The ego has become a hot potato recently, not only because it is a notion that we all have wrestled with, but also because it is so central to who we are and more importantly, what we do. The thing is, people don’t really like the Ego, because they associate it with negative behaviors which stem from self-seeking, greedy or otherwise negative emotions. I do not dispute these negative connotations but would rather like to associate them with the dualistic notion that so intertwine negativity with positivity, and the potential lessons we can learn from the distinction between assumed reality and practical wisdom. In eastern philosophy, the Ego is regarded as an illusion of self, as distinct from the true-self which corresponds to the underlying fabric of existence, that is all-encompassing, outside of space and time. It all starts by asking yourself who you are, on a fundamental level. Are you the flow of perceptions and feelings, or are you the collection of photons, atoms, particles and bacteria that make up your body. Are you able to observe your existence from an ‘outside the box’ perspective, you being the box, and if so, who is doing the observing? The ego is in my opinion a very powerful tool, for reasons i will elaborate in this post, and therefore should not be labelled entirely negative, but neither should it be used unwisely. Like all tools, take a hammer for instance, you can build a house or break something with it, and then put it back in the toolbox, where it belongs. If the toolbox is your brain, you want to be careful what you do with it and how you use it, for the tool of the ego should be used with caution lest we forget the power of the mind and the effects it can for better or for worse have on our subjective lives. In a world of increasingly rapid and exponential changes, we certainly can be reminded of the power and responsibility of our minds, and particularly that of the infamous Ego, its most powerful and deceptive tool. I feel like this is why ‘mindfulness’ exercises are becoming so popular, the abundance of stimuli and information being thrown around these days make it easy to forget to ask the important questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of our existence? We all need to take some time to reflect on these questions, and in attempting to answer them become enlightened to the power, responsibility and privilege of being human; not only in the practical sense that it brings us so much efficiency and access to information, but in the very ability and implications of being able to ask such questions in the first place, and the doors opened therefrom.
According to Buddhist doctrine we suffer because of 5 main reasons and these are all in a way linked to one another, and are really just different ways of describing the same fear. they are called ‘Dukkha’, and represent the main reasons for suffering in its various forms. You suffer because:
- You don’t know who you are
- You grasp and cling at experiences which are transitory and dreamlike
- You are afraid of/avoid unpleasant things (pain, abandonment)
- You Identify with the ego
- You fear death
“We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein
We can try as we might to attach ourselves to these symbols and worship them to the degree of the strength of our belief systems, but they are just that, beliefs and symbols of the truth which is and has always been right under our nose. Some people are haunted by their memories and expectations, which are representations of times that are gone, or don’t exist, forgetting that the present is an everlasting opportunity for a fresh start, and attachment to provisional ideas hold you back. For in remembering the past or postulating the future, you are reconstructing and experiencing them in the present, for better or for worse. You may once have been shat on by a pigeon, but today the memory can cause you pain, though it happened a long time ago. If you identify with the feelings you once felt, which don’t exist any more, you may well be unnecessarily causing yourself to suffer. You may feel shame or regret for a personality you once conveyed in your youth, despite the fact that you are a different person today both from a cellular level and experientially. Similarly you may reminisce on a good memory, a first kiss, winning the lottery, laughing with friends, and be reminded of the potential for joy in every single moment. In this sense it is freedom from causality that awareness provides. Awareness of the present moment and it’s contents, the freedom of choice of perspective. It becomes in this sense, a choice, and with that choice corresponds infinite opportunity, not to mention responsibility not only for your own wellbeing but that also indirectly that of your fellow earthlings; human, animal, insect or other, who each play an important role in their own way, in the vast ecosystem of life on this planet. By clinging to something that doesn’t exist you are quite literally wasting your energy, your time, and your life, regurgitating things that don’t exist, that are blocking you from being present in the now, where you would best be suited to efficiently process what is; in the most natural way. With your awareness, you can find the path of least resistance, which is a means to an end and not an end in itself. In our confusion, we perpetuate clinging and attachment to feelings associated with transient things. The natural balance of the pendulum of life that sways between positivity to negativity through the device of our actions would like to swing synchronously in equilibrium of its duality of contrasts. but we selfishly hold on to it too long on the side we want it to remain, so it swings back even harder to the opposite side. Like the great snake Ouroboros that eats his own tail in an attempt to quench his hunger, unbeknownst to the intention of the experiencer, who seeks to control the outcome and avoid a certain result, yet in his folly finds himself condemned to repeat his mistakes again and again, perpetuating the opposite of his intended goal. Yet it is the contrast of the two that naturally co-create each other, and like the underlying message of Ying and Yang, the balance of existence finds itself ‘self-so’ (Wu-wei), without any added stimulus from our imposing egos. What we can take away from this is that the ego is a result-seeking mechanism, and that we may be surprised by the relief experienced by the letting go of expectations connected to that result-seeking.
