WHAT exactly is the ego? That is a very difficult question to answer, for it is our ego itself that is trying to answer that question; a sticking point that is impossible to get away from, for to be a human being here on earth means by association, to be an ego. We accept the ego as being who we are, our body and our name, which is separate from all other ego body’s and names.
Maybe though, it might be possible to sneak up on the ego and get a small glimpse of its true nature, something that the ego does not like, for it hates to be found out. It would much rather work unnoticed in the background.
The first revelation is that the ego, as a separate intelligent entity does not exist. It is a figment of our imagination. That is difficult to come to grips with because what we believe to be ourselves - the ego will protest saying, ‘but I am me, look, I am alive.’ In reality though, it is a phantom, a ghost who pretends to be real.
If it does not exist, how then can the ego protest? Because it is ‘the real you’, your true self that is under a hypnotic spell, not the ego that is protesting, supplying the intelligence attributed to the ego. We are of the mind and we confuse the mind with the ego but - the ego is not the mind and the mind is not of the ego.
We have locked ourselves into a false identity crisis. The ego is an integral part of the body, the machine we use to get around this physical world in. The egos workplace is the brain, that wrinkly clump of soft, spongy matter that’s between our ears.
Back in our caveman days, to survive the hostile physical environment that surrounded us, we had to learn a lot of things including what to eat and what not to eat - also how to kill and prepare meat from other life forms that supplied us with the protein we needed for our body to survive. We needed the ego to be able to succeed in performing those tasks, but we don’t need it so much now...
Dan’s Quote: “You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic.”~ Alan Watts
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