ego's operating system

We’re at a place of polarization in the United States where it might serve us well to go to ego school to objectively and nonjudgmentally see how ego structures itself, strengthens, and enlarges.  Eckhart Tolle, in his book, A New Earth, has an excellent description of ego, and I reference his teaching below.

Every memory, interpretation, opinion, viewpoint, reaction, emotion is part of the egoic mind.  The ego is a bundle of thoughts and emotions and memories we identify with as “me and mine”- habitual roles we play at work and in family, collective identifications such as nationality, religion, race, social class, political allegiance, and personal identifications such as opinions, external appearance, resentments, comparisons, possessions, etc.  Most often, we think of ego as who we are.  

Egos continually try to protect and enlarge themselves.  In order to uphold a sense of “I”, egos need an “other”, and others are “most other” if they are the enemy.  

At one end of this scale of egoic pattern lies the compulsive habit of complaining and fault finding.   At the other end of the scale, there is physical violence between individuals and nations.  

Complaining is one of ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself.  Applying negative mental labels to people is often part of the pattern.  Name calling helps the ego’s need to be right and to triumph over others.  Below that level of ego trance, you have shouting and screaming, and below that, ego will move into physical violence.

The ego loves the emotion of resentment that often goes with complaining and labeling people.  Ego strengthens when a person feels bitter, indignant, aggrieved, offended.  Instead of seeing through the unconscious ego in others, we attribute their egos to who they are, and we see enemy instead of their inherent Belovedness.

Complaining turns into reactivity and becomes highly charged energy.  Ego strengthens this way- waiting for the next “hit” of outrage.  Through reacting to this or that, people assert and strengthen their sense of self.  This is not to say that facts should not be shared.  It’s just that ego struggles to recognize facts apart from our reactions to facts.    

A long standing resentment is called a grievance.  To carry a grievance is to be in a permanent state of “against”.  Grievances constitute a significant part of many egos.  Grievance is a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the past that is being kept alive by compulsive thinking, by replaying a story of what someone did to me.  A grievance can affect other areas of life, as it is a negative emotional energy that can distort our perception of an event or person in the present.  Grievances keep us in the grip of ego.  

I’m going to continue to blog about ego in weeks to come.  Becoming familiar with ego over the past six years has helped me to understand my trance of ego that was involved in the failure of my marriage, and also how ego asserted itself in my Christian faith.  Enneagram work is also about exploring the personality’s egoic parts in us that drive many of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  Becoming aware of ego’s “properties” has been so very helpful in loosening its grip in my life.  May some ego education serve us all well.  

“The past has no power to stop you from being present now.  Only your grievance about the past can do that.  And what is grievance?  The baggage of old thought and emotion.” Eckhart Tolle