📚 Series: Spiritually aligned collaboration in business or career that supports happiness
- Reflections on my traveling companion called the ego (You are here)
In one’s life’s journey, we acquired a travelling companion who is our own “ego” – in effect our sense-of-self or, in short, our own self, as reflected by our state of mind.
This companion appeared in our early childhood by a process of personalisation of our presence, which is construed according to genetic and hereditary related factors as well as the current norms of society; and managed by the good intentions of our parents, teachers, and influencers within our community: “this is the way we are and do things around here!” We need it as our basic interface with this world in order to relate and survive within it. During early childhood, and by virtue of our mental disposition of inherent learning at that early age, we also assimilated beliefs that are supportive as well as limiting towards realising a successful and happy adult life.
Eventually, the companion – our ego, takes over our sense of identity in the form of a personality … our personality.
Subsequently, our ego imposes on us our sense of who we are, and who we are not; how we see ourselves; the roles we must play in life.
However, can you be with the possibility that your ego is not you? Can you conceive that it is simply an adopted sense-of-self, who in general overshadows an Essence of Beingness expressed as one’s deeper Spiritual Authentic Self and who was there the day one was conceived? Without such an overshadowing ego we have the freedom to simply BE, with no limitations of who we think and feel we are, or are not!
If our sense of who we are is primarily focused on and driven by the importance of self-interest, such a deposition of self can be viewed as being egocentric.
An egocentric person has an inherent sense of separation from the community he or she lives in. In order to protect this position and to survive within the community, there is this need to command and control as well as seemingly feared as such. It’s about protecting the exclusive me, or the shared us as an exclusive club; having conditional relationships in the form of bartering – I will do this for you if you do this for me. He or she operates primarily from reason and emotion as thinking and contracted feeling. In essence the egocentric person always wants to be right and to look good, hence the others must be wrong and look bad if he or her is challenged. Instead of developing a sense of belonging, an egocentric person will rather want to impress and possess. In case of extreme egocentricity, such a person can be very callous indeed to the outsiders of his exclusive club and to the detriment of the community as a whole!
Conversely, if our sense of who we are is not primarily focussed on and driven by the importance of self-interest, such a disposition of self can be viewed as non-egocentric.
The non-egocentric person has an inherent sense of oneness with the community he or she lives in. This leads to appreciation and acceptance as well as surrender to a shared awareness of one’s Essence of Beingness. It is about being inclusive, expressed as we, within the community; having a relationship based on trust and is seemingly been followed accordinly. He or she operates primarily from an intuitive/sensory awareness expressed as an inherent knowing and its associated inspiration as well as an inherent feeling, regarding what to do or not to do for the betterment of all. Now, it is important to note that such a person, by the nature of his beingness, seems to inherently attract auspicious circumstances and synchronistic occurrences that support him or her in the best possible way, as well as for the highest and greatest good of the community one lives in!
Non-egocentricity does not mean that you need to get totally rid of your ego; it is more of overcoming the adopted illusion of this sense-of-self and the undoing of the destructive habitual patterns that were developed over the years. Transcending the ego also means liberating yourself from the anxiety to defend the illusion of who you think you are and authentically be who you are meant to be.
As such, for a non-egocentric person, it’s important to note that the ego is simply normalised to its basic and intended interface role in this world and has become transparent to the presence of his or her Essence of Beingness. Subsequently, this sense-of-self is experienced as one’s deeper Spiritual Authentic Self and expressed to, and be seen as such, by the community in the best possible way for the highest and greatest good of all!
So, the prime question now is that within one’s life journey,
Do I own and manage this travelling companion … or does it “own” and manage me?
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi
About the Creator
