The Ego and YOU: Seperation vs. Unity

The Ego is a part of us that feels the need to separate and be better than others.  It gives us a false sense of belief about who we are and our relation to the world around us.  Everyone deals with their ego in all stages of life.  But by becoming aware of what thoughts and actions are ego driven you can curb this and become more of your true self that you are.  I will write many entries on this topic as there are many examples of the "Ego vs. You" in our lives.  Today I will look at the sense of separation from others and our life situations that the ego produces.

"We are already one.  But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity" - Thomas Merton

The ego drives us to believe that we are the only one that matters.  It creates a sense that the world around us is nothing without us in it.  In reality none of us would be here without the thoughts or actions of someone else.  The ego wants you to believe that you are all that is important so that it can continue to feed its belief of what it is.  However, we must realize that we are connected to the earth, air, sun, food, people, etc all around us.  This helps us to foster a better sense of togetherness and respect for each other in our daily lives.  For those that have been consistently reading this blog you will notice that a lot of life lessons include the fact that we are all in this together.  It is amazing that once you start viewing life like this that you will begin treating those around you with more kindness, compassion, and humility.

The ego always wants us to think we are better at doing something, better looking, smarter, and so on.  By doing this it creates a false sense of superiority above others.  This puts us all in a constant struggle to "one up" others, which really only creates more stress and unhappiness.  Because in reality you cannot be better than someone else, because we are all unique and all that we need to be.   So in realizing we are all in unity you will not need to feel superior.  Wayne Dyer makes this observation, "When you judge other people, you do not define them; rather, you define yourself as someone who needs to be judged."  Projecting feelings of superiority onto others only reflects the inferiority in yourself.

On a larger scale you look at wars, battles, and other massive arguments that are all based on both parties wanting to show their separation and power over the other.  And when looking at those instances there really is no true winner, just loss of true self.  We all come from and are a part of the universal energy, (God, being, etc).  We need to all realize this in order to bring more peace and happiness into the world. In Wayne Dyer's book/film, "The Shift", he suggests of thinking of the relationship with this energy by imagining that it is the ocean and that we are a glass of water from it.  If we are asked what it is in the glass we would say, "Universal Energy/God, not as big and strong, but it's a glass of Energy/God."  If the glass were to be poured out it would evaporate only to eventually return to its source.  While the water in the glass may be separate from the source it is still a part of it.  If you "pour out" your sense of connection to our unifying source you have lost your way and the ego has won.  But with awareness you will return to the source that unifies us all.