So what do u understand by Ego ? Often we all muddle up each other’s words because language falls short. I personally find that when I write poetry, it evokes a far greater response than prose. Perhaps because poems pose questions and prose tries to unsuccesfully answer them. Yet the greats minds, or those we consider enlightened, have written about Ego definitely and not as a question …..
Sri, for example sent me the following quote from Sri Raman Maharishi
“The objects or feelings or thoughts are all mental conceptions.The mind rises after the rise of the I-thought or the ego. Wherefrom does the ego rise? From the abstract consciousness or Pure intelligence. Soul, mind or ego are mere words. There are no entities of the kind. Consciousness is the only truth”
My search for consciousness also arises from my ego, ego though. I cannot deny my ego, for it has both a negative and a positive influence on me.
I am just very interested in what all of you that come on this site understand by and interpret the word EGO.
I am slo thinking that I will open a guest column in which I will ask learned people from different walks of life to see how they have come to terms with the word Ego,
shekhar
Dear Shekhar
Maybe poetry’s metaphors and indirectness are an open door to an open house. People can walk in, feel at home, and expand into the spaces.
When I was younger, my ego grew as I projected myself on the world. Now it’s fading, as I see the world more clearly, and how I’m both part of it and distinct from the rest of it. I guess ego was an organic, unconscious means of defining my distinctness. I imbued it with aspects of persona, and took on roles to fit that. But the definition was limited and flawed, being a construct of mind, and I’m leaving it behind, I think. Unless that’s a mask ego’s wearing. As I write, I guess it is. But I’m writing about something I experience most of the time that’s not ego. Maybe that’s why my ability to talk about myself has grown so fractured and unsure in the past year. Perhaps ego is how a person arises to walk, and how he or she takes baby steps, but then as one starts to stride, ego shreds to rags, and begins to drop off the real body, the real soul.
love, Heath
Ego is a carapace that defines the edge between self and the world, and provides a shell of strength that lasts until one tries to move beyond its limits, at which point perhaps the inner self is strong enough to live without it, and ego splits and falls away. Just a metaphor, but that’s what it feels like to me, except carapace is hard, and ego feels soft and tough.
The ego is not you. The ego is not real. It does not exist. We are born egoless. But we aquire an ego the moment we are given a name and start responding to it. We get identified with that name. We invest our whole lives in building up our name, in strengthening our ego.
The ego is required to separate us from the other. Otherwise, how will we address the other? If I have to communicate with you, I’ll have to address you with your name……..else, how will we communicate. So the ego is a useful tool. But only if we realize that it is just a tool and we don’t get deceived into believing that the ego is real.
As Osho Rajneesh puts it, the ego is useful…..but it is a fiction. My understanding is not very different from his. Here is an excerpt from Osho’s book, “The Book Of Wisdom”, chapter 16 :
Someone once asked Osho this question:
“What is the ego? Are we always functioning through the ego or are there moments when we are free of it?”
Osho’s reply: “MAN HAS NO CENTER separate from the center of the whole. There is only one center in existence; the ancients used to call it Tao, dhamma, god. Those words have become old now; you can call it truth. There is only one center of existence. There are not many centers, otherwise the universe would not be really a universe, it would become a multiverse. It is a unity, hence it is called the “universe”; it has only one center.
But this is to be meditated upon a little. That one center is my center, your center, everybody’s center. That one center does not mean that you are centerless, that one center simply means that you don’t have a separate center. Let us say it in different words. You can make many concentric circles on one center, many circles. You can throw a pebble in a silent lake: one center arises from the fall of the pebble and then many concentric circles arise and they go on spreading to the farthest shore — millions of concentric circles, but they all have one center.
Each can claim this center as his own. And in a way it is his center, but it is not only his. The ego arises with the claim, “The center is mine, separate. It is not your center, it is my center; it is me.” The idea of a separate center is the root of the ego.
