How Big is Your Ego? Part 1

If we understand the nature of ego, be certain that 99.99% of us are influenced by some sort of subtle or gross ego most of the time.   Remember, ego is attachment to a wrong image or belief about ourselves.  So that can anything from your fashion sense to your common sense. 

It’s not ego to own a quality car, it's thinking that has absolutely anything to do with your intrinsic worth.  And even the attitude of ownership, has its roots in a false belief.  Again, it’s not about handing over your car keys to the next homeless person who passes you by.  It’s about questioning the nature of reality, and fact of impermanence. Not as a philosophy but as an obvious truth. 

Let’s go back  to a time before you had a body.  When you were just a spark of conscious awareness, a spark of light.  It can help us to imagine this more vividly, when we listen to people who have died and come back. 

Light, energy, soul, spirit, awareness, glowing orb of light, detached from the specifics of the human experience. In this pure experience of the self, it is easy to see how thinking you are special because of your fashion sense is quite ridiculous.  It’s like saying, Who cares if I am a God-like pure being, because I own a pair of Jimmy Choo’s. 

But unless you die and come back, or really dive into the depth of meditation, the world and its influence, will make the shoes and a million other specifics of the human experience so compelling.   This is the ego.  It is like a virus, infecting everyone’s mind which needs to be constantly feed.  We call this an ego boost.   And for the brain it does literally create an addictive boost.  This mind virus will try and feed off everything.  Have a great meditation where you feel you truly are a silent blissful pure being.  Your ego will come to get its commission.  Like a drop of poison in milk, it will create endless stories about the meaning of the experience, comparing you to others, to your past, projecting into the future.  It will pull you out of silence, into the chatter of the false self with all its various made-up needs and concerns.

Most of the things that we built our identities from, will sound completely normal to the human experience.  But from the experience of a soul, entering this matrix as a guest, not owning anything, just temporarily associated with this earthly experience, this mixing of the self with things that are clearly not self, is the main obstacle.  So, although this sounds radical, to wake up from this matrix, this deep illusion, needs to be radical.  Being awake, doesn’t just mean you believe the government is deliberately trying to dumb its populations down.  It means, you know what you are, and what you are not.  You know the nature of reality.

So, let’s look into some of those, what you are not.

But this will be more like a check list for now.  You need to spend observing your own relationship to these factors and how they might be effecting you.

First up, is your first and favorite possession, your body.

And with the body comes all the senses and the pleasure of the senses.  It’s so easy to philosophize that you are not the body, you are light within.  But not so easy to renounce your favorite food.   When most of our pleasure comes through the senses, it can take a long time to recognise that pleasure is not joy.  And that our addiction to the senses is one of the biggest traps to self-realization. But if have seen the matrix movie, you might remember that it is the desire for a steak that makes Cypher give up and go back to into the Matrix.   Or how Neo got distracted by the lady in red. 

We all do this countless times a day.  This is why the rebel crew in the matrix only ate plain porridge and tablets for meals.  And why spiritual life is often associated with renunciation.  No one is putting restrictions on you, but if you notice yourself triggered by this whole topic and jumping into the comment section, it might be showing you something about where you are attached.  And the whole world will provide you with its logical, your being only human, and why else do we have bodies but to enjoy the senses.  But for now, we are just exploring external things that we mistake for ourselves.  Just because the senses are so intimate to our experience of life on earth, still doesn’t mean it is us.  A spaceman needs his suit to explore outer space but that still doesn’t mean he is the suit.  

Some people suggest that if you focus on the present on the pleasure of the senses, this is a kind of mindfulness akin to meditation.  Certainly slowing down, may let the awareness of the self behind the senses, enter the picture.  But it often just another trick for extracting ever more pleasure from the senses which is not the path to self-realization. 

Another aspect related to the body is comfort.

This is also related to the senses, and a certain type of pleasure.  But believing that we need ideal physical surroundings to be happy is a false belief about ourselves.  A lot of our life and money is spent increasing our comfort levels, warm beds, air-conditioned rooms, comfortable sofas, car chairs that hug your body in place as you turn the corner.  A lot of advertising hooks us in by our egos, to buy the car to get the girl.  But much of it appeals to our desire for comforts.  This may not seem like a problem, until they are taken away, and you realize how dependent you became on them. The addiction to comfort also leads to laziness, as does avoiding discomfort lead to procrastination and a host of issues.  The story of buddha taught us that renunciation of all comfort, is not the way to enlightenment. But I think on some level, we are all aware of this comfort loving trap.

I love this clip from Bryon Katie. 

It might sound radical but she is right.  Spiritual peace is unconditional. 

Another huge aspect of our identity related to the body is our appearance.  Hair, skin, shape, weight, height, muscles, youthfulness.  If our appearance improves, we are complimented and congratulated.  If there is deterioration, there is shame.  ‘I really should put more effort!’  If you were asked to describe yourself, you would instantly, without a doubt start describing your appearance.  Even a regular meditator, may not instantly think  ‘I am a weightless, invisible to the eye, spark of divine light’.   Our appearance is deeply imbedded as part of our identities and consumes a large part of consciousness.

Part of our appearance is also related to our personal style, taste in fashion, choice in clothes. This is another way that we communicate to the world who we believe we are.  Our clothes can indicate our economic status, our temperament, our political views, our religion, our sexuality, our profession.   We also judge people based on their clothes. 

When people attend Haci in Mecca, they are expected to wear simple white clothes with no visible signs of differentiation.  You are not mean to bring your worldly ego in front of God.  

Having lived in a meditation community where most people wear white, I know that there is still a huge margin for personal preference and expression.   And there is nothing wrong with that.  But it is another area for us to explore.  Why do we choose certain clothes, what does it say about who we think we are, are we trying to fit in and impress, or rebel against norms. 

A good test for the ego, is how much my mood changes when I am dressed up or dressed down.  Or if I happen to dress inappropriately for an occasion and have no escape, how much am I disturbed?  Without ego, I keep my humour, and perspective.  If an actor plays the part of a beggar and has to wear beggar clothes, he never forgets it is just a costume, just a role, just a play.   The more we feel this, the more we feel light and playful around clothes.  They are there to be enjoyed, or to express the part I am playing, but ultimately not to define who am I? 

Ultimately the clothes do not maketh the man.  

And nor do accessories.  Connected  with clothes, is also the many props that we use to project our worth.  The most expensive purse in the world is the The Mouawad 1001 Nights Diamond Purse costing $3.8 million. 

You aren’t just buying practical solutions for carrying your items, you are buying an image of prestige, taste, coolness, class.  And if you don’t care about handbags, your ego may still feed off the image, that you are someone who is beyond keeping up with superficial trends.  Way too spiritual to care about fashion. 

It’s a cliché that come naked, empty handed, alone, and go in the same manner.  It is often only in times of loss, death, disaster that the reality of impermanence kicks in.  Whilst everything is hunky dory and our ego feels safe, we can be lulled into a state of superficial satisfaction, and artificial security.  Often the shock of losing something, can actually bring us closer spirit.  We reach for and find thoughts of comfort, and realise that we are okay, and that brings a level of freedom.  But if we can keep alive the consciousness of a being spiritual traveller, a guest in this amazing drama of life, and like a guest expecting nothing, treating everything and new and interesting, we can actually learn to enjoy the whole of life.  And not just live in a series of small dopamine hits and disppointments, based on our avatars appearance, our purchases, or approval ratings.

We will continue with our dive into the many aspects which our ego builds up our sense of false identity in future articles. 

Om Shanti.