Ego - the enemy within

A Cherokee grandfather was teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil - he is anger, envy,  greed, arrogance, disloyalty, lies, pride and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, loyalty, truth and compassion. The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too," he told the boy.

His grandson thought for a moment then asked his grandfather, "Which one will win?"

His grandfather replied, "The one you feed."

I lived with someone who was consumed by the first wolf, not only did his anger and resentment of life hurt those around him, it also caused him physical harm on a grand scale.  

In essence the wolf is the ego. The ego does not have your best interests - it is only interested in being in control of you. Wars, murder, racial hatred, religious intolerance, all stem from an unbalanced ego. Ego = equals insanity.

It does not matter whether you are Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew it makes no difference to who you are.

It does not matter whether you are black, white, brown, Asian, it makes no difference to who you are.

It does not matter whether you are male, female, gay, lesbian, trans-gender, by-sexual, non sexual, it make no difference to who you are.

You are a uniquely wonderful being. And we are all the same. Humanity breathes the same air, whether you live in Peru, India, England, the USA or Kathmandu the air you breathe has circulated around the world.  And we are all connected by the divine spirit that lives inside all of us - our soul.

The ego fools the mind into believing the story it is telling. It imprisons the mind's ability to reason. Road rage is a good example of this. What causes normally level headed motorists to suddenly become raging bulls at each other? The ego takes over - How dare the bastard cut me up. Just because she's got a better car than me. Who do they think they are hogging the middle lane. I'll ram the idiot if they don't get out of my way. In the ensuing chaos reason ceases to exist in the mind replaced by anger. You are no longer the person, who under normal circumstances would not act irrationally, you are now at the mercy of your egoic mind. 

The slavish attachment to a cause or a political movement without seeing the flaws in whatever the doctrine is they are aligned to, is another example of the ego at work.

Human beings have killed more people than famine or disease. It is estimated that 187 million people have died since 1900 because of war - the actual figure is likely to be much higher. War is the collective insanity of the ego. And ultimately achieves nothing. The first world war was described as the war to end war - it didn't. We are seeing at the moment our world in conflict, and for all the sacrifices made by the soldiers and civilians who will die or be maimed either physically or emotionally - it will solve nothing. The only way to stop the collective insanity is to see the ego behind it.

Sad  to say it is unlikely that the collective insanity that is the ego will change overnight. War will still ravage as the leaders of nation are as individuals and ultimately collectively in the grip of their respective egoic minds.

"This makes me so angry." "I'm going to protest." Ten of thousands march in protest rallies to show their collective anger to situations they have no control over. The influence of all this collective anger on those who actually have control of any given situation? History has shown us - not a lot. All that anger simply fuels the individual ego - and goes inside the person. Stress, has been recognised by the medical profession to often be the cause of illness. Dis-ease is a product of the an imbalanced nervous system - I know this from my own experience.

Anita Moorjani explains perfectly the damage the ego and the fears it instils in you in her  book Dying to be Me - suffering from stage 4 cancer she went into a coma and her family was told she would be dead withing hours. She had a near death experience (NDE) - and when she woke from the coma - the cancer was gone. 

Change can only happen, one mind at a time - yours and mine.

What drives the ego? Feelings of hate, jealousy, envy, cruelty, impatience, spite, anxiety, worry, fear, sadness it is every negative emotion the egoic mind inflicts on you. It is that snarling wolf inside
you. How to overcome the ego? Like all bullies, once you recognise it for what it is and stand up to it, the ego crumbles, allowing the real you to emerge. 

Dumping your ego frees you from the heavy emotions attached to it. 

Without a re-active ego controlling you, life is so much more relaxed and peaceful - and a whole lot less troublesome. Reacting with anger to someone else's anger ends in an explosion of no-thinking - and often into violence. 

Without my ego getting in the way, life for me has become so much easier. I'm no longer triggered by situations into negative reactions. If someone pushes in at a supermarket queue, something that happened to me the other day, I let it go. I don't later on go over what I should have said to the person who pushed in, I let it go completely. I don't let other people's behaviour get to me anymore. No ego = no reaction. No reaction = a peaceful life. 

Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now -  tells you by living in the present moment you free yourself of ego, and all the stress and anxiety it causes. If you want to lift the burdens modern day living is putting on you, I highly recommend it. 

You don't have to buy the book though, just next time you are in a situation where you feel yourself being triggered into a negative emotion, take a mental step back, and say to yourself, "Why am I upset?" When you stop to rationalise why you are getting the emotion you are getting, the ego is displaced, and it no longer has any influence over you. You stop feeding the evil wolf and start feeding the good wolf of joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, loyalty, truth and compassion.