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The ego does not exist. (complete.)

It is not uncommon for people who become involved in mysticism, usually imported from a culture foreign to them or made readily accessible through the advent of drugs, to speak of this vague ontological entity regarded as the “ego”.

What is it?

From my experience, it is not so much a physical phenomenon as a catch-all phrase including but not limited to the following definitions:

1. Conscious intent.
2. The sum of one’s conscious processes.
3. Self-image.
4. Aggression.
5. Ignorance.
6. Fear.
7. Social tact.
8. Restraint.
9. Ambition. (See 1)
10. Integrity.
11. Introversion.
12. Extraversion.
13. Self-respect.

Clearly, the phrase may be dispensed with entirely, and social communication would not suffer. Not only are these and others such disparate definitions that one phrase should be absurd and inadequate to apply to them, but also the definitions themselves stand: If I want to call someone ignorant, fearful, or well-mannered, I can use the words “ignorant”, “fearful”, or “well-mannered”. I need not reference some spooky, non-existent entity to criticize the other’s action, delivering the utmost ad hominem and personal attack, summing that individual in that moment up by my “informed” disapproval of his/her action or thought.

“Conscious intent” seems the most appropriate definition, at any rate. In this regard, should we use “ego” in that context solely, it should represent connotatively a Glorious phenomenon: Free Will, fortitude, and the temerity to break with tradition and find one’s own voice in the midst of a crowd of imitation. It is, at its most precious and most vulnerable, the focus of attention upon something so particular to one’s own being that it almost becomes one’s duty to the world, should one Choose it, to bring it to fruition.

Yes, we are all beautiful and unique snow flakes. Some might say this marginalizes the point of being beautiful and unique. Others agree with me that we are all unique, but that few of us realize it. Many of them, however, seem to feel that, should we all become Aware of ourselves as snow flakes and choose to make our unique patterns shine, we should lead to even greater trouble.

But I disagree, simply by virtue of my introversion.

Everyone I meet is inescapably a strange and stunning specimen, if you will. Not one person does not surprise me, even if it is by being totally ordinary. I have no problems with individuals, for I encounter each one at a time, and at the end of the day individual #1 is myself.

This seems to invert the prejudice that introverts are more self-absorbed (definition #14) than extraverts. We are concerned for people’s growth, and find no threat to our Worldview (or to the world) in people following their bliss and taking a Hero’s (ie Ego’s) Journey.

I compel all I encounter, gently or hardly, to take that long and painful road.

At the end of the day, I stand by my feeling that the word “ego” is merely one used, predominantly in a spirit of laziness and resolve in one’s own pompousness (#15), to attack those whose motives one does not fully understand, but may claim to. Disapproving of others’ motives is often misguided, if it involves the necessity to attack the person personally.

Conversely, godliness is attributed towards those whose motives we overestimate, to whom we attribute reverence that is not reciprocated. Cultists are good at this. They also tend to condemn people who do not agree with them as “egoists”. They do not reciprocate love, respect, or compassion. They are parasites.

But God is that entity which one experiences whilst encountering another human being. It is the feeling of freshness and overwhelming insight that novelty and true listening always yield, and it cannot be emulated, despite having the potential to be perfected.

And God is always between two people in a reciprocal way. If you see God, (as an experience, not a belief or a personified diety towards which one attributes the experience) in another, then, given that it is in fact God and not Godliness, you can bet, as difficult as it may be to believe, that the other is seeing God, not ego, in the unique and novel entity that you are.

There is nothing that is inherently egotistical. There are intelligent things and ignorant things, but all things are better understood than misunderstood.

Dm.A.A.