In a recent blog post, I have written about the importance of increasing the ratio of time that you live from Creation (higher consciousness, Source), rather than from survival or struggle. I understand that to mean connecting with Source (which you access through connecting with your higher self) and responding to and following through with higher guidance / inner guidance / inner excitation–rather than continuing on the well-beaten path that is the normal human struggle mode…meaning, being worried and stressed, trying to force things to happen, living from your mental conditionings, fears and societal pressure, coming from doubt and pounding the pavement to try to create the results you need in order to feel somewhat comfortable in the world. (Don’t we all know this path well…)
A few days ago, I listened to a Ron Van Dyke video where he also mentioned how important it is, particularly now, to listen to one’s higher self, rather than to just go along with “group think / group pressure / societal pressure / ego-based pressure,” he said. I would add mass conditionings, mental conditionings, limited thinking, societal and institutional programming, societal expectations, lower mind, surface-level perception, “3-D” thinking, the Illusion, mainstream consciousness, ordinary consciousness, what the establishment / institutions have taught us, lower-level understanding, etc. (I’m sure there’s still other ways to describe this.)
In numerous articles, particularly back in my Ezinearticles.com days before I started this blog, I had emphasized the importance of learning to distinguish your inner guidance / higher guidance from your mental conditionings and societal pressures. I had avoided using the word “ego” because I felt that word was often used in a confusing way–and I didn’t want to confuse my readers any further. In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at the word “ego.” I hope to clear up some dis-empowering ideas around it, and I also encourage a discussion with my readers.
But first, into which category would you place the word “ego”: Higher self, or mass consciousness?
I see the ego a bit differently than most. The way I see ego is that it is neutral, sort of how a chair would be neutral, neither positive nor negative necessarily. For me, the ego is a vehicle that records your experience of life. Without an ego, you would not have an awareness of physical life on Earth.
The way I see it, the ego (conscious mind, conscious awareness, you) now has a choice–and a chance. You can either choose higher consciousness, you can choose to be your authentic self (that you can access through meditation, through connecting with your higher self, the divine aspect of you that’s connected with Source), or you can simply go along with what you have been programmed (by various institutions, vested interests, as well as your peers) to believe.
Your ego has a choice: connect with your authentic self and access higher consciousness, or continue on with the pretense, peer pressure and doubt. Which do you choose?
Isn’t it interesting, though, that when you follow your own inner guidance (as opposed to going along with your peers, with the crowd, with what was conditioned into you), to some people it might look like you’re full of “ego”? Why is this so?
I am bringing this topic up because I’m clear that I’m here to help people who read my writings to live from that higher space all of the time, to not get veered off the track because of confusion, particularly confusion around the word “ego.” Because when you’re not living from Creation, you’re living from doubt–and you and others around you are suffering.
By the way, I’d like to remind readers that in reality, it’s the higher self that chose to live through certain challenging experiences, for the lessons that were available in them. It’s the higher self that created / engineered the Fall in Consciousness, for some highly noble reasons–for the spiritual growth and evolution that was possible, including the immense amount of satisfaction and appreciation to be experienced as one now digs oneself out from under one’s self-imposed limitations.
The following is an excerpt written by Geoffrey Hoppe, who talks about living from creation rather than living from survival (living from higher consciousness, rather than from the programming and lies):
“Enlightenment comes in degrees. We are now living in both worlds, some days a little more in our sovereign consciousness, some days more in the old mass consciousness. It’s no wonder that we get confused, disoriented and exhausted! …
If you’re wondering what’s going on and why you’re feeling the way you do, there’s a good chance that you’re in between the two worlds. Take a good deep breath and give thanks to your Living Ascension.”
It is time to take the plunge and to live from Creation more and more until you’re living from that sacred space all of the time. It’s time to have your ego stay in that higher consciousness, in your authentic self, and it’s time to be more consistent. How do we be more consistent?–this is one of the topics this blog will focus on from here on out. I invite you to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
To connect with and strengthen your relationship with your higher self, please check out the resources on my Connecting with Your Higher Self website. The Golden Age (including your own personal “golden age”) will be created by individuals such as yourself living from creation rather than survival in the outer world consistently. (And just a couple of days ago, astrologer Carl Boudreau emphasized the immense importance of individual effort and responsibility in his special “Astrology of December 2012, Winter Solstice, Mayan Calendar” analysis–which I thought was quite affirming.) It’s not hard to see that we are now at the tipping point which is the Great Shift in consciousness; the beginning of living from Creation, rather than from survival and struggle.
