More about the Ego

I feel like a broken record but the more I write about this the more I can try to wrap my brain around it. There is a sense of self or “I” in every thought you have, in every memory in your brain. When you are trapped in the Ego you associate with those thoughts instead of your inner being. If there is no space between you and your thoughts then you are lost in the ego. So does that mean that you shouldn't have thoughts in your head – no – there will always be thoughts in your head. But when you can see them as thoughts and not as who you are then you are not living in your head anymore. And then I think “But I have opinions, thoughts – that is who I am” And here is the difference - you may have opinions but once you have the need to defend them to other people, once you are at odds with people who don’t share your opinions then that is the ego. Once you make enemies of people that don’t have the same opinions (or religion, or race, etc) then you are not separated from those opinions and have become trapped in the ego. Those opinions become who you are and therefore anyone that opposes them becomes your enemy because they are opposing you. In reality the truth needs no defense. You must put a space between your thoughts and yourself. Then you are not controlled by them. If you can do this then you will no longer have the need to be in conflict with people that oppose you. On this weeks podcast someone called in and asked about if someone hurts you or strikes out against you where do those hurt feelings come from and how do you deal with them. His response was that the hurt feelings come from the Ego because only the Ego can be hurt by others. Eckhart told them to bring that hurt feeling into themselves and accept it – don’t fight it. That will only make the feelings stronger. "What you fight you strengthen and What you resist persists" And you can’t just say I shouldn't be feeling this – that won’t work either. If you can analyze what you are feeling and see it for what it really is then you should be able to see that it doesn’t have anything to do with the essence of you, the core of you. Your Ego may be offended and want to strike back but you are not your ego. You are the awareness of your ego. So nothing that anyone can say or do can alter your inner person – your formlessness. When others strike out against you then that is their ego. Eckhart told a story about a man that was very rude to him, angry even and he made the decision to treat him like an honored guest. By not reacting to the anger(his Ego) the man was completely changed in a span of 20 minutes! Because he didn’t react to the person’s ego then he was not in conflict with it. Oprah commented that you must be highly evolved to be able to recognize another person’s ego for what it is and I would have to agree with her. I doubt that I would have been able to do the same. There is so much more that I wanted to talk about but I will save it for next time. Thanks for reading : )