When a child is born he comes without a center of his own. For nine months in the mother’s womb he functions with the mother’s center as his center; he is not separate. Then he is born. Then it is utilitarian to think of oneself as having a separate center; otherwise life will become very difficult, almost impossible.
TO SURVIVE, AND TO STRUGGLE for survival in the fight of life, everybody needs a certain idea of who they are. And nobody has any idea. In fact nobody can ever have any idea, because at the deepest core you are a mystery. You can’t have any idea of it. At the deepest core you are not individual, you are universal.
That’s why if you ask the Buddha, “Who are you?” he remains silent, he does not answer it. He cannot, because now he is no more separate. He is the whole. But in ordinary life even Buddha has to use the word ‘I’. If he feels thirsty he has to say, “I am thirsty. Ananda, bring me a little water, I am thirsty.”
To be exactly right, he should say, “Ananda, bring some water. The universal center is a little thirsty.” But that will look a little odd. And to say it again and again — sometimes the universal center is hungry, and sometimes the universal center is feeling a little cold, and sometimes the universal center is tired — it will be unnecessary, absolutely unnecessary. So he continues to use the old meaningful word ‘I’. It is very meaningful; even though a fiction, it is still meaningful. But many fictions are meaningful.
For example, you have a name. That is a fiction. You came without a name, you did not bring a name with you, the name was given to you. Then by constant repetition you start becoming identified with it. You know your name is Rama or Rahim or Krishna. It goes so deep that if all you three thousand sannyasins fall asleep here and somebody comes and calls, “Rama, where are you?” nobody will hear except Rama. Rama will say, “Who has come to disturb my sleep?” Even in sleep he knows his name; it has reached to the unconscious, it has seeped through and through. But it is a fiction.”
“It will be difficult if nobody has a name. Although nobody has a name in reality, still, it is a beautiful fiction, helpful. Names are needed for others to call you, ‘I’ is needed for you to call yourself, but it is just a fiction. If you go deep into yourself you will find the name has disappeared, the idea of ‘I’ has disappeared; there is left only a pure am-ness, is-ness, existence, being.
And that being is not separate, it is not yours and mine; that being is the being of all. Rocks, rivers, mountains, trees, all are included. It is all-inclusive, it excludes nothing. The whole past, the whole future, this immense universe, everything is included in it. The deeper you go into yourself, the more and more you will find that persons don’t exist, that individuals don’t exist. Then what exists is a pure universalness. On the circumference we have names, egos, identities. When we jump from the circumference towards the center, all those identities disappear.
THE EGO IS just a useful fiction.
Use it, but don’t be deceived by it.
You also ask, “Are we always functioning through the ego or are there moments when we are free of it?”
Because it is a fiction, there are moments when you are free of it. Because it is a fiction, it can remain there only if you go on maintaining it. A fiction needs great maintenance. Truth needs no maintenance, that is the beauty of truth. But a fiction? You have constantly to paint it, to give it a prop here and there, and it is constantly collapsing. By the time you have managed to prop up one side, the other side starts collapsing.
And that’s what people go on doing their whole life, trying to make the fiction seem as if it is the truth. Have more money, then you can have a bigger ego, a little more solid than the ego of the poor man. The poor man’s ego is thin; he can’t afford a thicker ego. Become the prime minister or president of a country, and your ego is puffed up to extremes. Then you don’t walk on the earth.
Our whole life, the search for money, power, prestige, this and that, is nothing but a search for new props, a search for new supports, to somehow keep the fiction going. And all the time you know death is coming. Whatsoever you make, death is going to destroy it. But still one goes on hoping against hope — maybe everybody else dies, but not you.
And in a way it is true. You have always seen other people dying, you have never seen yourself dying, so it seems true also, logical also. This person dies, that person dies, and you never die. You are always there to feel sorry for them, you always go with them to the cemetery to say goodbye, and then you are back home again.
