What Is The Ego?

On the one hand, it’s an illusion. On the other hand, it’s the current you

Spirituality and psychology do a lot of trying to describe something immaterial, something we can’t directly see or touch, but that we know is there based on how it affects physical things.

In attempting to define spirit or consciousness and their parts, a lot of jargon is generated — that is, new and specific words are needed to describe the new and unfamiliar things. Spirituality and psychology end up generating their own language.

One of the words of this language is ego, and is understood superficially as “a person’s sense of self.” If someone is being egotistic, or if they have a “large” ego, the word is understood as “selfishness.”

And then there’s the weird spiritual people who occasionally break the usual pattern and announce: “The ego is an illusion!”

What is the ego, really? Everyone has one, and if left alone, it can trap us and damage our personalities. If understood, it becomes as harmless as an illusion.

Ego As The Conscious Self

“The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions.”
— Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id

Let’s start with the positive view of the ego: it’s the part of our psyche which reasons, thinks, makes distinctions. It separates the churning chaos of experience into clear-cut categories, objects and concepts that we can manipulate and understand.

The benefit of having an ego is that it keeps us sane, and gives us a feeling of control over our environment. This feeling of identity and separateness is what lets us live together in rational, structured society, with rules, duties, goals.

Another way to say it is: the ego is who we think we are, the conscious part of our personality.

Now that we understand the role of the healthy ego, let’s explore the dangers of the unhealthy ego.

Ego Inflation And Its Dangers

“An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable…