Accepting the Ego PDF Print E-mail
Written by Gina Lake   
Wednesday, 02 September 2009 07:22
In my writing, I’ve often painted the ego as the villain in an attempt to help people see the truth about it and to help break their love affair with it. The ego, as represented by the voice in your head, presents itself as wise, helpful, and trustworthy, but it isn’t. If you believe the ego is something it isn’t, you'll be taken for a ride. Then, you might conclude that life is untrustworthy or unkind, when in fact, it is only the ego that is untrustworthy; it has led you to believe something that wasn’t true.

We, as humans, are programmed to identify with the ego (i.e. the false self, or mind-generated self) and to believe the thoughts that appear in our mind that come from the ego. Following this false self is like following a false master, and realizing this can only improve your life. Just because most people don’t realize the egoic mind is unhelpful and useless doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Most people are still caught in the illusion that they are who their egoic mind tells them they are and that life is the way their egoic mind tells them it is. However, many are waking up now and seeing just how untrue what it says is.

Once we start to see this, there is often a tendency to go to battle with the voice in our head—to argue with it, tell it to go away, and feel angry or upset by it. This reaction is actually a reaction on the part of the ego to its own discovery. The ego takes control once again by resisting and fighting itself, which is how the ego deals with life in general. Going to battle with the ego is just more ego. When we do this, we are still not at peace with life or ourselves.

When we have truly stepped outside the ego, there is nothing but peace and acceptance, even of the ego. After all, that which we truly are has created everything, including the illusion that we are this limited self, so it must also be in acceptance of it. This illusion serves creation, but there comes a time when it no longer serves, and that time is now. It’s time for humanity to wake up from the domination of the egoic mind and to see that it no longer needs this aspect of the mind, which has nothing to do with the functional mind that we very much need. We, as a species, are moving beyond the egoic mind, and many of us are here to herald this evolutionary advancement.

Once we see the truth about the egoic mind, the appropriate relationship to it is one of acceptance, which is the relationship that Essence, our true Self, has to it. Once we are no longer identified with the false self and aligned with Essence, we accept the egoic mind as a natural part of being human. With that acceptance comes the power to choose to re-identify with the ego or not to. Acceptance is a place of choice, while rejecting the ego or going to battle with it only keeps us involved with it. Acceptance moves us beyond involvement with it by aligning us with Essence, where the truth about the ego is seen. You accept that the ego and its negativity are part of being human. You accept and understand that the ego is false, untrue, and unnecessary and that its negativity does not define you. And once you really see this, the ego loses its power over you, the power to cause you to identify with it.

When you are identified with the egoic mind, you are following it, believing it, and loving it—unquestioningly. When you are accepting it, you are outside of it and seeing the truth about it and not giving your attention—your love—to it. What we give our attention to is what we love, so when we give our attention to the egoic mind, we are loving it. Accept that this false self exists within you and all of humanity, but give your attention, love, and allegiance to something else. Love the truth.

In painting the ego as the villain, I’m not suggesting that you reject it or go to battle with it, but that you simply see the truth about it and then choose to follow another master. Like all villains, the ego is a foil—it shows us, through contrast, what truth and goodness are. In this world of duality, the Dark and the false help us know the Light and the Truth. So, in the end, the villain is simply what drives this adventure of life from the Dark to the Light, and the ego has fulfilled that purpose perfectly.
 

11 Comments

  1. Seda makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    This was a helpful reminder. Thank you. I find it tempting to disparage the ego for disparaging me and then I realize how futile that is and drop it.

  2. lucy makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    Hi Gina,
    I have enjoyed reading many of your posts and excerpts from your books. I was wondering if you would be so kind to explain how you reconcile past life times with the present moment and "now". If the present moment is all that exists, than how can there be "past lives". Or does everything occur in the one eternal moment? If the One life that we are is already perfect, who is it that is subject to karma and re-incarnations? If there is no such thing as the "person" who is evolving here? Thank you for any light you may be able to shed.