DON’T BE DECEIVED by it, because all those people were doing the same thing. And nobody is an exception. Death comes and destroys the whole fiction of your name, your fame. Death comes and simply effaces all; not even footprints are left. Whatsoever we go on making out of our life is nothing but writing on water — not even on sand, but on water. You have not even written it, and it is gone. You cannot even read it; before you could have read it, it is gone.
But we go on trying to make these castles in the air. Because it is a fiction, it needs constant maintenance, constant effort, day and night. And nobody can be so careful for twenty-four hours. So sometimes, in spite of you, there are moments when you have a glimpse of reality without the ego functioning as a barrier.
Without the screen of the ego, there are moments — in spite of you, remember. Everybody once in a while has those moments.
For example, every night when you fall deeply into sleep, and the sleep is so deep that you cannot even dream, then the ego is no more found; all the fictions are gone. Deep dreamless sleep is a kind of small death.”
Some moments when a grown up adult can be egoless:
1. At the time of deep, dreamless sleep.
2. When truly in Love.
3. During sex.
4. During times of great danger……life threatening situations.
5. When anything moves you so deeply that you lose yourself……like while listening to a great piece of music, watching a beautiful sunset etc.
Needless to say that the more conscious you become the more the moments of egolessness you will enjoy.
Cheers!
Navin
Ego can interchangeably be used with self-worth the way ‘I’ perceive it.
A person’s perception, self-opinionated discussions may also be termed as egoistic, unless of course the other person thinks on the same lines as you. This leads to finding the perfect twin soul, soul-mate if you may, which seems ever so elusive.
Again the benchmark for consciousness, principles, values and ethics varies from person to person and ego or self-worth perhaps plays a role here. Some may move past the ‘I’ and look at the ‘We’ and even in that selflessness there is still an ego that a person has achieved ‘enlightenment’. Imagine(is there ?) a person without an iota of ego…
Do you think ego can derive a meaning without taking into context the human frailty?
If someone praises me and I feel great, however fleetingly, I consider it my ego.
If someone criticises me and I get hurt, I consider it my ego.
In both these cases my ego took hold of me before objectivity or reasoning could. I like to put myself in the other persons shoes but in most cases can’t!
Ofcourse there are many more subtle ways in which ego can work, but if we are suitably aware we can recognise it. Much of my effort is towards warding it off it’s ill-effects, surrendering or forgiving is more preferable than being a link in the cycle of anger. I don’t yet know how to harness the ego for something good.
Shekhar,
Human structure is not completely understood. We are better placed , as Indians in this respect , since we have traditional wisdoms originating from individuals and institutions alike – ramana maharshi, vivekananda , rk paramahans , adi shankaracharya and the works – brahma sutras , bhagawad gita and upanishads do give us some insights .As an institution , Ashtang yoga path of Patanjali does try to give a definition.
Ego to me is a principle of existance without which we would not survive – it is deeper than the conscious mind – it shows itself in the way the body protects itself from disease , ot the way we learn to seek pleasure and not pain – self interest is implicit.
Ego is a principle around which the two poles of Pride and Meum arrange themselves. Its amazing how the the same Ego principle when attached to promoting the self – becomes puffed as pride and when has lost hope becomes a hollow as depressive meum .
The concept of Sthitapragna – of the bhagawad gita is a true revelation. Its one thing to want to reach that state , but to give up desire and just act is not the easiest of things to do.
Apart from that , Gross Ego in some people will prevent them from acknowledging truth from others. Not everyone can pass the test of the ego – and we never know which soul come bidden to help us along our way.
Whatever our station – you shekhar as an internationally famous film maker , or me as a scientific researcher , should be able to hear truth whatever the source – the child , the ego-bruiser , or the apparent enemy.
Our sages have always said ‘ Aano bhadra tritovoyantu Vishwatah’ – let noble thoughts enter us from all directions.
Rudra.
Hi Shekhar, I have often wondered: at what point in life did I develop an ego? What shaped my current thinking and behaviour? Was I not born with a specific face and body, into a specific culture, into a specific language and religion and gender and food habits? The career and life path I took was determined so much by all the above. Even my thoughts today are determined by the above realities that I was born into. The entire basis of so much that I am today I had no choice in making. So the ‘I’ (ego) of today cannot be real in the absolute sense.
