Satyam Holistic Wellness

What is ego and why do we need it?

If you are becoming more conscious, more self-aware, inevitably you will be confronted with your ego.  Ego is based in duality and separation.  It functions in our Earthly life letting us know that we are a woman or a man and not a table or a chair.  It provides a boundary for our individual identity. Our ego is meant to be a small part of us, contained within the background of a much more expansive sense of self and existence.

The need for safety

The ego is the part of us that lets us know we are an individual.  The voice of the ego is about me, my and myself.  If you have young children, you will see this reflected in their speech.  It is all about getting there needs met and what they want.  This was reflected in my son’s famous words at age 2, “Mommy, I just want what I want when I want it.”

The ego wants to maintain what it knows to feel secure.  It wants us to be safe.  The problem is, it becomes an over-protective force that doesn’t allow us to grow.  And, the more we fight with it, the more it grows.

The two positions of the ego:

When we obey the voice of our ego, we either become an unbearable, tyrant, attempting to dominate others, have power and control.  Or, we become a passive victim and play small.  These are the two positions of the ego.  They play themselves out in both our internal and external relationships.  

Victim/Tyrant:

In order for a victim to maintain their relationship of victimhood, they need a tyrant.  The victim attracts a tyrant and uses the dynamic of victim/tyrant to gain energy and maintain the position of being a victim.  The tyrant maintains a false sense of power and control through putting down the victim. The truth is, they are both sides of the same coin.  Beneath both of these positions is an insecure person who wants to be loved.

The two look for a false sense of love, create a love affair in the only way they known how to, through the personas of victim and tyrant.  It is a dysfunctional love affair, but it works…until it doesn’t.  These roles steal our life force energy in order to play out a false reality that the ego wants us to believe is real. Our emotins get activated making us believe it must be real, because we feel so strongly.  This leads to exhaustion, as we allow our prana, (life force energy) to fuel a never ending cycle of victim/tyrant in our relationships and with our lives. We play both roles, but usually have one role that we are more comfortable in and is highlighted in our lives.

Redirecting the life force energy

Our life force energy is precious.  We have the choice to use it to animate a true or a false reality.  The realm of the ego is a false reality.  When we give our life force energy to the ego, we are creating a ghost version of ourselves that dwells in a world of fear and limitation.  This illusory version of ourselves wants to defend and protect itself.  The problem is, there is nothing real to defend and protect here.

The one and only real thing you have to protect is your own impeccability to be authentically you. Consider this, at this time in the evolution of humanity, the roles of victim and tyrant are obsolete.  They need to be dropped in order for us to evolve into sovereign, free human beings.  Our life force needs to be directed back towards what is real, our true nature.  

What is our true nature?: 

“Your true nature is a feeling of celebration with no reason.” – Berdhanya Swami Tierra

Pure consciousness is your true nature. It has never been born and never dies. It contains the whole. It is absolute simplicity and emptiness.

Our true nature is beyond our personality and the roles we play.  Our true nature is based in divine qualities, like love, peace, truth, freedom.  Our true nature is accessed when we want nothing, are not trying to become anything, realize we do not have to do anything to be worthy, loved, accepted.  Our true nature is beyond the body, mind and emotions.  It is a deep in breath and out breath.  It is a place of relaxation and acceptance of ourselves exactly as we are.  We are not looking to correct ourselves or apply any aggressive tendencies to be different, better.  It is our most natural self, light, playful, joyful and at absolute ease with ourselves.

How to drop the ego?

We don’t ever completely get rid of the ego, we just learn to disidentify with it.  We come to realize that it is not our true identity and we stop feeding it with our prana (life force energy).  

How do we redirect the prana to a more expansive self?  The first step is the mantra I have heard my teacher repeat for 25 years.  It is so simple, yet can take a long time to truly get.  It is these 5 letters: RELAX.  That’s it!  It means give yourself a break, leave yourself alone, you are okay just as you are.  Be at peace with where you are at.  There is nothing wrong with you.  You are simply a student of life, learning and growing through your challenges.  

How can we apply the mantra “relax”? 

1. Reclaim your life force from the ego with breathontology.  By consciously breathing, you bring yourself into the present moment.  It is just you in the now, directing your breath to different parts of your body, bringing vitality to your organs.  Conscious breathing creates neutrality in the mind.  When the mind is neutral, it can respond with awareness, unlike the ego which reacts from unawareness.
2. The ego doesn’t want you to relax, it wants you to do something, to keep spinning so it can maintain its life at all costs.  It is a reactive bully.  In order to diminish the ego, you need to deprive it from prana.  In the practice of breathontology, you learn to use breath retention on the inhale and exhale to bring you back to point zero.  Your next in breath is with awareness and holds a spark of inner expansion.
3. The practice of alternate nostril breathing is a balancing breath that brings you into a place of neutrality and equanimity.  The right nostril is linked with the outward expression of the tyrant and the left nostril is linked with the inward energy of the victim.  You can learn to test which nostril is more active by placing your finger under your nostrils, exhaling and feeling which nostril the breath is coming from more strongly.  You can then close off the more dominant nostril with your thumb and breathe through the opposite nostril, to increase the flow of prana in this nostril.  

The ego cannot destroy you.  You can think of it like a smoke screen that is temporarily hiding the eternal flame that dwells in your heart. This flame has the power to transmute any false reality to reveal to you the light of your true self. You are eternal life, always pure, joyful, innocent and good.  All that is required is to surrender through your humbleness, readiness and sincere desire to reclaim your true identity from the ego.