Steps to awakening-Part 4
How the Ego causes us to suffer
We may consider that there is no such thing as a truly evil person, just those with extreme attachments to a point of view.
They have invested their whole sense of self in a concept and may even take to killing others in order to defend their position and to reinforce their identity. It is incredible to think that humans will actually kill and do terrible things to defend an idea in the mind that they think is right!
This causes endless suffering in the world as we all act from and react to these mental points of view. All any ego is really doing though, is looking for unconditional love to fix its fundamental sense of lack. This can get horribly twisted into the pursuit of attention, money or power or whatever - but it is the same motivation; the search for love to cover up the feeling of separation and incompleteness. If we can understand for ourselves, we can understand this in others. This then helps us to have empathy, forgiveness and love for all beings.
Ego and Spiritual Identification
One of the things that we see quite a lot in the Yoga world is the identification of being a ‘spiritual’ being. People take on a whole lifestyle. They dress the part, buy the music, incense and jewellery and hang out with the Yoga nobility (i.e. the coolest teachers). We have been there and worn the T-shirt ourselves!
There is nothing wrong with this, but eventually the intense attachment around this may cause yet more suffering and insecurity, because it is still a false idea about who we really are. It is another trick to make us feel separate - my gang (spiritual) versus your gang (not-so-spiritual).
It’s a kind of game of ‘my ego is smaller than yours’ or even: ‘I am more awake that you,’ in which individuals are actually reinforcing, rather than seeing through, their ego. It is considered ‘bad’ to have too much ego in the Yoga community and there are many teachers walking around claiming to not have one at all. (Of course, this is the ego which has formed yet another identity around the idea that they don’t actually have one!)
This shows how subtle the ego is. In certain traditions in India, students are encouraged to ‘surrender’ to their guru. This is meant to dismantle the ego. The problem with this however is that the guru usually has some ego too; some unresolved shadow stuff, which is even more dangerous because it is unacknowledged.
Inquiring into the identification of the Ego
So, how do you deal with your ego? Is it who you are? Bill Feeney, one of my first Yoga teachers, gives the helpful advice of thinking of your ego as being like a large parrot on your shoulder. You do need some ego for motivation and for survival but try to shrink it down to the size of a small sparrow. This is a great analogy, although really, if you think about it, the ego doesn’t even exist, other than as a conceptual idea of ‘self’.
When we investigate and look at what it is that we identify with, it’s helpful to look deeply into our most strongly held opinions and beliefs. These have the potential to cause anger and violence - especially if we think that we are ‘right’ and someone else is ‘wrong’.
But our most forceful ideas also have the power to liberate us, because if we can see the attachments and identifications that they are showing us, then we can relax them. How can we have an opinion about others when we never know the full story - or understand all the motivations and conditioning behind someone else’s action?
If there is judgement or a feeling of being superior, then there is always ego - something which is not accepting ‘What Is’. This is why it is important to have a peaceful mind, so that we are not reacting from our shadow-side and consequently passing our own suffering on to the world.