EGO or EGOISM – The illusory identity
by Atman Nityananda / blog
The ego is what we think we are and makes us have the illusion that we are separate individuals limited by the physical body and mind. The ego is what creates in us the ‘I-ness’ and ‘Mine-ness’.
I-ness : The identification of the ego with the body creates the solid sense “I am the body” and becomes the agent of all actions performed by the body and mind. This creates an illusory sense of “I am the doer”, “I am the thinker”, “I am the feeler” I am the perceiver “,” I am the knower. “
Mine-ness :With the identification of the ego with people and objects we are related the ego expands and ‘Mine-ness “is developed. So we say my car, my house, my wife, my …..etc. We consider them as an extension of ourselves and we are attached to them. When we lose them we experience a lot of needless suffering.
The ego is also identified with all waves of thought, fantasies, memories, beliefs and emotions that arise in the mind.
Ego and the three Gunas (Satttva, Rajas, tamas)
The Sattvic and Tamasorajasic Aspects of Ego
The ego, in relation to the three qualities of life, can be classified as sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic. However, since sattva is the pure, harmonious, luminous quality of life, and rajas and tamas are the lower qualities that are dense, outward, and downward-oriented, causing limitation, identification, and bondage, the ego is classified as higher or sattvic ego and lower or rajasotamasic ego.
In its sattvic aspect, it allows us to live with harmony, love, and health, and facilitates our path to enlightenment or liberation.
Its tamasorajasic aspect makes us identify with the physical body, thus creating the solid sense ‘I am the body’ or, better, ‘the body is me,’ and also causes many other identifications, attachments, projections, and illusions that are the root of individual and collective suffering. All the selfish qualities, such as like-dislike, lust, passions, desires, anger, fear, jealousy, hatred, envy, perversion, greed, etc., belong to this lower self or egoic self.
The lower ego is mostly vital-emotional in nature, dominating or influencing the thinking mind, intellect, and greatly affecting them. All the selfish tendencies mentioned above are related to the vital aspect of the ego, the vital body, and the external mind (sensory-emotional mind).
Ego is a kind of psychic energy which is crystallized in our vital-emotional-mental bodies.
The ‘I-thought is the expression of the egoic energy in the thinking mind and the ‘I-sense is the expression of the egoic energy in the vital-emotional body. This ego-energy is like a virus that uses the body, te vital energy, the mind and the intellect creating inumerable pain and suffering. The egoic energy has rajasic and tamasic nature and it is created by the modification of the vital and sexual energy.
The main expressions of this egoic energy are:
1. Identification with the body. The strong sense that ’I am the body’ or’ the body is me’
2. Desire for sense pleasure (mainly for sex, food, drink, and sensual objects in general), possessions (money etc.), power, fame and name
3. The egoic energy is the root-cause of all pairs of opposites: Like-dislike, attraction-repulsion, fascination/disappointment etc.
4. All psychological disorders or defects such as fear, anger, jealousy, envy, impatience, depression, hypocrisy, hatred, etc. The negative energy which is stored in our vital body Eckhart Tolle calls it Pain-body.
The goal of yoga about the ego
Our goal is to eliminate the ego and realize that we are pure and eternal Consciousness. Of course the elimination of ego is directly related with the purification of the vital and emotional energy and the purification of the chitta (subconscious) because all selfish desires and emotional-mental patterns are stored in the subconscious levels of chitta.
It is impossible to eliminate the ego directly. We have to work with various techniques and methods and dissolve gradually the various aspects of ego.
The ‘secret’ to a plentiful life, a life of harmony, happiness and contentment is to have a sattvic mind free from desires and ego and to live in every moment in conscious contact with our true Self (Consciousness).
🌺 Peace, Love, Harmony
atmannityanada 