The Human Ego Gone Haywire
The ego is a curious beast. Most of us don’t realize its existence, yet we are at its mercy. And the human form cannot help but respond to all the dysfunctional thought patterns that sometimes make up the ‘unbalanced’ ego.
The ego is the shell of thoughts, beliefs, memories, and emotions wrapped around your soul essence. It is part of the body-brain mechanics.
The ego is your ‘me-ness’ to whom experiences are happening. Once new experiences have registered in your brain, your ego assimilates them and adds them to a storehouse of pleasure, pain, fear, and desire accumulated since infancy.
The ego is necessary for the function of integrating all kinds of experiences. But it is prone to go haywire — to become unbalanced.
We usually associate the word ‘ego’ with arrogance, pride, or selfishness. Egotism is the common term for extreme self-centeredness. However, our ego is composed of many facets. It magnifies both our best and worst traits.
The ego’s genuine function is to help you build a robust and dynamic self. But it is cloaking fear and insecurity when it intervenes to protect you unnecessarily.
This is part three in a series. Click here to read part 2.
If you’re all caught up, let’s ponder …..
The Human Ego Gone Haywire
Universal Consciousness connects Spirit, soul, mind, brain, and body to enable the human form to experience this 3D reality.
Whether it was by slow evolution or a sudden manipulation of its genetic makeup in the distant past by higher intelligence, the physical human form is unique among other life forms on Earth in that it possesses an ego.
A balanced ego in the human form is an instrument of Spirit. It provides an individuality and personality through which Spirit can accomplish its higher purpose in the physical realm. For that purpose, the balanced ego takes a large part of its programming from Spirit and functions accordingly.
But when the ego breaks away from Spirit — or if Spirit is absent — the ego becomes unbalanced and solely a product of the physical environment and picks up all the traits of physical living in this 3D reality — most notably survival and competition.
The unbalanced ego exploits others for the sake of self-gain. Lying, deception, manipulation, and delusion are the properties of an unbalanced ego if left unchecked by Spirit.
Our spiritual essence dissipates behind the walls of an unbalanced ego. We refuse to look beyond fixed egotistical boundaries. We pursue the pleasures and possessions that a consumer society holds out for us.
An ego that is not enhanced by Spirit is the foundation of the STS (Service to Self) pathway. Click here to read more about STS.
The unbalanced ego programs you to be afraid, stay in your comfort zone, and do whatever it takes to conform and be accepted by family, friends, and society.
Your unbalanced ego will never give you the push you need to follow your dreams because that’s not its priority — its job is to ensure you’re safe. Your unbalanced ego loves your conditioning because the more conditioned you are, the safer you are.
But safety won’t lead you anywhere. There will always be risks you have to take in order to follow your life’s purpose.
Your unbalanced ego makes you behave according to what’s expected of you. It prevents you from healing your wounds because it’s too attached to them and limits your potential because it doesn’t want you to grow. It wants you to stay the same regardless of how miserable you feel.
The Unbalanced Ego of the Collective
Some churches, sects, cults, political groups, and religious movements are ‘unbalanced ego collectives’ — which means they are entities that are rigidly identified by their dogmatic positions. The followers of such an entity are typically close-minded to any alternative interpretation of reality outside the belief structure of the collective.
These collectives also frequently contain a vital element of paranoia — ‘us against the evil others.’ And such thinking has been the cause of much suffering in the world. The more unbalanced the egos within the collective, the more likely its pathology will assume the form of physical violence.
The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, persecution and burning of heretics, the relations between nations leading up to the First and Second World Wars, Nazism and Communism, the Cold War, McCarthyism in the 1950s, continued violent conflict in the Middle East, and the current structure of Trump’s GOP are all examples in human history dominated by an extreme collective paranoia. Click here to read my series of articles regarding the de-evolution of the GOP.
Joining a like-minded collective
How hard is it to live with yourself and your unbalanced ego-centric personality? One way the unbalanced ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactory life of personal selfhood is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group. Be it a political party, religion, corporation, institution, club, gang, or baseball team.
In some cases, the personal ego seems to dissolve as a person dedicates their life to working selflessly for the greater good of the collective without demanding rewards, recognition, or glorification. The reward is in being among others with similar egos.
What a relief to be freed of the terrible burden of personal self. The collective members feel happy and fulfilled — no matter how hard they work, how many sacrifices they make, or what harm they inflict on the world.
The members of the collective appear to have gone beyond personal ego. The question is: Have they genuinely become free, or has the unbalanced ego simply morphed from the personal to the collective?
The collective unbalanced ego manifests the same characteristics as the unbalanced personal ego — such as the need for conflict and enemies, the need for more, the need to be right against others who are wrong, and so on.
Realizing that your unbalanced collective ego is insane
Sooner or later, one collective will conflict with other collectives because it unconsciously seeks conflict and needs opposition to define its boundary and, thus, its identity.
The members of the collective will then experience the harm to others that inevitably comes in the wake of any ego-motivated action. At that point, some members may wake up and realize that their collective has a serious issue — insanity.
It can be painful to suddenly wake up and realize that the collective you had identified with and believed in is insane. Some people become cynical and bitter and henceforth deny all values, all worth associated with that collective.
This means the disillusioned member will usually adopt a belief system in another ego group. Their personal unbalanced ego won’t cease to exist but instead will be absorbed into the new collective ego.
An unbalanced ego collective is usually more sinister than the individuals that comprise that collective. Nations, for example, often engage in behavior that would be immediately recognizable as psychotic in an individual.
Another example: crowds (which are temporary collective ego entities). Crowds can commit atrocities that the individual away from the crowd would not commit.
A Balanced Ego and Your Spiritual Path
It would seem then that the unbalanced ego is a detriment on the path to your higher purpose in life. But it is just as much a mistake to eliminate the ego entirely because then one becomes ineffectual in this world — unable to carry out the mission of Spirit with insight, vigor, and focus.
Rather than eliminate it, the unbalanced ego must be reprogrammed, refined, and sharpened to become balanced so as to act per the purpose of Spirit in this physical realm. Once you become aware of your unbalanced ego, you can identify its voice and choose to listen to your inner wisdom instead.
Becoming aware of your unbalanced ego can profoundly impact your life because it helps you realize you haven’t been the captain of your ship — meaning, you haven’t been the creator of your life. Your ego has. Awareness of your unbalanced ego can be incredibly transformative.
A spiritual journey may involve recognizing how unbalanced your ego has become. A spiritual journey helps you face your deepest wounds, doubts, beliefs, and fears so that you can let them go and finally take your first step toward your higher purpose in life.
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If this article intrigues you, then you might like my series of six self-published books designed to present ‘some of what I know so far’ on a wide range of interesting subjects, including human evolution, spirituality, politics, religion, finance, nature, science, ancient anomalies, the cosmos and so much more.
This article is compiled from chapter 12 of my first book in the series titled: “So, here’s some of what I know so far regarding the Brain, Body, Budget, Being.”
You can find my books on Amazon by searching “books by Stephen Geist.”
