Ego according to a definition found on the Princeton Univ website is “self: your consciousness of your own identity”. This is what Wikipedia has to say about ego. And the wikipedia definition is what I have come to believe in time.
Understanding the ego is far more complex than it first seems and perhaps holds the key to getting through to understanding yourself. The ego is burdened with experiences, the good, the bad, the strengths, the weaknesses, and so on. The experiences in turn build bias and make people judgemental. This then colours their perception. But is that truly the case or in that colour is an element of your soul which dilutes your bias and judgement. Perhaps the ego and the soul fight for domination in colouring your views.
We have all experienced our ego when we get a compliment and we also experience this when somebody curses us. The same ego, living in it’s duality, chooses to experience both. So if you want to still the mind and calm the ego, perhaps the part of you that likes the compliment has to make peace with the part that hates the cursing and both need to become aware of the futility of the situation.
As humans, or in fact as a living beings, do we not need that ego to survive? I would like to expand this further but find myself limited in my language and in clarity of thought to do that. So I think I am going to end this blog entry here and ponder over this myself whilst I read and research more on understanding the ego.