Share this 
Christine, The timing of your message is impeccable, as usual. I’m just about to record a talk for my teleseminar series: http://www.TheAuthenticSelfTeleseminar.com that is focused on this point, with the theme of doing work that brings abundance doing what one loves by being authentic. I don’t use the word “ego” for the very reasons you mention. I agree with your assessment of ego as I understand it, that we become “conscious” and choose to live as our higher self. I love the way you cover the programming and conditioning that is such a huge issue we all must become aware of and release as we evolve. That is a large part of the work I do in my life coaching.
Thanks again for a timely and valuable message,
Les Schmidt
Thank you Les! So great to hear that you’re leading this teleseminar series and helping people become their authentic selves! I know the pressure is overwhelming, everywhere one turns, to keep the status quo. And I am sure it is a very rewarding process, both for the student and the teacher, to make inroads into becoming more authentic, AND creating amazing results / value to oneself and society as a “side-benefit”.
I have long been bothered by what other articles were saying about the ‘ego’.
I felt that it had to have a purpose or it would not be in us. I feel that you
are on the right track,that it is neutral. Others are saying that it is negative, But only if you are thinking in the negative. I believe that it is
a part of our developing personality, and may be the core of that personality.
Thank you for your insight Mary. As people continue on in their paths there will be less of this “blaming the ego.” Besides, rather than focusing on the ego’s faults, the focus could be on reconnecting with God / the higher self / Source. That would be much more spiritually EFFECTIVE.
As Lee said, the timing of this message was impeccable. I do believe that all you are saying is true, one needs to become more aware of their higher self rather than focus on social and physical based mediums. People are feeding their concious mind with confusing information and blocking out their intuition. I believe the intuition factor in a person is the higher self trying to reach the person or try to lead them the right way. This article covered a lot of key aspects and great perspectives. Thank you for contacting me, I greatly appreciate it
Trevor B
Thanks for your input Trevor! Great to have you share your experiences here, and looking forward to connecting again in the future. Christine
Hi Christine, your timing truly is perfectly in harmony with the incoming energies that are allowing us to free ourselves more and more. There really has been a bad rap on the ego, which is a part of a human.. Lately I’ve been being grateful for being human and then it allows me to be me more and more. Another thing I find is that the ego part is essential, what a human is is a creature that has divine power and can have relationships by choice. The idea is to be married inside. This ego is not a thing it is just a mode of us that allows relationship. It allows us to touch a flower, hear a persons voice, being creative relationship with someone here physically. This is our gift! To me we don’t lose the ego we loose our identity. We identify in this internal marriage to our source of true power our Divine nature and Self.
Beautifully said Amy! It really is about an internal marriage with our authentic self, the ego and the higher self joined as ONE, being in alignment. (Rather than continuing to just go along with society’s conditionings because “that’s the way it’s done.”) And you’re right, it’s about us expanding our sense of identity. Great to heave you share here! Thank you! Christine
Dear Christine, I thought you might like this acronym. EGO: Edging god Out. Understanding what the ego does and not necessarily why it does what it does has been very helpful for my spiritual growth. Eckhart Tolle’s new Earth is a wonderful book for explaining an understanding our ego and a little pamphlet called Your Owners Manual is an unbelievable helpful book to really drill down and help see what we do when we are in our ego and how to break our patterns. We all need some more information about our ego’s and how to live from our true selves. I can only achieve this a second at a time which is OK because there is only now, the present. Please continue to explore and discuss the ego. We teach what we need to learn and by giving it away we receive it. Thank you, wishing you peace, blessings, and love.
Thank you for your comment Tod! Hope to hear more from you and your experiences in the future. Christine
Christine,
I love the quote from Geoffrey Hoppe. There’s a lot of wisdom in that saying. When we learn to meditate properly (in thought), we get that much closer to true enlightenment.
On the ego…
You have an interesting take on this subject. I believe the ego is absolutely necessary and part of the human experience. It is definitely not evil as some say, although I firmly beleive it is the satan within us. Satan is the deciever, and thus our ego is our false sense of self. We build this false sense of self over a lifetime. This false sense of self is simply limited and separate from God. By connecting with source, the ego is seen for what it really is. That’s why the Bible states that when Satan is conquered, all the people wonder and say is this really the man that caused the world so much trouble. In other words, the ego is just a huge fraud with no real power once we see it for wha it is…the illusion.
