Ego, What is Ego? Options

As a person, I have a big ego. I want to win at all costs. I want this and that. I simply want to have it my way. I want the cake and the icing too. I am spoiled and always want to take more than I give back. Is this an example of an Ego?

My ego boost me to gain riches, health, love and many other conquests.
My ego also make new enemies, destroy and corrupt various aspects of me and my environment consciously and subconsciously.

What is EGO? What does this word means?
How do you define it? How do you keep it your slave instead of it enslaving you?
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The ego concept has been develloped well beyong freud, though he sort of insighted the new wave of focus on it.

Something that i dont remember reding here (maybe it is here and i missed it, and sorry if i did) is a sure definition of ego. Yeah sure its different for everyone, but a big part of the essence of what psychologists and philosophers and the like are referring to when mentioning the ego, is that:

THE EGO IS THE BASE LEVEL PART OF THE SELF WHICH IS CONSCIOUS OF THE SELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL ENTITY AS SEPERATE FROM EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ELSE!!!!

So it is the ego which defines you, and everything else. When you are comparing yourself to something or someone else the ego is involved. Now to be specific, it is not the ego that does the categorising or interpreting when comparing different items; eg if you compare yourself to a squirrel it is not the ego that says "ok the squirrel is furry, but i am smooth", but the ego is what makes judgements. It is the ego that says "it is better to be smooth and be able to make removable furry clothes than it is to just be furry".

Ego and fear are very connected in a necessary fashion. It is not only fear but ego that stop you getting eaten by the lion. If you did not fear the lion you would allow it to eat you. If you could not distinctly seperate yourself from the lion mentally and spiritually then you would allow it to eat you.

Ego is necessary but it can be perceived unhealthily. There is then another level of ego. The first base level judges the perceptions we receive, the next level judges the judgments the other level of ego makes (some say one is the "higher" ego others would say the other is higher - i like to see them both as necesary - or just degrees of the same thing). The first degree of ego may judge some acquaintance of yours to be funnier than you. The second degree may then connect with your emotional aspect and decide that it refuses to accept this judgement, or at least that it is upset by it, which can then create a desire in you to try to perform or be funny to prove to yourself that you are indeed funnier and to in turn destroy the unhappiness that comes from feeling inferior.

This is a very childish manifestation of ego. A healthily developed mind will learn to be aware of its own strengths and weaknesses, in a way that does not restrict growth (ie does not inhibit improvement in the areas of "weakness"), and will be at peace with the knowledge that some people are funnier, some are smarter, some are sexier, and so on; and in situations where the ego deems the self to be "inferior" in some aspect as compared to others, will not be upset by the knowledge, and will in fact not even make the leap from "that person is very funny" to "i am not as funny". The healthily developed mind will simply enjoy the humour of the moment, or participate happily without concern if the participation is entirely successfull or not - in fact learning is most positive and well remembered in these circumstances.

The ego in a way is the "lid" of your third eye. What many teachers mean in instructing us to remove the ego, is in relation to the rest of the world, and all it contains, to discontinue the view of us as seperate. To acknowledge our perceptions of the world around us as having validity and substantiality in the world within us also. And to acknowledge that the perceptions we have of ourselves are also true of the world around us. This is not in a technical sense a true destruction of the ego, but is a harnessing of the ego's purpose for developing what we might call "universal vision". The notion of "reaping what you sew" is very connected to the functioning of the ego. If we pre-judge the world and our experiences, then we are likely to percieve what our ego has already judged (whether or not this is the shared reality of the situation or not - this is what we call paranoia - it is an illness of the ego).

Some argue though that this kind of ego harnessing or manipulation, is not hollistic, and is a delusion. That this does not bear the fruit of true compassion, as we are merely labelling everything as part of "ourself" and so we are not really caring for others, as we are really only caring for the self. I would argue though that from my own experiences it is a lot easier to be cruel to ourselves than it is to other people, so in a way this is a greater if not equal compassion to any formed from a "seperate" reality (go castaneda).

In the end the ego is in my opinion a necessary and vital function of the mind. The ego is the doorway to the spirit and to magick. It takes will, concentration, and imagination to open that door, but the doorway must be cleansed and repaired repeatedly, and as often as necessary. If the door becomes sick or dirty then what we glimpse through it becomes distorted, and our reaction can in fact increase the illness contained in the doorway. We must learn to accept limitation, but to avoid stagnation. The ego is the source not only of all unhappiness but also the doorway to all joy!!!

I just realised that Joseph was hitting the nail quite firmly on the head when he said that the ego is the trancendental "i" - it is the first principle!!!

This post has been edited by extinctionspasm: Nov 26 2006, 06:43 PM