Building, Deconstructing & Living With the Ego

Thought & the Origins of the Individual Ego

Your thoughts don't define you. In fact, your thoughts don't really have much to do with your True Self at all (insofar as much as you exist, anyways).

The average person's mind is like a Mexican jumping bean, with thoughts bouncing to and fro all throughout the day. As adults, these thoughts are charged with emotional content. Perhaps we worry if we should have said that thing, or if we'll do well at our test, or if we're really doing our best in life.

However, these thoughts weren't always charged with content. As newborns, we have no distinction between our Self and the external world. Since we have no frame of reference and have not yet contended with duality, our thoughts have no actual content. Before being imprinted, a newborn's 'thought process' would be more like the pure creative essence of thought - a sea of potential that isn't yet defined by external circumstances.

However, as we grow older, experience things, and learn to separate ourselves from the world around us, we begin to imprint our subconscious. We are still a channel for the Creative Essence of Thought, the Limitless Potential from which we ourselves were created. However, as we grow older, that pure essence is filtered through our subconscious before it can observed.

 We are all channels of the same Creative Essence, and as such we are all One. However, it's our individual experiences and the way that our subconscious minds can colour, filter, direct, and shape this Universal Essence that makes us each so unique.

In that sense, your thoughts are not really 'your' thoughts any more than a pot of strained pasta belongs to the strainer. Thoughts (at least unconscious, undirected thoughts) are just expressions of the One Mind filtered through the lens of your subconscious.

This collection of 'filtered thoughts' creates what we call the Ego, which is an entity entirely composed of individuated thoughts, beliefs, protective mechanisms, etc. Our identification with the ego is what gives us a sense of identity, or in other words, gives rise to the idea that 'we are nothing more than our past experiences."

The Challenge of Separating Ego Consciousness & Unity Consciousness

When we identify with our ego, with our thoughts, then that becomes our truth. But when we detach from the mass of Ego, we realize that our true nature is much closer to the expansive infinitude of pure, undifferentiated Mind - Universal Consciousness - rather than the tangled mass of thoughts that make up the ego.

Much like a newborn, at our core, we are simply an expression of limitless, undifferentiated, pure potential.

As individuals, one of the most powerful and productive commitments that we can make is to learn to dissociate our identity from that of the ego. Many seek to do this by ingesting massive quantities of psychedelics in search of a profound Ego Death experience. While this can certainly be a valuable and life-changing experience, there's certainly no need to 'kill the ego.'

In fact, permanently killing the ego would also rob us of the chance to share our individual, creative gifts with the world. 

Rather, we need to learn how to separate our awareness from our ego identity. Dismantling the ego entirely is pretty much impossible, and even if we did, we wouldn't be able to function in society. However, a much more achievable approach is learning to hone our understanding of Unity Consciousness so that we can exist independently from our egos.

Choose Unity, Choose Love

In doing this we develop the capacity to discern between fear-based choices and love-based choices. 

In every waking moment we are constantly making these choices whether we're aware of it or not.  Whenever we think, speak, or act, we're either acting with love (such as when laughing, sharing, supporting, encouraging, caring, smiling, creating) or fear (such as worrying, stressing, hoarding, talking down, etc.) There are very few truly neutral actions.

As we learn to operate from Unity Consciousness (a state of limitless love and compassion), we also become increasingly aware of when we're operating in egoic consciousness (which is fear-based and serves to protect us from perceived threats). 

This may seem incredibly simple but the results are profound. Each time we choose love over fear, the resulting impact will ripple out to positively influence our futures and the lives of everyone around us. By taking a brief moment prior to speaking, acting, or even thinking, we learn to separate Fear-based reactions from Love-based reactions.

As we hone our ability to choose love by polishing the diamond of Unity Consciousness, our lives will respond in turn. As we learn to recognize the ego and its behaviors, and thus cast away all fear-based decisions and beliefs, our lives will morph into a beautiful symphony of synchronicity, compassion, freedom, and joy.