Friday, January 18, 2013

Understanding Your Ego

Your ego is your sense of self identity. It is your unique identifier. It is the mechanism using which you are able to differentiate and navigate your environment. Your ego is your gamertag - your online persona, as you enter this reality matrix that you call 'the world'.
The ego receives a bad rap, as something undesirable, something that needs to be subdued, subjugated and altogether done away with. But what many don't realize is that it is a vital mecahnism without which you would have no means of functioning within this particular reality. According to the specific design parameters of this Universe's reality, each human being MUST have an ego - it is a requirement. Without the ability to perceive yourself as a separate organism independent in your environement you would have no means of recognizing the need to create, survive and evolve as an individual organism. The ego is that very impulse to create and preserve the individual's reality. 
All this is just a technicality. What most people actually find objectionable is not the ego per se, but rather the ego's tendency to enhance pain and suffering. And this is where a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play is necessary.
The ego itself is nothing more than an identifier. It is not an entity with any intelligence or personal will of its own. It is more a 'something' than a 'someone'. So to feel angry or negatively towards an ego is much like being pissed off at a chair. It’s a dead piece of furniture at best.
Think of an ego as a large balloon with your name on it. You can think of it as a complex balloon with a number of chambers inside, each of which can be inflated independently of each other.
Each chamber in this balloon that is the ego is a particular aspect of the ego-self. One aspect may be your family ego (the person you tend to be around family members), another may be your work-ego (who you are at work), your social ego (who you are in society and among friends), your private ego (who you are when no one is around), your sexual ego, your spiritual ego, your national ego, your religious ego, your political ego, your child ego, your parent ego and the list goes on and on. There are an infinite number of subtle variations that would each constitute an aspect of your ego - the balloon has many chambers.
The balloon itself is flaccid by nature and has no real will or volition of its own. But when air is pumped into one or more of its chambers, it begins to inflate and move. As the chambers inflate more and more, the little 'you' that is holding the balloon by its string begins to have a harder and harder time controlling it. Before you know it the balloon starts to slowly lift you off the ground and off you go sailing in every which direction according to its whims and fancies, according to whichever way the wind decides to blow. Flying out of control, you crash into trees, into buildings, into other people flying out of control with their balloons - and this is when you begin to suffer.
But how are these chambers inflating in the first place and why? Thought is the valve that releases the gas, emotion is the gas that fills and expands the chamber. Each time you have a thought, that thought has the potential to create an emotional response within your system. If the thought is something completely arbitrary such as "i need to pick up a dozen eggs today", this is not something that is a self-reflecting thought and so does not generate much of an emotional response. However, if the thought is something like "I’m getting fat" then the emotional response is a significant one because this is a self-reflecting thought. Or if it’s a thought about another person such as "that pregnant woman is smoking" it is still a self-reflecting thought because what you are potentially saying is "that woman is doing something I believe is harmful" if that is in fact what you believe.
Every thought you have whether it is an arbitrary one or a personal one loosens the valve on the gas tank, it’s just a question of degrees. A thought such as "this chair is comfortable" is likely to budge the valve only by a hair whereas the thought "my parents never loved me" is likely to send the whole damn thing spinning.
The clue to understanding the ego is not to try and control it, to fight it, to subdue it or ignore it. Because everything you "do" only turns the valve on and inflates it. The clue is in seeing that you actually have the choice and the ability to disconnect that balloon from the gas tank from time to time, whenever you please.
The next time you have a self-referential thought especially if it a negative one, notice the immediate emotional response that rises within your system. You can observe the physiological symptoms that arise - the increased heart rate, the rise in body temperature, the clenching sensation in your gut and others. And watch how this emotional response causes your awareness to immediately contract. Your mind suddenly hyper focuses on the thought and develops something like a tunnel consciousness (like tunnel vision).
This hyper focus then attracts the next thought that magnifies the emotional response and heightens the physiological symptoms which attract even more thoughts and soon it begins to spiral. This is like a hand spinning and opening the valve faster and faster and faster. As the gas releases it inflates the chambers in the balloon and off you go to the races. 
At the moment the thought arises see if you can be watchful and alert. Allow the thought and the emotional response that come up with it almost as an outside observer or witness. At this point this is not "your thought" or "your emotion". You have yet to lay any claims of ownership. The moment you think of it as "yours", you have made the connection. The ego-balloon is now firmly fixed to the gas tank and the inflation has begun.
But instead of labeling the thought/emotion, just allow it to be there - as this alien entity that is separate from you. And experience it. Let the emotion, with its entire energy and essence, surge through your system. Then watch it dissipate and disappear. With nowhere to go it has no choice but to dissipate. Just as gas released from a gas tank dissipates if left open to the air.
What you have essentially done is make the choice not to feed the ego. You have demonstrated to yourself that you have the freedom in every moment to regulate your own self-identity and suffering. And most fundamentally you have demonstrated that your true identity is not derived from the ego, your emotions, your thoughts, your name, the roles you play in this world or any ideas you may have about yourself. Your true identity is always prior to and more fresh and spontaneous than all of that. It only exists in the present moment.
With practice the more you see that the mechanisms that feed your ego and similarly the egos of other people, of organizations, of institutions, of nations and religious tribes are all essentially one and the same mechanism, then you can make the choice not to participate in the ego game anymore. You may choose to inflate your ego every once in a while, but you are now in charge. A healthy ego is a pleasure to have and it is a fascinating tool to experience life with.
No longer do you need to be at the mercy of an out of control balloon tossing you around ruthlessly. Rather your experience is of the hot-air balloon pilot who uses his skill and wisdom to gently release and balance each chamber, ever watchful and mindful. Then your experience of life can become one of true journey and adventure. One, where your balloon is your vehicle which carries you away to explore this vast and myriad universe that is Life.  

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