Am I then a thinking programmed machine operating in a real reality that is inaccesible until the ‘I’ disappears? Perhaps that is how it is. The strengthening of the ‘I’ and then its devolution is realization. Without ‘I’ knowledge would’nt be possible. Yet the ‘I’ is devoured by final knowledge of oneself so wisdom reigns. It is a very tricky process for the ‘I’ (ego) becomes stronger as it acquires knowledge of the self yet it must die to achieve realization.
hmmm very strange… just today from my yahoo page – Horoscopes section showed this: “It’s time to elevate your sense of self, dear Virgo. You are just as good as anyone else, so why don’t you believe it? The problem is that you are very sensitive about having an ego. Even though you are aware that we all have egos, you try to punish yourself for its existence! This is a noble endeavour, but this kind of zealous behaviour doesn’t do you or anyone else any good. You’ll never be perfect, and neither will anyone else. So what are you worrying about?”
that triggered same question..!! is Ego means self-awareness? and remembered reading this.. EGO is just a useful fiction. Use it, but don’t be deceived by it.
Ego is like religion, it’s all about what you do with it. keeping it restrained by humility, integrity, is good (ego without restraint = danger). I have seen some those with huge egos balanced by the right restraints can be very charismatic. Ego isn’t really good or bad; it depends on how you use it. Your drive to achieve shouldn’t just come from thinking you’re the best in the world it can also come from a desire to constantly improve yourself. Funny thing is it is hard to see when your ego is controlling you in an irrational matter, you just kind of have to keep broadening your knowledge and in time you will see (some sooner than others).
Ego is a sense of self and self-worth. Pride in what you do = Good
Egotism is arrogance. Boasting and bragging. An inflated sense of one’s worth = Bad
FYI – someone recommended me Carl Jung & Eric Erickson.. seem to be good stuff about some of the fundamentals ego theories.
When I surprise myself, Mr Ego takes a back seat & shuts up…so long as I am driving everything’s fine…until Mr Ego starts up and tells me what to do….& then “Road Rage” is likely…
Ego kicks in when (a) we lose concentration & focus, or our nerve (b) when we are insecure (c) when we stop “doing” and start thinking about doing..
Actors are considered great egoists, but to be good at anything creative you have to put the ego aside – a wise person applies a knowledge of their craft to do what they enjoy and ego does’nt come into the equation – I don’t think actors are especially egotistical when they are acting unless they are very bad at what they do, or when they are not acting, or feeling insecure…
The same could be said of any creative endeavor..
i remember reading that the concept of the ‘self’ develops in early childhood when a baby beings to realise that it is a separate entity from its mother. By extension, does the EGO (a manifestation of the SELF) remain alive – as long as one thinks of oneself as separate from one’s creator ?
Thinking that I matter is my ego.
That I matter to myself
To my son
To you
That is my ego.
Working, speaking, acting, living, breathing, so that I may continue to matter
Is my ego
When the Gita said inaction
It did not mean to stop acting
It meant stop defining how you act by your ego
When you delete a post because you feel that it will not reflect well of you
Instead of writring what you feel
That is ego.
When I see people talking of ‘annihilating the ego’. I think to myself
Ego is not evil.
Ego is not the enemy.
Ego is you.
Ego is what is you.
Ego is.
Using ego to define who you are, what you do, how you think
Is limiting.
It limits the infiniteness of who you are.
It’s like making the scaffolding the skyscraper.
Move beyond.
Look beyond.
All of this is you.
Love freely
Think clearly
Speak joyfully
Live fully, completely.
Because the only thing stopping you
Is your definition, limitation of your own self
Is your ego.
Ego is what we make of it, I think. It can be as big or as small as we want it to be. Sometimes, it hurts and at other times, it protects. It will trigger, it will soothe… it will become your greatest assest or your biggest flaw; depending on how you sculpt it.