But here’s the catch, and I believe this is where you are partly going. The EGO is necessary (the fall from paradise) in order to grow. We fell from paradise so that we could learn through the ego. The trick is to go through the ego in order to return to source. Without the ego, we would have no opportunity to return in the first place.
Thanks for this post, Christine. We all need to engange this subject more thoroughly. I hope you return to this subject more in the future. My latest post on http://www.spiritofthescripture.com/blog addresses the ego from living in the present moment and what the concept of heaven truly is.
Blessings!
Hi Josh, you are correct in saying that our ego is our false sense of self. I mean the ego basically is what we can see in the mirror, this bag of bones, and all the crap we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves from all kinds of outer sources. There’s more to us of course, and that is what we’re here for: to search (and FIND) that higher aspect within, despite the huge challenges and obstacles in the way. This way we can discover who we truly are and what we’re capable of, and the appreciation and gratitude we will feel for having had this experience will be enormous.
I think, despite all the semantics, we can agree that becoming more purely ourselves, without looking for ourselves outside ourselves in the way a healthy human functions. I prefer the knowiing that I know what is best for me, and so if I placed limitations for awhile it was to have the experience.. I embrace it and me for doing that difficult thing! What a great discussion, Christine. Love, Amy
Hi Christine, perfect timing again for this article, I have been contemplating on and working with this very subject for some time now. I also thank all the readers who posted comments, this is one of the most important discussions we can have right now. I have been going to a spiritual school for several years now. For the first few years they taught about the illusion of the ego/false self and all the problems, pain and struggle it has caused and is causing in our individual lives and humanity as a whole. The teaching was very similar to many of the Eastern philosophies. So I had the sense that the ego was the bad one, and I have to admit I was sometimes a little troubled by that. But recently they have been teaching that the ego is not actually the bad one at all, that’s it only when the ego thinks that it is the one driving the bus, that it is the doer of everything in your life, that it results in all the struggles and suffering in life. When the ego is put in its proper place as servant of the Higher Self/True Self/Divine Self, then the struggle and suffering dissolve and you start living in flow, synchronicity, peace and harmony, and then magic and miracles happen on a regular basis. So the school spent a long time ‘deconstructing the ego’ as it were, before finally revealing it’s true purpose as servant to the divine part of ourselves, which is infinite and eternal. But as many of the comments have pointed out, the human part of us is very important, because without that we couldn’t experience divinity in 3-D physical form, which is the whole point of us being here in the first place. Much love to you Christine and all the readers.
Hi I personally think the ego part of the mind is the reason the world is still the way it is. We still judge each other, cause wars, hate, anger, fear, hate crimes, rasium, jealousy, judgements, about gender, race, sex, what we wear, how we talk, how we treat ourselves and others, being controled by the goverment, markerting, fame, celebritys, the media. We need a wake up call Enough is Enough if we keep living our lives in fear and anger then, we are heading for Disaster that we will not live through we need to learn to love again!
Adyashanti has some very good teachings on this subject. He says the mind or ego is just a tool to be used by the Higher Self. When the ego thinks it is in charge, there is a feeling of separation from God. But there isn’t really any separation – it’s just a false perception. I find that the more I’m in touch with my Higher self, the less inclined I am to be drawn into peer pressure. I’m just not that interested in the game any more. Has anyone else had this experience?
Having read all the interesting comments my take on the ego is there are two sides to it, you know the angel on one side which is the higher self, the good side (intuitive, creative,empathy etc) The devil on the other side, the lower self, shadow side (selfish,uncaring,cold etc) As people with big egos are known to show off with their material goods like flash cars,designer clothes,very money oriented etc, Which is the opposite to the people that do not have a big egos as their are humble and have no need for material goods to use as a status so to speak. Love and light Selina x
Hi Christine,
To further your consideration about the meaning of “ego.” I have been a devotee of Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008) for over 30 years, His Teaching was that “the ego is an activity not an entity.” To elaborate a bit, “ego” is the activity and presumption of separation or difference. It is an activity at all levels, not just in the physical domain. In other words, you would be correct to say that “ego” is a neutral term, and ego (as the activity of separation, or difference-making, or point of view) then stands in contrast to the Spiritual Realization of utter non-difference, Realizing the non-separate condition of only Consciousness Itself, or Conscious Light Itself. Often Adi Da would refer to this as the Realization of Real God (or Reality Itself), in contrast to any presumed separate any thing or any “One.” Warmest regards, Dennis
When we operate with our heart (our essence), instead of our head (the ego), we can more easily navigate situations with grace and clarity.