The ego is getting a bad reputation.
There seems to be a popular conception in some spiritual circles that the ego must be battled -- that it is inherently destructive. At a seminar that I attended several years ago, which offered a lot of very effective and applicable guidance, the instructor told the attendees to visualize the abusive voice of ego as a snarling, slimy creature that creeps in the darkness. He said to imagine holding a ray gun that shoots pure light, zapping the creature and driving it out. "Say, 'Take that!'" the instructor urged, "and tell it that if it ever comes back you'll zap it again." In a recent interview with a well-known spiritual teacher, when asked if there is anything good about the ego, he flatly said, "No. The only thing to do with the ego is eliminate it."
Perhaps this message comes from a loose definition of the word "ego" in which it is simply a dump yard for all the delusional stuff that makes our lives miserable. If so, then the word has no use because it will mean something different to each person. A definition of "ego" that I like is "the program implanted in us to ensure physical survival." The ego enters when the non-physical soul is placed in physical form. Although duality and the separate self are illusions at the level of spirit, they are very real facts in the world of physicality, and the job of the ego is to protect our bodies and keep us alive. The ego continually scans for danger, seeing the possibility of lions lurking around every corner and viewing other people with suspicion. In this way, the ego is similar to "instinct" but contains a crucial difference. Ego has intelligence and evolves individually by collaborating with the mind in an attempt to understand the world and develop strategies for anticipating, preventing or defending against threatening situations.
There is nothing inherently "bad" about the ego. As a matter of fact, in itself it is good. It protects us and allows us to operate safely in physical form. It also provides much of our ambition and drive. The Talmud (the compilation of Jewish debate and law) states that without the ego "a man would not build a house, take a wife, have children or engage in commerce". The ego becomes a problem when, because of trauma or consistent childhood hurts and abuse, its protective function goes in to overdrive and decides to take over all aspects of our lives in order to control our thoughts and action.
The ego controls us through the narrative that it creates about who we are and how the world functions. It may tell us that we are not good enough, are unworthy and that no one could ever truly love us. Or it may say that people are essentially bad and cannot be trusted, that affection and love are delusions or that life is simply meaningless and random. These are all constructs created by the ego to keep us from engaging with the world and risk being hurt. And we all too often believe what the ego is telling us. Even if we've come to see that the things we feared are not so dangerous after all, that the lions are really kittens, the ego tells us, "Yes, but next time it may be real. You never can be sure. Better to be safe and assume the worst than to be dead." Then we live in a state of constant fear, exhaustion and anxiety -- disconnected from our passions and from vulnerable connections to others.
We may resolve to see what has been causing us so much pain, learn that it comes from the ego's fear and find a spiritual practice that offers a way to defeat the ego -- to finally shut up that shrill, accusatory voice and find peace. But this does not work for most of us. We can have an amazing, powerful experience during meditation, prayer, social work or study, in which we finally feel that the ego is gone, only to find later that same day that we have suddenly overreacted to a minor event -- an unintended insult or normal stress. Then we feel discouraged and increase our determination to kill this nuisance once and for all. Instead of seeking the love and compassion that is the goal of all spiritual practices, our practice now becomes a battlefield -- harsh and desperate.
The reason that the vast majority of us are not successful in battling the ego is because it is a living, conscious entity. Like all living things, it desires to stay alive and will fight back when attacked. This is especially true of the ego, whose entire purpose is survival. And because it resides inside of us, we cannot keep a secret from the ego. Once we have declared war, it will fight fiercely and even be willing to sabotage us -- its own host -- in order to ensure save itself. The more we see it as an ugly, repulsive thing, the more it fights back and the more we are determined to see its demise.