Anyway, that was me rambling. Nice post
dude…
the uncanny ability of Consciousness to create an illusion is EGO!
take care…lots of love…tata…kedar…
Poetries are relative, they are flexible in interpretations and every person can come up with his own. They pose questions that hum in our minds. They can love your thoughts and shape them, they can pain and pinch you, they can simply be ‘beautiful’ with no relation whatsoever. Moreover, they dont preach but just wonder like all of us…
If only consciousness exists, then what is the twinge that I feel in my heart when I do something wrong to the person I love, knowingly, in the name of ego? Is it my self respect or just a way of being eccentric? If it is self respect then what is its use when it exists at the cost of other’s sufferings. If its eccentricity, why is it that I make other responsible for its maintenance? Ego is simply my existence, my presence of body as well as soul but I have bloated it and made it larger than life and I have been suffering since then…
Shekhar ,
my last post – it was nice writing a bit on your blog during the xmas/new year break – back to work now.
hope you keep expressing what you have found and comparing it with other seekers . Its a great way to search for truth – in a way what you are doing is doing an intellectual ‘satsang’ – and as our rishis have said ,the root of all good is good company. best wishes in your endeavours.
cheers,
Rudra.
Shekhar ,
my last post – it was nice writing a bit on your blog during the xmas/new year break – back to work now.
hope you keep expressing what you have found and comparing it with other seekers . Its a great way to search for truth – in a way what you are doing is doing an intellectual ‘satsang’ – and as our rishis have said ,the root of all good is good company. best wishes in your endeavours.
cheers,
Rudra.
thanks for visiting, Rudra, it was nice having u here, and do keep in touch, shekhar
Hey Shekhar,
I think EGO exists…just like we all exist (with out reason?)…Ego(when understood completely) makes us all equal to God. If someone asks GOD (if he/she exists) why he made HUMANS, i think he(or she) would reply – EGO.
No matter how much I try to explain it, the explanation is understood and yet not fully complete.
I wrote about the word EGO in my blog
http://www.ekcupchai.com/2006/12/28/most-confused-words/
ego I’ve heard too many time.THAT word ego has become cliched.my mantra is: Learn with Fun, Laugh at your own mistakes,look at sunny and funny side of life, do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you,little bit of Gandhigiri+ Dhirubhaism in our daily lives.The moment I’ve experienced practising these one liners is priceless.
If I had 1000 dollars in my bank balance better buy BIONICLES from LEGO
did you know: LEGO means “I assemble” in Latin
I’d like to end this debate with following two quotes:
1)Don’t cry over spilt milk
2)Don’t cross your bridges until you’ve come to them
Let’s K.I.S.S life (K.I.S.S bole toh Keep It Short Simple)
eagerly waiting for your next blog, more thought provoking than the previous ones,Shekhar
ABOUT EGO
I cant recall the name to quote, but that learned man said “Ego is the first manifestation of the YOGA of soul with consciousness. Atma(jeev) aur Chetana(sanghya) milatein hain, jab koi navanihaal(newborn) utpanna hota hai, aankhein kholta hai aur sabse pahle mahsoos kartaa hai “main” or “I”, before this YOGA, there was a Soul waiting for the Consciousness to manifest this “EGO” ”
As u asked, and I recalled this learning, I felt like writing it.
Secondly, I am influenced by the Ayn Rand way of looking at the entity called EGO, a complete positive way! The soul reason of human evolution in fact. But the word is taken in negative sence most of the time.
U know what, this reminds me of another way of looking at the words and its meanings, and perhaps a way to explain the word PERHAPS u used when u said
“I personally find that when I write poetry, it evokes a far greater response than prose.
Perhaps because poems pose questions and prose tries to unsuccessfully answer them.”
