Ego is an idiotic state of what could be a fully aware mind or consciousness. An idiom or ideology is the creation of the mind that limits its perceptive or intuitive capabilities via confining it within the boundaries of the idiom, ideologies, beliefs, rituals, and traditions. Such a confined state of the mind forms the ego or personality of the person.
From a scientific or Holistic Relativity, perspective, just as the mass of matter represents an amount of energy confined within the boundaries in fixed space and time the ego represents the consciousness or free will energy of life confined within the boundaries of fixed ideologies, beliefs, and convictions. Just as the mass of matter is afflicted with time, evolution, entropy, and increasing complexity/chaos the ego is afflicted with the same adversities and fate.
Just as a mass contained within its own boundaries is afflicted with the gravitational forces of attraction that bind or attach it to other bodies of mass, the ego is attached to other worldly things via forces of desires. Just as the attractive forces of gravity keeps the planets orbiting around the sun, the desires to possess its material things keeps the ego on a wild chase and attached to this world. The fear of the change mandated by the affliction of time and the uncertainty of the unknown future always hovers over the ego. Hence, strangely and ironically, the certainty of uncertainty law governs both the matter and ego.
While ego is necessary for worldly living and survival, in order to live a purposeful and meaningful life free from the adversities, the root cause – the ego, has to be eliminated. While the boundary walls of the ego may provide us a worldly identity as well as a security fence against evolutionary threats emanating from the struggles for survival (or dominance as some would call it), the same walls may also act as prison captivating our consciousness and keeping it from achieving a full realization of life potential.
A wholesome life consists of a balanced living encompassing the whole spectrum of consciousness states from ego to egoless-ness. A limited state of consciousness at either extreme is not a wholesome living. An ascetic who renounces the material world as an illusion and a materialist who renounces the un-manifested reality as non-existent are both limited in their awareness of the One Wholesome reality of the universe. However, most of us choose to live in the limited worldly awareness of the ego-self under the assumption that the worldly reality is all that there is. As Guru Nanak observed:
“In ego they come, and in ego they go.
In ego they are born, and in ego they die.
In ego they give, and in ego they take.
In ego they earn, and in ego they lose.
In ego they become truthful or false.
In ego they reflect on virtue and sin.
In ego they go to heaven or hell.
In ego they laugh, and in ego they weep.
In ego they become dirty, and in ego they are washed clean.
In ego they lose social status and class.
In ego they are ignorant, and in ego they are wise.
They do not know the value of salvation and liberation.
In ego they love Maya, and in ego they are kept in darkness by it.
Living in ego, mortal beings are created.
When one understands ego, then the Truth’s gate is known.
Without spiritual wisdom, they babble and argue.”
Why dissolve the ego? What are its pitfalls? Again, Nanak reveals:
“Indulging in egotistical actions, your thirst is not quenched. Your desires are not fulfilled, and you do not attain spiritual wisdom.
Religious rituals and actions performed in ego place the mortal in bondage.
In egotism, all must account for their actions. In this accounting, there is no peace.
By actions done in egotism, selfishness and conceit, the Truth is not obtained.
I am stuck in the filth of doubt and egotistical actions, and I try not to think of death.
Hence, dissolve ego and practice pure actions.
Ego is a chronic disease; but it contains its own cure as well; this realization becomes a panacea in itself.”
An ego would never like to dissolve itself. It will find tricky ways around to save itself. Ritualistic religion is one of the most prevalent way to maintain the ego, wherein God is consciously separated from the self or ego, which can call upon God at its own convenience and in the form which it likes. God then becomes subservient to the whims, beliefs, and convictions of the ego. In this sense, ego creates God of its own liking rather than the other way around. God proposes and the ego disposes. The moral deeds and religious rituals performed under the purview of the ego become the very source of ego-gratification and ego-enhancement leading to increased suffering. This is consistent with the real life experiences of common folks wherein a routine adherence to religious commands and rituals fail to provide meaning and contentment.
Consciousness or awareness of the universal laws or truth can dissolve or transform the ego. This, however, becomes a vicious circle. That is where an outside help and guidance from the True-Guru or master is needed to break this vicious circle by raising one’s awareness to the inner disease or enemy – the ego. Without such awareness, dissolution of the ego or even the realization that it is an enemy is as difficult as to lift oneself against gravity.
Our ego cannot control everything but only control our experiences, perceptions, conclusions in the present, and the way we choose to live. The masters never relied on the fate of time and the external forces of evolution to dissolve the veil of the ego and awaken the consciousness. They liberated the individual human being from the bodily clutches of the ego and its afflictions of entropy, time and environment – the other – the duality.........
Avtar Singh
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