If we are to find peace with the ego, we need to completely reframe this dynamic. The truth is that the ego is not a snarling monster; it is more like a frightened child who has taken on responsibilities than it is not capable of managing. It has done this because it believed that no competent "grown-up" -- intellect, emotions, spirit -- had taken charge. Fearing for our survival, the ego attempts to determine our choices, direct our careers, manage our love life and even control our spirituality. The ego, however, doesn't have the skills to effectively address the nuances and complexity of these aspects of our lives, and it doesn't actually want to take on so much responsibility. That is why so many of us are exhausted after each day and unconsciously try to give our poor overworked egos a rest by tuning-out in front of the television, drinking, overworking, abusing drugs or even overdoing things that are usually helpful, like exercise and spiritual practices.
The path out of this dilemma is not eliminating the ego, but loving it enough to liberate it from the inappropriate load of work that it's assumed. We have an arsenal of tools for approaching the world, yet we may have been disconnected for so long from the wisdom of emotions and the guidance of spirit that we believe the only trustworthy way to know anything is the machinations of the ego and mind. The first step toward wholeness is courage. We must get to a point where we'd rather be eaten by lions than live our lives afraid of kittens.
Living involves risks, but the ego's strategy of keeping our head down removes us from the game. This leaves us depressed or bitter. This does not mean that we eliminate the ego, but that we restore it to its "consultancy" role. Once we make this shift, the ego relaxes, knowing that it is safe and that wise, experienced partners are on the job. It will take time for the ego to let go, but every time that we take a chance, listen to our heart, or surrender to spirit, we loosen the ego's grip. Even if the risk does not pay off, we must return to the commitment to not live in fear. With time we become sensitive to our internal voices and can hear when the ego feels in danger and makes a "power play." Then we can reassure it, affectionately -- like speaking to a child who had a bad dream.
I silently speak these words to my ego:
Dear friend, I value you and honor your role in my life. Without you I would not be safe from physical danger, and I rely on you to help identify these threats. But I also know that there are areas of life that you are not equipped to understand -- matters of love, faith, courage and purpose. I promise not to run off and take unnecessary risks, but I ask that you learn to trust and collaborate with the other aspects of our being. I may make mistakes, but I promise to learn from them. Is that agreeable?
A small, sweet, young voice usually answers, "Well, I guess that's OK."
Deep spiritual practices do not encourage us to condemn or destroy the ego (or to condemn and destroy anything), but to recognize that we are more than this. When the ego is presented with wisdom and maturity, it immediately softens. We see that its screaming and manipulations are simply the tantrum of an out of control child who is looking for security, comfort and love.
How to Control Ego, the False I, Me and Self | eHow.com
The Fight Between Your Ego and Wisdom
For me, the first step in parenting the ego is courage - the commitment to face fear, with the knowledge that you may stumble, but that it's better to stumble than to live with your head down and miss out on life. This also requires faith - not the common defination of faith as some kind of adoption of someone else's silly doctrine, but the deep knowing that the world is essentially good, and that you are cared for. Once you take small steps away from fear in to courage you gain more faith, and then more courage. When you try this your ego will put up a fight, and that is when it's important to respond in love rather than to dismiss or condemn it.
I try to do a little act of courage every day, like talking to someone who intimidates me, speaking a difficult truth, or trying to find compassion for someone who I have judged (although I all too often chicken out).
Hope this helps!
Wishing you well,
Alan
I wish you well in your work,
Alan
My take is that I'm not that important. That the bigger picture, the reality outside me is always more interesting than products of my ego.
It seems to me we have a moment by moment choice between dictates of the ego which I will define as promptings from the soul or reasoning strictly from reality. The first choice seems to protect us but keeps us in a state of perpetual defensiveness. The second choice allows access to logic, freedom and success.
I try to stay more in a state of questioning, "What's the message?"
The blogger here is more specifically writing about Freud's SUPER Ego. And yes, he's right about it too. The Super Ego is the judge and the voice within that is cautious and defensive. Freud's EGO, on the other hand, doesn't bother with judgment or fear. It is the referee between the Super Ego and the ID. It referees between social expectations and constraints, and the life/biologic drives of the ID. And as with the pop-psych definition, you can't live without this Ego either.
