Why the Ego Isn't a Problem
It Doesn't Exist!
Often a major stumbling block along the path, which is closely related to the “contraction” illusion that I discussed here, is confusion about what the “ego” is and what should be done about it. A large amount of the confusion is due to people using the same word “ego” to mean all kinds of different things. But there is ample confusion remaining even if we can agree on a definition of “ego,” which is not guaranteed.
Let's begin with various definitions of the term, and address those first. Then we’ll be in a better position to see how what should be a non-issue can impede the seeking journey.
What the “Ego” Is Not
FREUD:
I don’t think there’s much value in Freud’s legacy. Granted the only academic exposure I’ve had to his work was during one-semester long Psych101 course. But one can’t help but be exposed to further ideas of his in the course of normal life in the west. Every single concept of his I’ve come across seems somewhat-to-utterly bonkers. Primarily, any concept or model he advocated struck me as obviously factitious. Further, very often his ideas are a kind of “Freudian slip,” demonstrating his manifold, bizarre hang-ups and obsessions that he then projected onto the general human condition. He was a snake oil salesman of the psyche; how the western world ever took him seriously, let alone showered him with fame and adulation, is beyond me.
He arbitrarily (and I’d argue erroneously) divided the human psyche into three components we’ve come to know in English as the id, ego, and superego. The id is supposedly the “unconscious” source of needs and desires. The ego is in part (as the Wikipedia article linked above says) the “mediator between the id and reality.” Supposedly the id has base impulses and the ego tries to accommodate those as best it can while being constrained (physically and socially) to an external reality. The superego is more-or-less what we might refer to as “conscience.” So the Freudian ego is the part of our psyche that mediates action in the external world and is motivated by tensions between base impulses and conscience. Freud’s model is, again, arbitrary, if not outright fallacious.
Yes, we have impulses, the ability to act on them or not, and a conscience that can inform that process. But these are not separate, almost warring, “factions” of our psyche. There is just the one psyche and it encompasses the whole of such activity. So this Freudian “ego” is not true — it doesn’t exist as a separate “thing” — and, to further complicate matters, it’s not what most spiritual seekers mean when they use the term. It is included in this discussion simply because it is the unfortunate origin of the “ego” idea into the English language.
PERSONALITY/PERSONA:
We can’t help but have personalities. As human organisms we have natural proclivities, likes, and dislikes. Further, we are raised by people that literally act as if they were their personas. But there is no necessary reason to do so. We all could just act naturally. So why do we act as if we were personas in front of other people?
I like to think that way back in the mists of prehistory, pre-linguistic hominids had a breakthrough: some cheeky pre/proto-human imitated another tribe member as a joke (perhaps out of frustration and behind their back) — and brought the house down with whoever was watching.
This jester acted as if they were the other person. Just imagine the reaction of onlookers the first time this happened on the planet! The audience would probably be both stunned and delighted! Imitating someone else would instantly become the rage among intelligent, sensitive, and humorous apes. Very soon they wouldn’t even need to imitate someone else. They could just act as if they were playing to an audience because they were playing to an audience: any tribe members looking on (individuals were probably rarely alone). This could all easily be done in jest at first.
Now imagine the first children that are raised in this context of persona-acting and playing to the audience of the rest of the tribe. Especially after language is developed, the children might never realize that it’s merely play acting. By the time they raise their own children, that new generation could easily come to truly believe that the persona is who they are.
That is the condition we are all raised in today. We’re taught the false belief that your persona that you learn to play is who you are. But that persona is totally fabricated. It consists in acting as if your proclivities and predispositions constituted a “person.” But they don’t. Just as your eye color and your rate of metabolism don’t constitute a “person.” They are real attributes, obviously. But they are nothing more than that. We all are raised to be the greatest actors on the planet — every one of us! We get taken in by our performance (persona is nothing other than performance acting) to such a degree that we truly believe it to be who/what we are. We performance act to ourselves in private! This is the degree to which we’re taken in with our superb performances.
Some spiritual people use the term “ego” to refer to the personality/persona, and then regard that as something that needs to be mitigated (or even eliminated). This is a very unfortunate misunderstanding. We’re social beings. We have to interact somehow. To try to mitigate against “ego” in this persona sense would drive one towards interacting with others like a robot. Sure, you can do that. But you don’t need to do that; and doing so is not very fun anyway. If you’re going to interact with others, why not have some fun with it? After all, essentially everyone else you run into will believe their acting is truly who they are. So they’re not going to hold back! Why not play your role with verve as well?
