Taming the Ego
The so-called ego has been given many names and explanations throughout the centuries as humans have tried to explain that voice in our heads that is constantly analysing and judging everything in this world including us. It could even be argued that Lucifer and the Devil are in fact metaphors for this. It certainly does at times feel like the voice of the devil himself trying to deceive and trick us to ruin our lives and turn us away from our true selves and even drag us down to consciousness hell. Jesus faced up to this voice when he went into the desert for 40 days and nights before his enlightenment.
It always seemed strange to me that we were given this intellect and then it would turn on us and become our master as it controls all our perceptions and decisions in life and seems to have the goal of keeping us down. We become completely identified with this voice as being us and the truth of who we are. If the voice tells us we are worthless, no one likes us, etc then it must be true or why would it say that?
But then, after hearing Dicken Bettinger talk about how Syd Banks described it as a tool for us to use, it started to make a little more sense to me. We are born into this physical world from perfection and then start to survey and perceive everything through our limited senses as we try to make sense of this wonderous new fairytale we have come into.
As we start to learn and analyse the information fed into us we start to create a picture using the power of Thought. We interact with people around us who are already caught up in this show with their preconceived ideas and concepts and this has clouded their vision and hidden the light that resides within. As their egos turned on to them from childhood and started to feed them false information of their conceived world, thus creating insecurity and doubt, they, in turn, react to this and feel that they have to judge and analyse every other person just to satisfy this inner ego that they do have worth and an identity. We then take what we are told by others as truth and then create a reality of the way things should be and how we need to fit into this to have any self-worth. Of course, we are never going to live up to the unrealistic expectations of our ego and so it begins to create an image of unworthiness.
It then feels it has to protect us by telling us that we aren’t worthy or no one likes us as a kind of defensive mechanism to save us from hurt and damage. Although it may seem like the ego is evil and just wants us to fail at everything, we could in fact see it as trying to act as our protector. It’s just that it does it in the best way it can see possible from its limited capacity and so causes more hurt than it protects from. So it isn’t evil or the devil but as innocent and misguided as a child who acts out to protect themselves.
It has become separated from our true selves and starts to act as a separate entity. This then causes disharmony and discourse within us as we start to war with our internal self.
We are all part of nature and the intellect is no different. I like to see the intellect as being like a wild stallion that has become out of control. When you look at how a stallion is broken in, if it is done with wilfulness and a need to control, it will fight back and potentially cause serious damage. Just as the ego can do to our self-worth and mental wellbeing. The ego, like the stallion, needs to be treated with compassion and understanding, and its trust gained by persistent and gentle consistency. Then like the wild stallion, as it learns to become our friend and realigns with our true selves, we can ride off into the sunset as we reach our true potential
