We all think we know what the ego is but few really do

Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads

*note* Melvyn talks about ego...remember,this is a guy who never followed any gurus or zen masters.I am always interested in people whom speak the truth from their own experiences.
-added by danny-
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We all think we know what the ego is but few really do. It is not what we think it is at all. We talk about one person having a big ego or a small one. We say he/she is on an ego trip. We sometimes think of who we are as my ego, it is our identity. These are all just ideas about something that few really understand. That process we refer to as ego is an illusion. We have no ego because there is no one to have one.

If we don't come to see clearly the cause and process of the ego, we are doomed as a species. You may think that is a bit of an exaggeration but if you follow what is said here, and come to understand it, you will agree. The root cause of almost every problem we humans face is the ego. Understanding this has to go beyond words. This is a major problem in everything we try to communicate to one another; we see words and we have learned to think we understand there meaning, but all we understand is the description, not the reality they may point to. So, please, try to see what is written here directly, without any of your knowledge getting in the way. You will have plenty of time to think about your past understanding of this later. For now just read and try to see what is being expressed.

Let us take a trip back in time, way before humans were humans. We must have been fairly bright apes and we lived in an eat or be eaten world. We were not as big or as strong as many of the other creatures around us. We were hunters and gatherers. We were also not the only bipedal animals and had to compete with others trying to survive as we were. With a bit of luck and a slightly larger brain we stayed alive as the other near humans died off, or were killed by us.

As hunter-gatherers, we had to develop a good memory. How else could we find and know where to return to our food sources. The memory was a very necessary tool for all animals, but the pre-human went further than any animal we know of. The memory developed in us the ability to make abstract images in the mind of our environment. With this came the ability to objectify and name objects. This process took so long to develop that we did not realize the objects we named were merely ideas in memory. We have little knowledge of how long of a period this skill took to develop. It must have been imperceptibly slow, so we never realized it was taking place.

Aside from the problems it would someday cause, this was a wonderful development. We could look out, see an object, or animal, or friend, or our mate, name them, and even draw them. We could make an abstract mental symbol of any object, be they a person, place, thing, or an event. Now this all must sound pretty normal, no big deal; we don't have to be a scholar to consider how this all came about. Just a little thinking about it is all that is needed. So, what does this have to do with the ego?

Before this evolutionary development there was no ego. The ego was not a part of the thinking mind when we were simple animals. As we started to see and name everything, over a long period of time, we started to see the mental images as something real, not just as ideas in the memory banks of our brains. We not only saw our fellow beings; we began to identify with them. Keep in mind all this identity was purely a mental process. It became a sort of image feedback system that turned into an identity feedback system. I call you Grog and you return with my name, Grope, or whatever, which reinforced our sense of identity. Out of this grew the sense of ownership, tribal identity, which over time grew to include my country over yours, my church, my god, my power, my desires, my possessions, and on and on into the world we know today.

Just as a human fetus goes through all the stages of our physical evolution, we condition our children from birth to develop the ego. We continually reinforce this process in our offspring and ourselves. I have known people who had a very little understanding of the ego and tried to break the cycle of its development in their children and, of course, failed. If it had worked, they could have ended up with some very neurotic kids. We live in a society that is based in ego and all of our languages are dualistic. Our children have to live in such a world and they need to know how to deal with it. This does not mean there aren't things we can do to help the children be not only more free of the ego but develop minds that can deeply question everything in their lives with out fear. And, if we really understand it ourselves, we can help them awaken when their minds are ripe and ready to Awaken. We can teach them to not follow anyone, any belief, or authority with out deeply going into it and coming to some level of insight as to what to believe. If we do not understand these things, we cannot help them. The ego will just go on as it has throughout history. The ego is the most destructive process on earth.

Security for the body is a natural function that all animals need to survive. We need it for all the obvious reasons. However, as the brain developed and started to identify as a separate individual, the need for physical security was carried over to the imaginary person living as images in the brain. When we started feeling the need to protect that which can never be protected, the beginning of all the problems we see today came into being. Everything from domestic violence to racism, jealousy, and hatred can be traced to the ego being insecure. Whatever we identify with becomes a part of the ego and we will go to our death to protect all we consider ours. We say we love someone but if that person becomes a threat to our sense of identity we are ready to kill them. We turn to religion for a sense of security and then defend the beliefs of that religion no matter how insane they are. Look at how many wars that have been caused by such beliefs. We are capable of being totally cruel and sadistic to anyone we feel is a threat to our beliefs. We know, subconsciously, that we are living a lie but we cannot see it for fear it would mean the death of who we think we are. So we go from lie to lie, always seeking some rest from our nightmarish insecurity. We will never find it. The ego is insecurity itself, so how can it ever be free? Watch your own thinking and those around you and in time it will be seen very clearly that this is true.

Greed is another way the ego tries to find security, and there is no limit to how much money some people believe they have to possess. When we see large corporations killing us with tobacco, chemicals, and all the other things that are threatening the environment, and they just don't care. The dollar is more important than anything else. Yet we, for the most part, sit by and let it happen because it may mean our jobs if we don't go along with it all. Our own government is as guilty as any corportation. The government, along with the military, is just a branch of big business. We are of little importance to any of them. We are just consumers who keep the machine of business going on raping the world. If we don't start to awaken, there is very little hope of survival for any of us. And it all goes back to the ego, the core killer of this wonderful planet.

Life is in constant change and to deal with this change we have to be as flexible as the rest of life. Yet, we are not at all flexible as ego. We have identified with events, hurts, desires, and identification with so much of our, seeming, history that we look to as sign posts, landmarks within the mind, that keep us in the past. We fear change. To be open to change we have to be open to letting go of our identity, and insecurity will not allow us to let go. We don't consciously know this; it is just a gut feeling. Even the things in our lives that have hurt us so deeply we will not let go of. The ego will identify with anything, even our suffering. This is one of the reasons people rarely heal from emotional suffering. If they can identify with some new state, idea, or symbol, then they may let go of that part of their past. However, under the right conditions all that hurtful past will reemerge to haunt them again. We cannot be fully free of all this suffering until we awaken from the dream of ego. No matter what we do to free ourselves it will be useless. We can turn to religion, which will also be useless, being based in ego/insecurity. Nothing you identify with can free you. This process will go on until you die unless you can find it in yourself and see it with such clarity that it comes to an end. Only then will you understand what life really is.

Who you think you are is this very process, the phantom ego. If you see this clearly, it will come as a shock. If you don't feel that shock, you are either not seeing it clearly or you are Enlightened.

When you awaken and realize the truth of what has been said here you will see we are in a state of insanity. We have been killing one another and destroying our environment for ages and we do not have that much time left to make a major shift in the way we deal with life or we will be destroyed. We can go on denying the facts, we can keep following leaders who don't have a clue of where the real problem is, and we can keep ourselves blind while being entertained until the end, which isn't that far in the future. Most of us have no idea of what love is, nor real compassion. The only way to truly see with the heart is to be free of the ego. It is the heart that will save this wonderful planet. Not our religious leaders, saviors, or politicians who have been lying to us from the beginning. The key to real happiness and wholeness is within you. It is up to you to awaken and go beyond the nightmare of ego.

Melvyn Wartella