WHAT IS THE EGO?
We all speak of the ego. We say, ‘My ego is hurt,’ just as we tell others, ‘Don’t be egoistic.’ But do we know what exactly ego is? Ego is the Latin word for ‘I’. The ego is an identification of who we are. It sees ‘me’ being different from ‘you’ just as what is ‘mine’ is not ‘yours’.
While we have a fair idea of what the ego is, some of us don’t understand why we must let go of our ego. If the ego is ‘me’, then just let it be. Some people wonder why I should not be ‘I’. They even promote the concept of self-esteem and positive self-importance that is born from a person’s sense of ego.
Therefore, is the ego positive or negative, good or bad? What is the significance of the title of this book - Let go of your EGO and you will find GOD? As we traverse the journey of the ego, we will discover its importance, just as we realize how it masks the truth and makes us suffer. For this, we must go into an in-depth study of the ego, what exactly it is and how it works.
Each one of us has an ego that comes alive once we become conscious of ourselves. Does a child who is just born have an ego? She blissfully screams and is unaware of her existence. Slowly she grows and as a toddler if somebody takes away her toy, she will scream, ‘This is my toy!’ Here we see the ego coming alive, though somehow subconsciously. As we grow, the ego becomes stronger and stronger. We demand to be called by our name. ‘I am Steven,’ we sometimes shout when somebody spells Steven as Stephen. Even the wrong spelling of our name offends our ego.
‘My ego is my identity. My ego is me. I don’t want anybody playing with my ego. My life, my rules!’ We human beings become sensitive to who we are and turn egoistic. ‘This is my body, my hand, my nose.’ ‘This book is mine, the car is mine, the house is mine. That’s my mother, my father, and my sister.’ Our ego starts dominating our life as we start identifying ourselves with our family, our society, and our loved ones.
Not just egoistic, we form such an inflated opinion about ourselves that we become arrogant, so much so that we do not pay heed to anyone's advice. We even mock our genuine well-wishers; we scoff at them and pass disparaging comments on them. From being just ‘egoistic’ we turn ‘egotistic’ by crossing the fine line that exists between having self-esteem and being narcissistic. We start believing that our birth is the biggest gift to mankind and that we are the centre of the universe. We feel contemptuous about everyone else until one day we stumble and taste the reality. Then we try to end our life by committing suicide and inflicting self-harm without even realizing who we are actually harming—the body that is not the real ‘me’.
When our ego becomes the centre of the universe, everything revolves around our ego. We tend to believe that the whole world is functioning with our ego as the fulcrum, when in reality, we are nothing.
The truth is we are just one out of 8 billion people in the world. We are just like one grain in the sands of the beach of creation. But our ego doesn’t think so. Our ego believes we are everything. We all believe that ‘I’ am the most important person in the world. As far as the ego is concerned, it is right. But in a wider and macro perspective, this is a myth. It is the ego that stops us from realizing the truth.
Of course, it is good to have positive self-esteem. If we don’t respect ourselves, how will others do so? We must respect our body, just as we nourish our mind. We must discipline our life and must live with values and morals. This is what we are. ‘This is ‘me’ and I must live my life with fulfilment.’
But the ego is a very strong force. It seems to keep our body and mind together because it connects the hardware of our body to the software, our mind. We walk and we talk, just as we dream with a scheme and build a team. Who makes this happen? It is ‘me’, the ‘I’, the ego. The whole world has grown up believing that the ego is the most important thing. Little do we realize that it is our ego that makes us suffer. The ‘I’ness, the ‘my’ness and the ‘mine’ness of the ego causes so much negative poison that these emotions manifest as toxic thoughts, feelings and actions. The ego causes us to be agonized as we become angry. Our selfishness leads to hate and revenge, just as our individuality makes us live with fear, worry and anxiety.
But where is all this heading to? Can we do away with our ego? As long as we are alive, we will have an ego and we can’t do away with it. We are not like sheep that are grazing in a herd. We all have a unique name and we are called by that name. Moreover, we don’t just have a name, we also have a surname, an occupation, a nationality, and a religion. The ego is so paranoid that it can be furious if somebody makes a mistake in their designation. 'How dare you refer to me as Mrs. Kiran – I am Mr. Kiran!' the ego howls.
The ego is a dominating force of our life and we have no choice but to live with it. How then can we let go of our ego? Is it necessary for us to do so? As we flip through the following pages, we will realize the truth about the ego, how to develop its positive side, and how to transcend the negative ego. We will learn to observe how our ego along with our mind leads us to disappointments when we desire and crave, and when things don’t happen the way we want them to happen.
By now, we seem to have some idea about the ego. We know for sure it exists. Not only do we know what it means and who it is, we have also dug open a little bit about how it behaves. Although we have just touched the tip of the iceberg, we have started our journey with the ego. Let us move forward and discover its relationship with the mind.