The importance of ego

[Mrs_C]

Dear Actualizers

I'm calling out to you with this very first post of mine and I hope it is the proper sub forum.

 

I am asking myself: Is the ego a necessary part of our lives and can we see beauty in it?

 

For long, I have been blaming the ego for its lies and neediness. I saw it in others as I saw it in myself. The ego was bad to me, something to get rid of in order to reach lucid states of the mind and a whole sense of myself. 

Currently, I am inspired by Eckhart Tolle's book "A New Earth" in which he talks a lot about the ego. But again, I can hardly find any information on why the ego could be of value. It seems like the way to go is to abolish one's ego with all its painful thoughts and emotions and its  habitual reactivity. A good thing I can in fact extract from that book is that it is important to recognize one's ego first instead of just blindly ignoring it. That would of course be foolish. So the ego acts like a mirror to ourselves through which we can recognize it and then adapt to our strongest bodily and mental pressures to react with kindness, compassion and acceptance or even not react to stay patient and observing.

Now, there is still the question that I'm trying to answer: Can there be an end to the ego or is it a necessary part of our lives? 

I assume that the core of the ego does not only come with a pain body and a reactive surface but also with memories and even all things that we have learnt in our lives. I am even thinking that, since the ego connects us with those people who reflect our egos, loving relationships can only happen because of the ego. And I am not talking about the trick of infatuation but deeper love, surely not unconditional love though. It feels like people attract each other because of their ego characters. Yes, because ego is personality. It is my unique personality. So, why is it worth giving up? Where will I be when ego is gone? I am prepared to consciously go towards the ego's death but where will I be? This is certainly a future related question and it may be my ego who is asking it. Still: Where will I be? Allow me to bring this to an absolute: Will I be without personality, without memories, without knowledge? My brain exempted from ego is a brain exempted of conditioning, thus, exempted from neural activity. I am not asking if this is feasible but where I would be without the ego.

I would like to introduce a healthy appraoch towards the ego. One that recognizes and is compassionate with it, one that sees the beauty in it. If I treat my ego as the little child of myself, then that somehow feels utterly right to me. It feels balanced and it makes me capable of dealing with this very shadow side of mine in a responsible way. The conditioning of the ego is my past, that mostly happened autonomously. Looking from a standpoint of the present moment I cannot change my past anymore so all I can do is accepting my ego as it is and learn anew through this integration.

For the last two years, I have been working on a smartphone meditation game project called Smagotcha. Smagotcha is a little creature that seeks your attention and it wants to be accepted and seen by you. Smagotcha is a representation of your ego. So it will react accordingly depending on the progress of the player.

I am at a point where I need some opinions so I can continue this project with more clarity. Looking forward to your replies :)!

Mrs_C

[Mrs_C]

Every word that I speak is a reflection of my memories, thoughts and ultimately my personality. Where I want to point at is "communication". Being still, non-communicative is one thing that is well aligned with the present moment. Once I speak though I cannot be free of my conditional past. Even the mere grammarly structures within a certain language carry the load of a collective ego. Unless I speak non-sense, then sense is ego. "This makes sense" is an expression of the ego, no matter which enlightened thought I just had.

So, what about becoming friends with ones ego? Something feels not right when I WANT my ego to dissolve. It only dissolves in the moment when I become friends with it. Then ego and the present moment become one. Because wanting is ego. I can only surrender to it, recognize it and allow it to happen. That'S the very moment when it dissolves. But I don't need to camouflage its existence, nor do I need to say that the ego is bad. The ego is in the present moment and it vanishes there. I don't want to treat the ego like a hardware installation, more like a recodable software then. 

My ego is sure we're talking about the same thing. 

[kagaria]

real beauty is generosity of spirit

[Mrs_C]

I see. Thank you for your posts so far.

It is the cause of all misery and because it is there is gives us a chance in every moment to be present. If there was no ego I can hardly imagine that we could distinguish between present and non-present. The ego is a chance to be present, isn't it?

[soos_mite_ah]

I think this is a good video to watch if you're thinking of what are the positives of the ego. The ego can give a lot of insights of what's bothering you at the moment or red flags you encounter to keep you safe. The ego ultimately came into existence for your survival. Sometimes that is justified to keep you alive but other times it is like an over protective parent that holds you back from experiencing life. Its important to know how to differentiate the two.

I'd go as far to say that the ego is a part of the self, mainly a dense protective form of it. Splitting and regecting the ego entirely is regecting that part of you which leads to duality and fragmentation. I think it's important to have a healthh ego and integrate it accordingly by loving it and finding beauty in it. 

 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Mrs_C said:

Something feels not right when I WANT my ego to dissolve.

That itself is ego.

You are ego. Ego is not something you have.

Ego is basically the sense that you were ever born and will ever die. Your entire story of being human.

Ego is highly useful for survival, which is its function.

To transcend ego is the forever surrender the notion that you were ever a human.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura Can you fully dissolve the ego through meditation? Or will there always be some ego left?

[Leo Gura]

42 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Can you fully dissolve the ego through meditation?

I don't see why not. If you are hardcore enough with it.

[Setzer901]

On 8/2/2020 at 4:47 AM, Mrs_C said:

I would like to introduce a healthy appraoch towards the ego. One that recognizes and is compassionate with it, one that sees the beauty in it. If I treat my ego as the little child of myself, then that somehow feels utterly right to me. It feels balanced and it makes me capable of dealing with this very shadow side of mine in a responsible way. The conditioning of the ego is my past, that mostly happened autonomously. Looking from a standpoint of the present moment I cannot change my past anymore so all I can do is accepting my ego as it is and learn anew through this integration.

 

You are spot on here. That is the right approach.

There is a reason your ego is there. Your ego is there to help you. For eg. Things like procrastination could be part of your ego trying to block out some underlying feeling that is very painful to you (worthlessness). Or the pursuit of making money is your ego trying to make sure you survive. The ego is always trying to help you. But sometimes it does so in very myopic ways. For eg: You may be a very angry person. You think it's harming you. But from your ego's point of view, that angry part may be trying to prevent you from getting hurt by other people.

The more you understand your ego's motivations- and stop trying to deny or suppress it- and understand it in a loving way more - the more you will integrate and transcend the ego.

[Shunyata]

@Setzer901 very nice!