  3. Gina Lake makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    Hi Lucy, In saying that the past doesn't exist, I mean it only exists now as a memory, it doesn't mean that events in the past never happened; they just aren't happening anymore, and the same with past lives. It's difficult to address all your questions here, which I think in part are coming from some confusion due to how some Advaita or "radical nondual" teachers talk, which is different from how I talk about things. There is a person here (with a body, a mind, and a personality); there just isn't an "I" or egoic self. The "I" is just a thought--thoughts about "me." I think it would help to read the blog on "Illusion" here. The soul reincarnates and takes on different bodies and personalities, but Advaita teachers don't talk about this, although I do. I think if you read my books (especially Radical Happiness) a lot will become clearer and you'll get used to the language I use. Language is always a problem in talking about these things. Love...Gina

  4. Shari B makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    Hi Gina! This is great.. very clarifying. Yes my first reaction is to want to fight my mind. On first observation it can be appalling how much junk it parrots all day long. However, i learned this from "Embracing the now" and am reminded in this post: fighting the mind only energizes it and keeps me identified with it. If i want to dis-identify from it i have to be able to let it be without reacting to each and every thought. I finally understand what people mean when they say let the mind serve you rather than serving the mind. It becomes so easy to try to give into to the egoic minds demands in the hope that will pacify it but it only makes it more demanding and more spolied! I am learning so much from you. Thank you for sharing with us :D

  5. Peter makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    This has been one of the most helpful posts (to me) than you've ever written. I've been battling with the ego mind ever since I learned about it which was earlier this year. Now, I can see how important acceptance is when dealing with the ego. Thank you for your blog, Gina.

  6. Gina Lake makes this comment

    Wednesday, 02 September 2009

    Hi Shari, I just want to underline a sentence you wrote that I think is very helpful: "I have to be able to let it (the egoic mind) be without reacting to each and every thought." That's a good way of putting it--"without reacting to each and every thought." I usually talk about ignoring the egoic mind, but this is another useful way of saying that. Thank you! Love...Gina

  7. BINNOY makes this comment

    Thursday, 25 February 2010

    Thank you,
    This was just what I needed to read.
    The ego is so innocent. It has strives for us and not deliberately against us.
    I now know that we have to understand and spend time with it.
    The ego is our child

    with love always
    BINNOY
    WHISPERS FROM SILENCE
    http://binnoy.hpage.com/

  8. evan makes this comment

    Monday, 18 April 2011

    Hello. Recently I've slipped back into my own ego.. since im now identifying with its ways again. I feel like im going for the ride. How do I see the other shore with out forcing myself to do anything? I don't like the ego and I wan't to live in heaven like I once did after I dropped the ego. Its causing me to contain my feelings that hurt me. Can I be free of it? Please i dont wan't it to run my life. I know its there. Im desperate to leave it.

  9. Gina Lake makes this comment

    Tuesday, 19 April 2011

    Everything on this website and every book I write is in service to helping you and others move beyond the ego. The suffering you are feeling will motivate you to discover what you can do to stop suffering. Not liking the ego and wanting it to go away is, oddly enough, also the ego. So try to find the place within you that can let the egoic mind do what it does but don't buy into the mind and act out the ego. Notice your thoughts and then give your attention to what is real and true--your present moment experience. Love...

  10. Isaac makes this comment

    Monday, 02 January 2012

    ..I wouldn't go with these ego teachings so hardcore because it confuses you and seemingly tries to tell you about the way you think...not everyone has "a voice" in their head that tells them what to do that is right or wrong...for some people it is just them being bad or them being good..for others it could be a series of imaginitive constructs that persuade them to go one way or another, in fear or in confidence...one things for sure, the ego as a self or person is definitely not what spirituality wants you to get rid of, thatd be suicide. All thought as well isnt ego, most thought is from your brain, and we think to figure things out, I don't understand the notion that thought comes from the ego...which in most groups is considered evil...

  11. Gina Lake makes this comment

    Monday, 02 January 2012

    I'm sorry that you are not understanding these teachings. You are obviously new to them and haven't read any of my books. They probably aren't for you. If you don't have some background like Eckhart Tolle's books, I can see how you might be confused. Just one clarification--I don't equate the ego with evil or with the intellect. This teaching is about love and connecting with the divine Self within, and not about rejecting our humanity in any way but becoming free of the negativity that limits us. I can see how you might react as you have if you have never read any of my books or others on this subject. Wishing you the best...

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