' The Personal Ego '...

The personal ego is not a metaphysically permanent thing. But it is a practical working tool which serves the convenient purpose of personal identification. It need not be denied. Why call it non-existent, a fictitious entity, while making full use of it?

When he is conscious of himself he is conscious only of his idea of himself, the fantasy which the ego has made for him.

The ego is a structure which has been built up in former lives from tendencies, habits, and experiences in a particular pattern. But in the end the whole thing is nothing but a thought, albeit a strong and continuing thought.

If we have written of the ego as if it were a separate and special entity, a fixed thing, a reality in its own right, this is only because of the inescapable necessities of logical human thinking and the inexorable limitations of traditional human language. For in FACT the "I" cannot be separated from its thoughts since it is composed of them, and them alone. The ego is, in short, only an idea, or a trick that the thought process plays on itself.



-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 2: I-thought > # 46
-- Perspectives > Chapter 8: The Ego > # 36 Paul Brunton