No one has successfully gotten rid of any of this. Tibetan Buddhist monks laugh a lot at it all. But all cultures have Super Egos, Egos and Ids. It's a fallacy of religion, or the pop concept of it, that anyone has at anytime destroyed their ego. They've sublimated it, which can be worse in the long run -- as the blogger notes.
the "good" books?
yeah, we all die -- and then we live again (reincarnation)
"adepts"? give me a break
the rest of what you say: huh?
The conflict between the id and the superego results in the formation of an ego. Sigmond Frued
Carl Jung was very good at digging into the unconcious psyche. Youtube has a lot of video on him thats relevant to this article.
Nonsense. The Self wouldn't exist without the ego or Ego either.
There is no spirit, only ego. So when you imagine that your spirit is talking to your ego, it is only one aspect of your ego (beliefs in courage, strength, optimism) talking to another aspect (fears, anxiety,or dominating behaviors).
Let go of the Spirit construction that is yet another defensive layer to protect you from the "world" by setting you apart from it. There is no separate being or life or afterlife.
There is only now and that is a beautiful thing no matter how ugly it may look at any particular moment.
Perhaps your ego, in its need to control and fear of the unknown and uncertain, has convinced you that it is all that there is, and even points to the 90% that you mentioned to tell you how special you are and how deluded the majority of others are.
Spirit, for me, is not a construct to protect me from the world, assure me that I will live after my physical body has died, or to separate me from others and life. Quite the opposite. It opens me up in confidence to the moment. It is not a mental model, but a living experience.
One might conclude that in the absence of evidence either position can be held with equanimity. But I would offer the following to support my contention that Spirit is a defensive construct. Dismissing Spirit was not a self-satisfying moment for me, but rather one of courage to realize that my conscious existence is finite, non-eternal. Although you express what you want to believe as the primary function of spirit, I am quite sure that at the core is the idea of a "soul" or a "spirit" that is somehow eternal and escapes death. The idea of an eternal spirit or soul is a comforting one and is a much easier answer to the universal need of every human for "need to control and fear of the unknown and uncertain," whereas positing the non-existence of soul only increases these fears initially; it does not quell them as you suggest. Finally, of course you go forth with confidence, you're immortal (as long as you're a good boy). I do not disparage humanity for these beliefs but hold hope for them that they might live their lives fully and not live for an "after-life" that will never be.
Guild
Only
It is a big universe, one of many universes. We live on a small planet in a galaxy, in a country, in a town or city and on a street with numbers we invented to figure out where we are.
There are important areas where it makes sense to say that different parts of ourselves are in conflict. And it is usually a sign of extremism when someone urges us to eliminate a part of ourselves, like sexuality or pride or self-interest. But the themes of self-interest in Buddhism and "evil inclination" in the Talmud go deeper than a simple identification of neurotic fears. And if we're going to personify an aspect of ourselves as a "living entity", there are more significant dynamic complexes to personify.
(Sorry if I sound persnickety about this. I spent a lot of time studying and writing about yetzer ha-ra.)
Great comments!
You're right; the quote I used from the Talmud uses the term yetzer ha-ra, which as you note translates literally as "the evil inclination". The Rabbis contrasted this with yetzer ha-tov, "the good inclination". For them both are needed, and as a matter of fact, they note that the 6th day of creation is "very good" because on that day the yetzer ha-tov was created - so there is a complex dynamic here, where the "bad" is very good. Ha-tov flows from G-d, and ha-ra from the needs of physicality. I would argue that all the qualities that they ascribed to the yetzer ha-ra - the need for control, the unexamined urge to procreate, the desire for fame, wealth, and power, and the will to dominate - stems from the fear of physical harm and death, which is the "ego" as I described it.
Now I am not well versed in Buddhism, but from what I've read and heard, the ego is something similar.
Of course I could be wrong!
I also have another twist: our creative efforts at interpreting the Torah (and interpreting our lives in the world) also depend on the yetzer ha-ra.