How Big is Your Ego? Part 2

In the previous article on 'How Big is Your Ego?', we explored how the ego creates a false image or belief about ourselves based on our bodies.  This is the oldest and deepest mistaken identity because as spiritual beings, physical bodies are required to navigate around this matrix.  They are the meat costumes we adopt in order to play a part in this huge drama. 

We hear this phrase, you don’t have a soul, you are a soul.  Meaning, you are a soul first, and body comes second.  When we believe we are primarily physical beings, we unconsciously and automatically seek spiritual states, i.e. security, via the physical realm, eg. bank accounts. Or we seek bliss, through bubble baths and wine!   We also build false identities around our looks, our clothes, our accessories. 

False in the sense that from a spiritual perspective, bodies, are just temporary costumes to play your part, and clothes and accessories, homes and cars, all of.  Just props.  When we glimpse the greater reality, things that seem to create so much tension, desire and internal drama, cease to have so much meaning.  We may still enjoy playing our parts, even more, but from a higher perspective.  You have nothing to lose but your ego here and everything to gain.  For if you know yourself, you have won the game of life.  

There are literally endless aspects to human life, that the ego can say ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’ to.  In doing so, it goes from being an observer to being overly invested.

A good example is nationality.  When your identity is only related to your body and the story of your body, you can build a strong identity based on the nation you took birth in.  When like myself, you are an obvious foreigner, the first question I often get is where are you from?  And then some comment about how beautiful that place is.  I’m from NZ, or how great our cricket team is.

From the soul’s higher perspective, the ever-changing human borders, are of absolutely no consequence.  Your intrinsic value has zero to do with a piece of land its people’s story.  We may think we know this as obvious or perhaps it’s just harmless appreciation.  That filling of pride filling your heart, as you hear your national song played at a world sporting event, or as people praise your country as being the best in some way.  

I remember years ago, I was living in Turkey at that time, and some British football fans, hooligans, had come to Turkey, had insulted the Founder of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk and the Turkish flag during a match.  That was the last match they or their killer attended.  That is a very dramatic example, but seeking a boost, a feeling of pride, always brings an accompanying feeling of insult or threat.  Immigration is a very loaded and political issue, because of this national pride but also the privileges that comes and go with the winds of change. 

I consider myself a warm-hearted opening minded individual, but I had to work on my anger towards people that litter ‘my’ clean green New Zealand.  Or towards politicians who curtail certain freedoms I’ve come to expect in ‘my’ country.  National identity, and the ego boost and defensiveness that accompany it, are at the mildest, blockages on the path to self-awareness, and at worst, the origins of violence and prejudice of all manner.  It is not that I don’t appreciate the beautiful landscapes of New Zealand, but ultimately it is just a backdrop. 

You will often find aesthetic beauty listed as one of the human needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.  And sure, most of us would prefer to look upon untainted nature than a rubbish tip. But the more we can assert our eternal identity, as souls, invisible travelers, guests in the physical world, but not of this world.  Passing through, expecting nothing but enjoying all of it, we remain free.  Because the nature of this world is storms and rainbows, wins and losses, lakes and rubbish tips.  And if I want to wake up, raise my frequency, assist others in awakening, I need to be like a spiritual warrior.  The landscapes can change, but my joy remains the same.   And in joy, I may also decide to clean up the landscape!  Or not! 

Let’s look at another huge factor when it comes to false identities.  Relationships. 

I remember someone sharing an analogy with me once, which really helped put attachment to people in perspective.  They said life is like a train journey.  Your train is going from one place to another.  And during that journey, people will board your train and you will experience their company, for a short or long duration. But eventually every disembarks because it is not their train.  But someone is always getting on the train.  This journey analogies help us accept the transitory nature of earthly relationships.

However, the train and the journey are all aspects related to this particular dimension of human experience.  After listening to hundreds of near-death experiences over the past few years, I am even more convinced of what I’ve understood for decades.  That we souls are travellers, and where we come from, we are all eternally connected, in what looks like in a web like constellation of stars. 

Actually, we are all still connected in the same way, but we just get fooled by the roles.  This one looks like your friend, another your enemy, another your child, your husband.   That politician you hate, or celebrity that you admire, all of them, just souls like you, playing their roles.  They also are divine in their original nature but also mostly asleep to their own truth.  In the spiritual dimension, we are all made of love, no fear.   This truth is what dispels fear.  For relationships are where our egos and insecurities are most often triggered.

If we forget we are pure love, energy, eternal beings, on a huge earthly voyage, if we  forget that no real harm can come to us here, because it is only an illusion, a drama.  If we forget that the soul actually does not need anything from this dimension, that all needs and fears are illusions of the ego.  Then we manifest in our minds the experience of loneliness, separation, emptiness, powerlessness, fear, sorrow. 

So, how do we try to find the connection, fullness, power, love, happiness we have lost awareness of.  In relationships.  This is the endless message the world has us brainwashed with.  You need someone to love you.  Or someone to love.   Pop songs never say, just be love, radiate love, you are love.  Nothing to gain, nothing to lose.  They say, without you, it’s not worth living. 

The ego is seeking many different kinds of food, when it comes to people.  It may feed off their social status to give myself a status boost.  It may be pleasure I’m after.  It may be reassurance, a role, financial security, company to avoid being alone, approval, an audience or witness for my life as Esther Perel said so eloquently.   At its core, it is the same old trick of the ego.

It has me pointed out wards for what can only be discovered within.  But there is a merciful mechanism built into this matrix.  The law of energy or attraction, or karma, whatever you want to call, we all basically know how it works.  If you chase it, it runs away.   If you hoard something, you lose it.  If you fear it, you attract it to face it.  The sorrow we experience in relationship, is really only a sign that we are confused about reality.  Wanting what is not possible.  As Mike George says so wonderfully.  The only love you ever feel, is your own, on its way out, whilst you express it.   Without knowing myself and experiencing myself as love, all the love in the world, will never satisfy the soul. 

Observe yourself every day interacting with people, and you will begin to notice just how often the ego gets triggered.  A word, a look, an action, an interruption, an assumption, an ignoring, an expectation.  Our ego is constantly on the lookout for offense of some kind.  It literally wakes up and says, what can I get upset about today.  By working on recognizing the tricks of the ego, how it fools you into thinking you need anything or anyone to be different to be happy in this moment.  It won’t disappear instantly and completely, but for every illusion you see through, for every reaction you let dissipate back into the silence bliss of being, for every time you can laugh at yourself for defending your false self against illusionary attacks.  You are more free, more happy, more you!  And that is a gift for yourself and the whole soul family!

 So far, we have just explored two aspects of the ego.  Two things that we built into false images and beliefs about ourselves.  The story of our nationality and relationships. 

In the next article in this mini- series on how big is your ego, we will explore the traps of talents, skills, knowledge, things you know and things you know how to do.

Om Shanti.