First,
We must converse on what the ego actually is.
This starts with the growth of a child.
A child is born with no knowledge, no awareness of the self.
He has no awareness of himself rather, he gains awareness of the world through the other.
This is natural because the senses open outwards to others.
For example we become aware of our mothers first through our outward looking eyes, listening ears, smelling noses, tasting tongues and touching hands.
Our birth expands our awareness of the other, through the mother first and it is driven by sensual recognition.
The condition of our happiness is therefore externally driven by the mother and how she feels about us as the child.
When we were smiled at, hugged, kissed, told we were loved we felt appreciated, valued, cared for, happy and significant.
The relevant outward senses of see, hear, smell, taste and touch report the sensations of feeling good, and what needs to be understood is this is when THE EGO is born.
This is when a centre is born and that self-centre is a reflected one in the sense that it is not our real being.
What we have been seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching has given us an external sense of self, a false centre of self based on what the outside world has reflected back at us.
Thus all we know, as we grow, is a false centre of self aka ego which is based on the reflected sensation of the other, the opinion of the other, the thought of the other.
From the day we looked out and gained recognition from the mother this reflected process was begun.
THE EGO was formed around a childhood that hopefully was a happy one but it is also true, that the false centre of self can be formed around a sad, rejected, worthless, wounded and unhappy childhood too.
As your world grew more and more reflections of others would have contributed to your ego’s false centre of self either way.
With each growing day more and more external sensation, opinion, thinking from the other through the likes of teachers, coaches, friends, girlfriends shapes the complexity of THE EGO, no matter how you started off in the world as the child.
Whether your mother smiled and loved you, or scowled and neglected you, THE EGO will continue to define its false sense of self around outside society.
Its growing complexity, is a necessary part of LIFE’s game.
What I am saying is the child who lives alone would not develop an ego but without one he would remain wild like an animal.
It is only through the development of the false centre of self, the illusion of the self, the complexity of THE EGO, that we can get to know the real self that is found within.
Playing against THE EGO is therefore a discipline!
It is a game of passing through its complexity, until that journey reveals the real from the false.
The real can only be known from the false and so, THE EGO is therefore a necessary part of LIFE’s narrative.
It gives us the opportunity to decipher the real from the illusion, because what is real can only be known by first understanding what is illusion.
The confusion of what appears to be true, and recognising how it shaped the choices of the child version of you is exactly how you return to what is real.
The deal in this game of LIFE is that you cannot start by knowing the truth directly, you have to learn it by playing through the illusion of reality in order to reveal what is true from what is false.
Now of course many souls get wrapped up in the reflection of their false self created by the outside world of others but eventually, no matter how many lifetimes it takes, no matter how many mistakes made all souls will return to the truth within.
There is no competing because we all see through the illusion eventually, although for YOU to be here reading this, learning about what THE EGO actually is will certainly help you on your way.
This knowledge will help you to play through the complexity of your false centre of self, because you should now be able to see that it is not your true self it is a reflection.
The sensual information you have received from the outside world starting with your mother, and then being intertwined with the opinions and thoughts of every other you have come into contact with is not real.
Let the truth of that reveal a new narrative for you to follow when it comes to the LIFE discipline, of passing through your false centre to expose the illusion.
Unravelling the confusion of the false self is the game you know…