Lessons for Living Beyond the Ego: Sustaining Your Journey to Love, Joy, and Peace

Overview

Most dictionaries will explain that ego is Latin for I (and its derivatives me, my, mine, myself). In real life, the definition of ego isn’t nearly as neat and tidy. The word has been so liberally interpreted that a definition which meets with widespread agreement is difficult to lock into.

Beginning in the late 1800s, when ego was first proposed as part of a person’s mental apparatus, the field of psychology has given ego a fair amount of respect. Freud defined it as the arbitrator between the id and the superego. Jung called ego the center of consciousness that is responsible for one’s feelings of continuity. Therapists might assess a client as having a weak ego, which usually describes a person who lacks the emotional strength to deal with the normal stressors of life. They would think of a strong ego as just the opposite.

In common language usage, ego hasn’t been given nearly this same respect. His ego got in the way is a common expression meaning His feelings of self-importance interfered with what he was trying to accomplish. Some people are said to have big egos, meaning they are rather full of themselves. Others might be described as being on an ego trip, which suggests they have said or done something to increase their power and influence or to draw attention to their own importance. And still others are labeled egocentric, meaning they think of themselves as being so important that everything revolves around them, as the planets revolve around the sun. Interestingly, these kinds of labels are more often assigned to men than to women, though perhaps unfairly since having an ego has nothing to do with gender.

This propensity to equate ego with an inflated sense of self-importance represents a very narrow definition of ego, and also adds to the tendency to vilify it. It is often referred to as a delusion, an illusion, a trickster, a state of dysfunction or madness, or a deceptive and false identification as if it were a demon living inside us, an enemy that must be tamed, conquered, crushed, or overcome.

The truth is that ego is not any of these things—not a delusion; not an illusion; not a dysfunction or madness; not deceptive and false; not a trickster; and not something to be conquered, overthrown, or overcome. To think of it as such pits you against it, as if at war. But this is impossible because to a large degree, you are it.

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Everyone has an ego. Ego is not a place or a thing; it is a state of consciousness. (Hereafter, ego and ego consciousness are used interchangeably.) Ego is not something that lives in us; it is a large part of who we are. It is where the masses of humanity, past and present, live. Ego consciousness is where people are in their heads when awake. It is what’s usually meant by consciousness itself. It is what people mean when they say I, me, my, mine, and myself. For the vast majority of people, ego is how we experience our everyday existence. It is our normal thinking and feeling state. It is the usual sensation one has of I, myself.

We are not born with an ego; it is learned. And, it is entirely an unconscious phenomenon. We learn ego consciousness based on a common shared experience that we all have shortly after birth when we are given a name. In the following days, weeks, months, and years our experience teaches us that having a separate name and a separate body makes us separate beings. I, my parents and siblings, my cat and dog: each has his or her own name and body. Therefore, each must be separate from the other.

Given our experience as separate beings, we each gradually develop the sensation that I, myself am an isolated person who exists apart from the rest of the world. This sensation of disconnectedness causes feelings of smallness, insignificance, unimportance, and irrelevance. These feelings are the DNA of ego consciousness. I am a separate center of feeling and action, living inside my body, interacting with an external world of people and things that are large, alien, and strange.

Our feelings of disconnectedness, insignificance, and smallness cause us to attach to our names and bodies as a way to feel connected and to fortify our existence. These early attachments will begin a lifelong quest of attaching to things, people, ideas, and beliefs in search of the security that we sense was lost in our experience of separateness.

And, this feeling of separateness does not end in having a name and a body and attaching to them. It is a sensation that is reinforced repeatedly as the normal way of being, since everyone is in the same boat, so to speak. It is the result of having been taught to think in the language of disconnectedness as handed down from one’s culture. This language is repeated and reinforced so often and in so many ways that it becomes a way of thinking that permeates our lives and takes us over. It is the ego developing.

In other words, the development and reinforcement of ego consciousness is predominantly a social phenomenon. Others close to us will condition us to become who we are and aren’t, and how we should and shouldn’t feel, think, and behave. The message that we are, indeed, separate beings is conveyed through the attitudes, words, values, and actions of others. As a case in point, the word you as it is often used with children can, by itself, imply one’s separateness. You are a naughty little girl or You are an angel; it doesn’t matter. Both suggest that one’s sense of I—one’s ego—is separate from others.

As we continue to grow in years, we are influenced by a number of social institutions that promote our belief in ego separateness. Public and private schools, for example, teach us to be independent and self-reliant. Think for yourself! Don’t copy the behavior of your friends! Be your own person! Get a grip on yourself! Additionally, if we are brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are taught—or allowed to believe—that God is a personal deity living outside of the world. This same notion encourages each of us, although subtly, to think that—like God—we are separate entities existing apart from the rest of the universe.

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The belief in separateness—albeit unconscious—contradicts logic and all available evidence. We were not born as separate beings—different, yes; separate, no. One does not at birth come into the world as much as one grows out of it, as roses from a bush. Alan Watts¹, a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, expresses this succinctly in The Book: As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

His point is that we are all inextricably connected, since all things—including us humans—come from the same Spirit, the same conscious stuff. But when we believe that we are separate from this stuff, then we believe that we are different beings than we really are. And that means we must try to make ourselves into something that we’re really not.

Think of it like this. If a bird could think it’s a fish, it would try to act like a fish, though obviously with much pain and suffering. If a turtle could think it’s an ostrich, it would try to act like an ostrich, again, with much distress. Behavior is always consistent with the thoughts that drive it. It is the same with humankind. If we think we’re separate beings, then we will try to act like separate beings, even though we’re not. But as with the bird and the turtle, so with us: the results in each case will be dissatisfaction, suffering, and misery because these thoughts lead to behaviors that are neither consistent with nor conducive to whom we really are.

