Ego - embracing and acceptance

Further to my posting on the Ego to starve it or to embrace it, I've decided to add a few more of my opinions on embracing and accepting our ego as part of us.


In modern English, the ego refers to one’s self-esteem, an inflated sense of self-worth, or in philosophical terms, one’s self. Ego development is known as the development of multiple processes, cognitive function, defenses, and interpersonal skills or to early adolescence when ego processes are emerged.

According to Sigmund Freud, the Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role. Even though the model is structural and makes reference to an apparatus, the id, ego and super-ego are functions of the mind rather than parts of the brain and do not correspond one-to-one with actual somatic structures of the kind dealt with by neuroscience.


The Buddhist teaching of the ego differs from Freud. In buddhism the ego is a collection of mental events classified into 5 categories, called skandhas: 1) Physicality (the body); 2) Sensation (the five senses); 3) Emotion; 4) Cognition (thoughts, images, memory); and 5) Attitude (world view or mindset). Note that this is not exactly how the Buddhists define the 5 Skandhas, but it will suffice here as there is no point going further into that (It's complicated). Each of the 5 categories can be shown to be changable & impermanent, and therefore to be an Illusion. Since the personality is composed of these Illusions, it is reasoned that the Ego is an Illusion as well. In Buddhism it is taught that dissolving the Illusions of the Ego is the Path to Illumination. In Theravadin Buddhism, it is taught that the Ego itself dissolves when one attains Enlightenment.


For our purpose here, there is no point going into deeper understanding of the Ego as what we want to know is what do we do to "tame" our ego.


The ego exists as a form of defense mechanism for us in facing the physical world. It's not something bad. It's a part of us and serves amongst others to protect us from harm in our everyday dealings in the physical world. Though it is possible that some people have an over-inflated ego. And by the way, an over inflated ego is not necessarily proportionately tied to success. I've noticed some losers have over-inflated ego so big it makes Donald Trump shy (no offense intended, I think Mr Trump is a great guy who is dedicated to financial education of the masses). In such a case, the ego serves as a protection to the egoistic person to protect him from being exposed as a person who is actually lacking of self esteem or self worth. Hence that person's desire to be right all the time. In extreme cases, such a person, if God comes down to tell him he is wrong, he will tell God that God's wrong. Aiyooo. Oh well..


Anyway... personal growth is difficult with an over inflated ego. Here I say personal growth as a general term. It includes all forms of personal growth including, in particular, spiritual growth. The ego that serves to "protect" also has a life of its own and will fight its death. and in wanting to grow spiritually, the ego, would in the end, have to "die". But that's another topic much later. For now, we will say the ego serves us in protecting us in our daily dealings in the physical world. But it also has a "mind" of its own and thus will fight us if we choose to surpress it. Pretty much the same for all our other bodies: emotional body, mental body etc they all have their own "mind" and do demand our attention at times.


So the best way to tame the ego is to embrace and accept the ego. Embracing and acceptance of the ego is like turning your ego into a "friend" that you can have inner conversations with and even inner negotiations with.


Lets face it, we do this with our clients during negotiations don't we? Its a technique taught to sales people too. When a salesperson engages the client, he/she would want to "move" the client to his/her "side of the table" or "move" to the client's "side of the table" in the negotiations so that the client would not see the salesperson as after his/her money but genuinely have his/her interest at heart and is on the "same side" as the client. Correct? Well... that's the kind of approach I recommend. Treat your ego as your "friend", accept that the ego is part of you, and do give it its "moment of glory" but all within control such that you are not starving the ego but is instead slowly bringing the ego to your side of the table such that it gets aligned to your purpose. All the while, YOU are the master.


I believe, if you do this well enough, and it is not a one off process, it is a journey of engagement, there will come a point in time, when your ego is so aligned with your purpose, that it recognizes that it needs to "fuse" with you (or let itself go or whatever you want to call it) so that it doesn't come in your way of your rapid spiritual growth. 


related post:
Our ego - to embrace it or to starve it

What we do is soo loud, people don't hear what we say

Dumb egoistic people who just want to be right