CONCEIT:
This “character flaw” is often labeled with the words “egotism” and “egotistical.” I’m guessing Freud’s factitious/fallacious model of the psyche is to blame for those terms (lamentably) entering the English language. We have many other words that label/indicate this proclivity: conceit, arrogance, self-centeredness, narcissism, and many colloquial/slang phrases. The fact that the words like “egotism” are used subconsciously reinforces the erroneous idea that there is an ego. When we say “egotistical” we mean “conceited” — so why not just use the perfectly good word “conceited” and avoid the psychobabble?
If someone is self-centered, that doesn’t mean they cannot see into their own Fundamental Nature. Doing so is just a matter of investigating directly. If the self-centered person fully grasped the implications of the Fundamental Nature, their excess of self-importance would naturally become applied to the totality of their experience. Such a person would likely seem to transform into a very compassionate person very quickly.
So there’s no reason, as some spiritual traditions indicate, that one needs to “do battle” with character flaws like conceit. One simply needs to be aware that such “flaws” exist, then go on to investigate/inquire into the Fundamental Nature directly. When the latter is “grokked” it will automatically (for most people) put the “flaw” in proper perspective. One will be free to let go of the flaw because it will become clear the flaw’s foundation is an erroneous assumption about who/what one fundamentally is.
However, there are some people who are so unbalanced that even if they gain insight into the Fundamental Nature, they will still behave badly towards others. Tales are told all the time of teachers that have done so. Such behavior is unfortunate, but, also quite rare, thankfully. Most people are well-adjusted enough that they can take this insight into the Fundamental Nature onboard and, in doing so, will “redeem” their so-called shortcomings.
The fact that some people still act in a debased way after full insight does not negate the validity or importance of the investigation/inquiry. Such people are probably appropriately described by what has come to be known as “neurodivergent” — in a generalized sense, not in a strict, autism-spectrum sense.
“LOWER SELF:”
In my experience, using the word “ego” to indicate some supposed “lower self” (as opposed to one’s supposed “higher self,” which is more conscientious and benevoltent) is the most common manner of usage among native English-speakers. I have no idea where this notion of a low-versus-high self came from, but it makes even less sense that Freud’s model.
His model posits an almost adversarial relationship between our impulses and our conscience, and then seems to imply our decision-making is somehow beholden to our impulses. This is wrong. But to go farther and presume there are two separate “selves” is beyond the pale. I would hope this would be intuitively obvious to anyone that paid sufficiently close attention to how we make decisions1. But apparently there is ample opportunity for confusion.
Alan Watts offered the most concise and thorough solution to this misunderstanding that I’ve come across. Paraphrasing, he said something like “There is no lower self on the one hand, and then a higher self on the other. There is only one self. Either you know it or you don’t.” That one self includes our impulses (base or noble), our conscience, and our capacity to make decisions in light of those factors. If one isn’t happy with the way one makes decisions typically, then one has a self-improvement project on their hands. There’s nothing wrong with that situation2.
Regardless of whether one has a self-improvement project going or not — and regardless of any (lack of) progress one has made on such a project — the Fundamental Nature is always available for direct inquiry/investigation. Looking into the Fundamental Nature is completely independent of any efforts towards self-improvement. And, for the adrent seeker, I’d argue such investigation is more important than self-improvement. Improvement becomes far easier after the Fundamental is realized for what it is.
SELF-IMAGE (The Best Meaning for the Wrong Word (“Ego”)):
Keeping with the inspiration from Alan Watts, he was the first and best articulator I have come across of using the word “ego” to indicate the self-image. This is the only possible sense of the word that seems perhaps-potentially-helpful to me. And yet we already have the term “self-image” and a near-consensus regarding what that term entails. So using the word “ego” doesn’t illuminate anything and, additionally, doing so sows potential seeds of confusion. Better to forego the word altogether!
Hopefully it’s fairly clear that a self-image is not only highly useful, but that having one is basically inevitable. As social beings (with a more-or-less nominal, human central nervous systems) we can’t help but have a self-image in the same way we can’t help but develop theories-of-mind about other people. A key aspect of our self-image is our sense of identity: our sense/beliefs about who and what we are.
Some teachers/traditions seem to advocate for the abandonment of this “self.” This is due to misunderstandings of the teachers, the students, or both. The truth is that the “self” doesn’t exist as a separate “thing” or “entity.” The “self” (including your self-image and your identity) are not who/what you are. Recognition of this fact is required for awakening. But what is not required (and is, in fact, impossible if you still want to live as a normalish, human-person) is to abandon or eliminate notions of the self-image and identity altogether.