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Given this mistaken definition of who we are as beings, we are left to fend for ourselves in a large and impersonal world. Since in that context we feel small, insignificant, unimportant, and irrelevant, we must behave in ways that bolster our defenses. We accomplish this by compensating with behaviors that are the exact opposite of what we really feel inside. This means we must act powerful, self-important, big, significant, right, authoritative, and judgmental—in a word, one up on all others. This is the way our sense of self—our ego—works to ensure its own survival. The result is a universal superiority complex that is the fountainhead of human dissatisfaction and suffering.

This suffering manifests itself in three dimensions. First, the thirst for superiority is extreme for many people. The more superior they feel—whether through fame, fortune, influence, power, or wealth—the more one up they try to become. Over time, their dependence on superiority becomes so out of control that they eventually crash and burn. They fall from their pedestal in one way or another: legal infractions, moral violations, emotional or physical collapse, and other similar outcomes.

Second, acting superior is rarely received well by others and therefore often ends in suffering for the perpetrator. People who feel offended by those who act superior tend to criticize, shun, resist, and sometimes retaliate against them. For instance, individuals who try to control the behavior of others often strain even their closest relationships to the breaking point, causing the controlling individual to feel misunderstood, hurt, and lonely.

Third, acting superior toward others is a source of widespread suffering for those on the receiving end. One spouse might act superior to the other in ways that cause fierce arguments, relentless criticisms, or broken relationships. Parents say and do—or don’t say and do—things that can be excruciatingly painful to their children, even though it is usually unintentional and often very subtle. Controlling behaviors, manipulative interactions, and endless judgments by people in positions of power and authority can cause those who are directly affected to be frightened, hurt, depressed, ashamed, and angry. These types of feelings lead to an endless stream of suffering: chronic physical and emotional illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, revenge, shootings, suicides, and—at the very least—the periodic resurfacing of repressed emotional pain due to suffering that was endured in childhood, usually in the context of our closest relationships.

These same acts of superiority are the source of environmental pollution, international conflict, economic instability, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, global unrest, and the never-ending threat of self-destruction as a species.

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The situation the world is presently in has come about for very specific reasons, all of which are rooted in ego. The instinct to continue living—the survival instinct—is the most basic instinct of every form of life on earth. Based on our earliest experiences in life, we have unconsciously—and, as it turns out, mistakenly—defined ourselves as separate and isolated beings. Therefore, deep in our psyche we feel that if we are to survive as individuals and as a species, this definition itself—that we are disconnected beings—and the behaviors that support it must survive as well.

This, then, is the essence of ego consciousness. In the name of survival, we continue doing the things that support our misdirected belief as to who we think we are. We are only recently beginning to realize that these same behaviors lead to discontentment, personal suffering, and, if left unchecked, our eventual demise as a species.

The secret to finding peace and happiness is to loosen ourselves from ego’s painful grip by going beyond the ego and entering the world of Spirit, the source of true joy. To do so, we must first travel through the ego. Without proper guidance, this trip can be perilous since ego, to ensure its own survival, makes every attempt to derail us along the way. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides are needed to help you make this journey safely, which is precisely what Beyond the Ego and Lessons for Living Beyond the Ego are designed to do.

As you proceed, the seeds of happiness, joy, and peace of mind will take root at the outset of your journey and continue to grow every step of your way. Wherever you are on your own journey—whether you’re just getting started or you’re well on your way—the fifty-two lessons that follow will help expedite your trip to happiness, joy, and peace of mind.

Chapter One

Happiness Is an Inside Job

-Sylvia Boorstein-

Capitalistic societies are sustained by a consumer economy. The more goods and services people buy, the more the economy grows. Predictably, this creates an environment in which the advertising industry flourishes where the goal is to promote products and services in ways that increase consumer spending.

The means by which this is accomplished is only marginally regulated and this often leads to a sizable gap between what is actually true and what the consumer is led to believe is true. This is why women with mannequin-like figures, fashion magazine hairdos, and Hollywood makeup are used to model fashionable dresses. The unspoken message is that if a woman buys this dress, she will look like the person modeling it, although that is rarely the case. For the same reason, exercise equipment is demonstrated by people who, long before the products they’re promoting were even manufactured, were already fit and trim. It is why the latest models of automobiles are shown gliding along the bucolic shoreline rather than swerving to miss potholes on an average highway.

Pay attention and you’ll see this strategy at work in the majority of commercials you come across. It is based on a tactic called marketing by association—a subliminal seduction of the mind where the intent is to entice you to associate the product with something desirable—a person, a place, or a lifestyle—thereby increasing the odds that you’ll purchase it. The overall message, of course, is that buying this or that product makes you a happier, more attractive, and more secure person.

The truth is, no product can or will achieve this for you; at least not for very long. Acquiring material possessions—from bigger purchases like houses or cars to smaller ones like the latest technological gadget or fancy garment—have only a fleeting effect on your happiness. This is why our cravings for material possessions usually escalate at a rate that equals or exceeds our incomes; nothing one could purchase is ever enough to fill one’s soul for long. Propelled by marketing, however, we chase objects that we often don’t need and rarely use.

Witness, for example, the large number of expensive boats that surely require long hours of labor for most of us to purchase, yet they end up floating endlessly in ghost-town-like harbors, slowly deteriorating from lack of use. This phenomenon is symbolic: owning more and more luxurious possessions fails to make people feel happier than they were before. In fact, some research shows that material goods make us less happy than we were before purchasing them. Due in part to the expense of insurance and the frustration and cost of upkeep, they actually increase our anxieties. Most important of all, though, is the simple reality that material things are impermanent and, in the end, provide neither the