Love Your Ego!

Your ego is not the enemy. It is merely consciousness, and is like an uncontrolled child. Consciousness is the facilitator of the mind – perceiving, referring and judging. At an ordinary level, it is confused about reality, as its main concern is self-preservation. Actually, the world around us is hell bent on confusion because we are all locked into the prison of consciousness.

Ego is merely consciousness running after this and that, because we are in a body with senses and memories, and we fixate and hold onto our sensualities and ideas – our toys.

People use the word ‘ego’ as a weapon against others, as if they themselves do not have an ego. This is silly and fear-orientated, and is unfortunately often used by Buddhists (I’ve got nothing against Buddhist…I am one…but this has been my experience!)

The Dharma is all about this ego-clinging, but people obsess about it as The Great Evil. As we have seen, evil is banal!

If we can understand our ego by seeing it in action (ego is essence forgetting itself and believing in mental concepts), then we are nearer to understanding the two truths of conventional and absolute truth. When mind is aware, the negative emotions return to their essence of empty space.

We need a ‘mere I’ and a ‘social I’ in order to function as humans: there are also a ‘self-cherishing I’ and a ‘fixated I’ which are not so helpful. So, we have four I’s! It is easy to see how the ‘self-cherishing I’ and the ‘fixated I’ limit us.

The ‘social I’ has two sides to it: functional and exaggerated. This ‘social I’ is our personality, create by the feedback we receive from the world around us. If this is clung to, we become a type – a caricature – but at the same time, we need something to which can relate. My teacher told me I needed a ‘social I’: maybe he thought I had a low self-esteem, which has a detrimental effect on progress and my ability to relate to others.

So what about the ‘mere I’?
Once one has a introduction to essence – pure empty awareness – one is home and dry. However, there is a dryness about this as it just is, and does not manifest love immediately. But then there comes a sadness, as others have not recognised their home. This sadness is love – essence love – the juice of ‘mere I’. It may go a little crazy now and again, but it means well. It has to learn and teach. We all learn and teach: that is why we are here.

When we love our ego, no one can ever use it against us again. No fear!