More on ego

Yes, so, it's my turn to introduce a text this week. I have been interested in ' what is ego?', so I would like to share with you some of my findings about ego....

Ego is a tricky thing! They say that every problem we have stems from ego….

Sometimes one’s ego is so big it “takes possession” of the individual and creates the psychopathic character type. We’re in big trouble when these people, who often possess charming personalities, rise to positions of power. ): 

On a personal level, Ego always wants to make us feel unhappy by engaging us with miserable thoughts from the past and worries about the future. It prevents us from being in the present.

A spiritual teacher and best selling author Eckhalt Tolle says "whenever you feel inferior or superior to someone, that is ego." because it creates the separation from others. The essence of ego, he says, is fear. “The underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear: The fear of being nobody, the fear of nonexistence, the fear of death.” 

"The ego is humans greatest enemy but is has to be understood and 'not' treated as a enemy but neither as a friend." 

So, what can we do about it? He says:

"See if you can catch, that is to say, notice, the ego voice in the head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something, and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact, you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground, there is the voice, the thinker. In this way you are becoming free of the ego, free of the unobserved mind. The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist. The old mind-pattern or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it, but every time it is recognized, it is weakened."

If feels to me that the more we get to know about ego, the less we might be troubled by it.