your brother 7 times 77 times.
"The Bhagavad-gita and countless other wisdom teachings of the bhakti tradition teach us that we are eternally individual spirit souls," But should the other option be ignored entirely that we are not eternal but conditioned and that there is no permanent jivan atma but a continuous stream of being whose future is unknown and uncertain from our standpoint?
"We have two dogs in our heart."
And the two dogs bark in a chorus. There is only one dog neither body or spirit or soul.
"We must have an everyday practice. . ." Are we actors on a stage memorizing an rehearsing our lines? This is about living and not pretending to live. Hence no practice. A disciplined life, yes but not one where we pretend these things.
"There are two wolves in each man's heart... love and hate. The one you feed the most... wins."
I like their saying better than the one you put into your article. It seems as if you took a simple worded saying and complicated it into a more worded concept... when beauty is always simply put???
I do not think that you should take credit for that thought... do you???
So the Native American "two wolves" (which is credited, if you re-read the article and therefore not plagarized) and the "two dogs" are but two themes of "ego" that have come about in far distant places from each other, not "stolen" but co-created.
Yes, I know that Hinduism has strong messages of non-violence. But it also has a history of practiced violence. So long as the body is a means to an immaterial end, combat excuses the dying. My guess is that my objection is voiced somewhere in the ancient Hindu tradition but can be lost in its popular expressions.
Thank you
As a naturalist/atheist, I also think the ego, as we experience it, is "false" or misleading, so to speak, but for different reasons. It seems that we are often the recipient of our emotional states, going along with the flow of our lives. Taking charge of oneself and realizing the nature of consciousness and the mind can allow one to remove oneself from the equation. This doesn't seem too different from your views here.
We get this sense that we are a "construct" or a "mask." The reality of our real self is such a mystery.
Real genuine spirituality/searching for truth has to include the internal journey, through the study of our body-mind-soul construct, to understand the reality of our real self. Otherwise, it's just yet another external construct or mask which covers who we actually are.
Thanks for the kind words!
Many people conveniently confuse the two.
Self Regard: "It's wrong for you to hurt me."
Ego:". It's wrong for you to want to not be hurt, it's my decision if you hurt or not, if I want to hurt you (also, it works out great for me, if I say there's no such thing as wrong)."
People sometimes hear of selflessness and they get jittery because they believe it means giving up their ambitions, their character, their uniqueness, their personality.
Real selflessness, and real self-regard, means simply to learn how to serve and care for others from the loving core of our heart. It doesn't preclude our "ego" or self, but is actually the enhancing process which helps to understand our best self and how to give of our best self.
*self regard is the consideration of oneself/one's interests, as an integral part of the whole
*selfishness depends on it's own exclusivity ("it works out great for me, if I say there's no such thing as wrong")
A healthy ego recognises all parts are integral to the whole, thus is inclusive rather than exclusive.