In my thinking, someone said it right, the words are inert, lifeless, meaningless, until they get their life. Words get their life when someone associates his experiences, assumptions and presumptions, his memory evoked by of that word … Or your lack of memory to that word… anything. That’s how a word gets life. ALL IN YOUR MIND.
Anyways, inert or alive, we use words of a language to communicate. Communication is the soul need that caused the evolution of languages. There are mainly two categories of expressions(stuffs! ;o) ) we all try to communicate to someone using a LANGUAGE.
The first type,
For which they actually started a concept a language, u have an idea in ur mind, u share them using words, and words do not fail to communicate the exact thing want to be communicated. Becouse the idea u are conveying is so trivial and under the scope of to-be-communicated. Well Defined. Rigid.
The second type,
The emotions, or say, state of minds which are beyond the range of the exact-capture by the language, then we ponder around some words which give the similar meanings, loose bound, but not the exact, and everyone listening or reading can even get a different meaning of it. That’s the limitation of human communication. No wonder why they say that u can not understand the Bhagwat Geeta in its real meanings, until u are not in the state of mind of the Arjuna! Because in this this second type I described, people try to fill up between loose bounds, and those fill-ups depend totally on the state of the mind of the listener/reader.
So u see, when words fail to capture them, the meaning mostly conveyed by the intuitional intelligence, that’s why, in this particular case number second, lesser the words better communicated the state of mind.
U try to put more rigid bounds, as prose, u loose the meaning, put a light bound, as in poetry, and u get response…
even the kind of responses never expected [Like kurt kobain used to say, why people want to associate some meanings to my songs?? I never thought
of any of these meanings when i wrote them! ;o) ]. And poetry leaves a lot of space to imagination too.
Am i right sir? :o)
Regards
vivek
well, as for now, i skipped other comments, may be comment on them too in future!
15 years back I was greatly thrilled to read that EGO is the FOUNTAIN HEAD of all the success that arise from a man .I was happy to hear somebody talking good about ego.That was Ayn Rand. I found a supporter in her for my ego.And her hero in the novel Howard Roark was my hero too.Who doesn’t compromise anything for his work.Who doesn’t allow his love,desires anything to come in the way of his work.But now i have started finding fault in him.I feel he lacks HEART.He might have changed the way architecture was perceived and the way the future generation adopted architecture .But i feel such a man in general don’t love himself and puts work above him. He feels he is different from others around him.And thus generated is his EGO.EGO is LACK of LOVE
To the God of Love
i dont now i should use this place as a discussion forum on Ayn Rand or not, but i had no other link to Rinesh [the god of love :o)]. rinesh, u know, when i was reading Atlas Shrugged, i was so deeply involved in that, something changed inside it seems! may be i am in a learning process, which u have already completed and saying “But now i have started finding fault in him”. u know, now a days to whomesoever i suggest reading that, i say them not to take them too seriously. I really lost many things (which i cant discuss here) due to the change i felt after reading that! after a long time to these experiences, i read Fountain Head (i read them in reverse order, people go first for this one), and u know, i was able to criticise Howard. He was not a hero enough, by then! when i said lost, i literally mean it. i am confused that i should regret for it or not.
i posted it here becouse u are the fisrt one icame across, expressing the same thought! why dont u leave a link here to ur blog or anything like that!
regards!
PS: To sekhar,
sekhar ji. thanks in anticipation for approving this comment. u know there is no other way to express this to rinesh. Regards!
Ego is the identity that is attached to the form and shape that the universal consciousness adopts as it gets instantiated . Its the underpinning for the existence of the individual in the world of illusion : so sweetly called maya . When you lose the underpinning , you become one . Till then , you have an identity which keeps you away from being one .
-Raji
Shekhar,
Man Minus Ego is equal to God.
Mumukshu
To Vivek,
Whatever happened is for the Good
What is happening rt now is for the good
And What will happen in the Future will also be for Good
–Krishna–
20 Yrs from now you will be more disappointed about the things you didn’t do than for the things you did wrong.So keep working
mail me @ rineshnair@yahoo.com
Ego – A Scientific & Cosmological Perspective:
Dear Shekhar:
When are you beginning the Guest Column? I would be glad to contribute to it from a scientific and cosmological perspective. In the meantime, below are some of my thoughts.
