What is the EGO?

In spiritual circles there is a lot of talk about the ego and our need to free ourselves from it. But few seem to give much thought to what the ego really is. I’m quite embarrassed to admit that I talked about the ego for many years, without really understanding it. 

I’m going to try and give the best definition of the ego that I can and then go into more detail about what I actually mean by it: The ego is all of the false beliefs about who we are and what is important to us. 

It is our false beliefs about what the world, the things in it and other people are. It is our value judgements about ourselves and other people. It is all of our negative emotions. It is our need to control things and for things to be a certain way. The belief that we need things to be a certain way or that we need to have certain things in order to be happy.

The ego is our identification with all of the above. The unconscious belief that this is who we are. The false identity that we have unconsciously shaped around these things.

Until we start waking up from our unconscious state, we continue to take on these unconscious beliefs about who we are and what we need to be happy. They mainly come from friends, family, school and in general the culture that we live in. Or the ego is shaped by our experiences and how we react to them. We form behavioral patterns to cope with specific types of situations in our lives that become stronger the more we practice them, whether they work or not. These patterns are also parts of the ego, as they replace our genuine response to the situations that encounter. Sometimes these responses work. But many times they don’t. No matter what, they are always less than if we act from a genuine place of conscious awareness. 

We can recognize the ego every time that we attach importance to being someone in the eyes of others, whether we wish to impress them with our intellect, moral superiority, good looks, our social status, career or things that we own. We can also recognize it when we feel embarrassed about things that we have done or said, or our lack of social status or material possessions.

We can also recognize the ego when our thoughts and actions seem habitual or when they seem to happen to us, rather than by our own conscious choice. We can recognize the ego every time we scheme and look at our own wants and desires, rather than what is actually good. When we look for satisfaction and comfort rather than true happiness. Because true happiness is never contrary to the true needs of others. 

This is not by any means an exhaustive list of the ego. But hopefully it can give some insight into how it operates. And once you start seeing the ego for what it is, I believe that there is basically no way back. You will probably start to notice it more and more and draw your own conclusions about it. 

One of the best descriptions of the ego that I’ve found is actually the seven deadly sins from Catholic theology.