Ideas are symbols of things, but they do not represent the things in a literal sense, anymore than the graph represents the tangible reality it attempts to capture in linear form, or that the photograph represents the individuals it contains. Your name is in this sense an idea, a symbol, a useful one at that, because it allows you to meet certain social needs more easily, and saves a lot of time. But it too is only a representation of your body which is in turn a representation of its constituting cells, molecules, and atoms and so on and so forth. The realization or ‘awakening’ to this fact, the futility of measurement and certainty in a world of constant flux, and the accompanying ‘release’ is so powerful because it is an understanding akin to momentum. A potential responsibility, to become the best version of yourself, through the peeling back of all the non-truth layers you have been identifying with your whole life. It is, from a practical point of view, the absence of bullshit; you can imagine it as a dusty windshield, or foggy vision, that once cleaned or aided by glasses becomes perfectly clear. One of my favorite examples to convey this message, i read in a book by Alan Watts called ‘Become What You Are‘ in which he compares the transient usefulness of ideas and symbols to using a raft to cross a lake; once on the other side you leave the raft at the shore, you don’t cary it on your back. Similarly we must remember that the ego is a raft, that serves a particular purpose. Lest we carry it on our backs and inconvenience ourselves, or worse drift out to the ocean where we would float aimlessly forever.
The Garden of Earthly Delights which comes to mind here from a movie I once saw called ‘before the flood’, is a surrealistic work that i thought was quite fitting to illustrate the lengths the ego can go to satiate its desires. Depicted are three distinct panels, in each of which can be seen captivating but significantly different environments. In the first the garden of Eden, beautiful and plentiful. In the second panel; decadence, avarice and intemperance. In the third panel; hell on earth, something we need to avoid at all costs. So ladies and gents, heres the takeaway; take a break and meditate from time to time to remind yourself of your true self, which is not body or mind but the awareness in which experience is happening. Remember to be true to yourself, listen to your heart and intuition, your guiding voice that represents untold wisdom, millions of years of evolutionary R&D that has birthed the most powerful super computer in the known universe right there in your own head; the human brain, a force to be reckoned with! In so doing we can free ourselves of suffering the everyday challenges that so unnecessarily plague our lives, for our lives need not be difficult, and the difference is nothing more than a state of mind, it is a huge difference indeed. In awareness we can access the unlimited potential of our minds, and more importantly tune in to the wisdom of nature and the lessons, or rather ‘signposts’ and warnings that the universe puts up, so that we may avoid certain disasters and catastrophes, i’m looking at you climate change. We can pivot between worlds that are instantaneously accessed yet all encompassing at the flick of a mental switch. So be reminded when you use your ego as a source of motivation, inspiration or perspiration, of our good friends spider, bat and superman; with great power comes great responsibility.
Stay sustainable my friends,
Dizzy Bee
Below is a link to the interview that inspired me to write this blog post, with two of my favorite inspirational speakers, Tom Bilyeu and Deepak Chopra on Impact Theory in an inspirational and brilliant conversation. Buckle up for some serious enlightenment!
Here are some links to my favorite Deepak Chopra books from Amazon that you can read to dig deeper into his perspective, and gain incredibly useful and mind-opening insight:
Dizzy Bee Website and Blog 