Best Regards,
Avtar Singh
avsingh@alum.mit.edu
The thoughts and ideas describing ego in the previous blogs are mostly related to the common definitions of ego as depicted in scriptures, philosophy text books, and personal individual experiences. Let me try to provide a scientific and cosmological perspective based on the model of the universe and reality presented in my book [1] – “The Hidden Factor: An Approach for Resolving Paradoxes of Science, Cosmology, and Universal Reality.” The model integrates consciousness or free will into the well-accepted materialistic theories of physics and cosmology to provide the following insights about the ego.
Ego is the mind or personality of an individual, which is the net sum or collection of the memories of the past experiences, thoughts and emotions as well as their extrapolations into the future in terms of desires, ambitions, and anxieties of the unknown. The famous quote – “I Feel, Therefore I Am” of Dr. Antonio Damasio, a humanist and neuroscientist, depicts the ego as the total sum of the experiences of the biological mind that build the so-called feeling of “I”. Our individual experiences and memories define the boundaries of our personality or ego that separate us from the others. In terms of physics and cosmology, just like a mass of matter is confined and separated in space and time from the rest of the universe, the ego is separated from the universal consciousness via the veil or walls of the body and mind or individual personality. Just like the contents and quantity of mass is determined by its ingredients and size, the characteristics of the ego are determined by the type and extent of the traits (experiences, memories, feelings, cultural values, desires, convictions, and beliefs etc.) of the individual mind and personality.
Is ego a fiction, illusion, or Mithya? To answer this, we must answer the question whether our experiences, thoughts, emotions, and memories are fictions. A scientific answer that is consistent with the consciousness-integrated model of the universe is that they are not fictions but relative realities (temporal) that are subject to change in time and space. Each new experience that we have changes our personality via evolution and thus changes the relative state of our mind and ego. Just like a mass of matter (for example a star, a galaxy, a planet etc.) is not an illusion, but a relative reality of the universe subject to the realities of the classical fixed space and time, an ego is a relative reality of the bodily and worldly experiences of the human mind. It is humanly impossible, unnecessary, and perhaps worldly irresponsible to sweep the relative reality of the ego under the rug of an illusion or fiction.
How the ego relates to consciousness? While ego is a relative reality that evolves with the experiences of the mind in space and time, universal consciousness is an absolute reality or truth that is eternal and omnipresent i.e. beyond space and time. However, ego (mass) constitutes the same energy as consciousness but confined within the boundaries of the space and time of the experiences of the mind. An enlightened mind is the one that voluntarily transforms the confined energy (mass) of the ego into the free willed consciousness energy dissolving all its boundaries to the edge of the universe if there is any.
So, dear Shekhar, you do not to deny your ego and must continue to keep searching for the truth or the universal consciousness. Being an astrophysicist and a seeker, you may be almost there. The ego would fall under its own gravity or dissolve itself as soon as you get there.
[1](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140339363X/ref=lpr_g_1/104-7305128-5391916?v=glance&s=books
Dear Shekharji,
As someone said E-G-O means Edging God Out. I found only one convincing answer to this. That ego is something that is between you and your creator – a veil. It is created by God and hence cannot be annihilated according to a Mahatma Ram Chandra of Shahjahanpur(UP). However it could be refined from cruder state that is found in most human beings, to a finer state until it becomes a nominal difference between man and God. To achieve this human being should work on himself/herself. The performance of human being is at its BEST only when the ego is at its minimum in any human being. Most human beings have a crude ego as compared to a very refined ego which is ALMOST non-existent. When you say – I can lift this book, it is the ego which speaks. For this ego is necessary. To say that – only I can lift, that is a cruder ego. For further details you should contact http://www.srcm.org
regards
krishna
It is real pleasure to read you blog!