What is Ego?

Raam: What is Ego?

Vashist Muni: Me + Mine is Ego.

– Yog Vashista.

What Ego is not – “Egotism”

( Super inflated belief about oneself after accumulating various possessions – money, fame, circle of friends, etc ).

That ( Egotism ) is only an emotion Vs Ego is actually your belief as to who you are.

You might say, ” I already know who I am. This is me.” – you would say pointing your finger toward your body.

From Sansar’s point of view, you may be correct, but spiritually speaking, this can be easily questioned.

For example –

If I see a pen, that means I and the pen are separate, and that’s why I cannot be the pen.

Same way, we CAN see the body, with its arms and legs and toes and fingers.

That means we cannot be the body.

Then who are we?

We have a strong faith in our belief that “I am this body.”

But the path of spirituality shakes the foundations of such beliefs.

So, in response to this question, some people might say, “My Mind. I am the mind, looking at the body.”

That’s a little better because we do say, “My body.”

That means “Me” and “My body” are separate.

But then, why do we say, “This is me? ( the body ).”

We don’t sit in Toyota and say, ” I am Toyota.”

But we do, all the time, that this body is me.

That is because, we have to, for the sake of Sansar. Sansar would not operate without each person having their body as their identification.

Otherwise, Sansar would not function.

So, this is the biggest mistake, the biggest illusion, we all are living in, for our whole life.

So, what happens next, after having a wrong illusion about who we are?

The body becomes “Me”, all its desires, all its connections like parents, siblings, friends, relatives, possessions, etc, become “Mine”.

And our whole life passes in accumulating more and more of “Mine”, all due to wrong illusion.

And that’s why we spend our whole life taking care of the body, its desires, its possessions, its ownerships, etc.

Spirituality says, by transcending your Ego, you will find out, who you really are.

That’s the most productive use of this human birth, to find out your true self.

And when we do get the answer, life changes drastically.