The fully-awakened sage has a self-image and identity the same as anyone. But the sage isn’t deluded into believing those things are who/what they really are. Those things are merely social constructs; contrivances adopted for expedience’s sake in the course of our social lives. Of course we all act as individuals because there is no other way to act. But even while doing so, the sage fully-recognizes it’s impossible to separate the “individual” that acts from the context within which they live and act upon. The sage recognizes the individual is not an autonomous entity; it is merely an arbitrary demarcation within the unified totality of what’s-going-on. That totality is what the sage (and you) really are.
Why the “Ego” Is Not a Problem
Given the foregoing discussion, hopefully it’s becoming clear why the “ego” is not a problem. Firstly, every possible meaning of the word “ego” above is itself just a different word (or two)3. Therefore, there is essentially no such “thing” as an “ego.” Yes, there are such things as personality, identity, self-image, proclivities etc. And those things may very well need to be examined and addressed to one degree or another. That’s fine as far as it goes. But if there is no such thing as an “ego,” then it’s impossible for a nonexistent, non-phenomenon to be a problem!
Consequently, I prefer to dispense with the word “ego” in favor of those other terms. They are much less ambiguous and, therefore, less likely to cause confusion in conversation. And if any of those facets of our psyche seem to be troublesome, then there are two available strategies to address them.
The first is the messy, haphazard tactic of diving into the center of the tangle and trying to sort it out by brute force. This might work for some people, but it didn’t work for me — nor did it work for anyone else I’ve spoken with except, perhaps, Gary Weber4.
The second (and superior, in my opinion) strategy is to inquire/investigate into the Fundamental Nature itself directly. If this tactic “clicks” and one becomes clear on the Fundamental Nature, then that becomes the touchstone, the benchmark, the datum upon which all doubts and difficulties can be compared/tested/measured. If one is clear on the Fundamental Nature, these types of comparisons are so straightforward they often become automatic. This amounts to the end of suffering/frustration/dissatisfaction before it even begins.
Addendum: Selfing
Many, many teachers claim that the presence of self-referential thoughts and/or the presence of emotional reactions (specifically anger, fear, or sadness) indicate that one has not “finished the project” of awakening. This is utter hogwash.
Addressing the thoughts first: We are raised to believe we are individual persons, and arduously trained to think and act in accordance with that belief. You can’t undo a life’s worth of programming like that in an instant. I have attempted to address these “selfing” thoughts in an essay here.
Additionally, the best book I’ve come across that delves into this subject is Being You by Anil Seth. In it he details a very compelling hypothesis about how our impression of being a self is yet another example of predictive processing in our Bayesian brains. Brains that do this reap huge dividends from an evolutionary standpoint, so we shouldn’t be surprised at how “baked in” such tendencies are. Any teacher that claims there must be a permanent cessation of self-referential thinking5 before there can be full awakening either doesn’t understand how brains works, or doesn’t understand the Fundamental Nature, or both.
The Fundamental Nature already is what it is, and it’s omnipresent irrespective of a monkey-mind’s presence. To say you can’t recognize the Fundamental Nature even in the midst of selfing thoughts is like saying you can’t practice mindfulness meditation while a dog barks incessantly nearby. Of course you can! It’s just not as easy in a distracting, noisy environment.
Regarding emotional reactions: exactly the same situation is present as with the “selfing” thoughts above. We are trained to believe we are individual persons. This, in turn, fosters patterns of emotional reactions. You can’t wave a magic awakening wand and undo all this habituated mental programming in one fell swoop. The fact that reactive feelings/emotions arise shouldn’t be surprising, nor should they be regarded as a problem just because they do arise.
In my essay about the illusion of contraction (found here) I discussed how emotions/feelings are nothing more than just that: emotions or feelings. They don’t signify any order to reality beyond themselves. Like selfing thoughts, emotional reactions can be mitigated through training to whatever degree of discipline the seeker desires. But this takes a tremendous amount of effort and practice. If that’s important to a seeker, then that’s their business. Full disclosure (if it wasn’t already obvious), doing so is not important to me.
However, just like the selfing thoughts, the presence of emotional reactions in no way mar nor diminish the Fundamental Nature. It’s omnipresent and available for investigation even in the midst of strong emotional reactions. If the reactions themselves bug you, then you’ve got the option of reducing their frequency and intensity through protracted practice (courtesy of neuroplasticity) — as with selfing thoughts, “season to taste.”
But there is an important caveat here that many traditions get dead wrong. Anger, fear, and sadness are not “bad.” They do not need to be expunged from one’s life. If they are actually mitigated against, the result is what I’d characterize as a diminishment of one’s humanity. All three emotions are rooted in love; they are a “negative” expression of love. Anger and fear arise because something you care about is under threat. Sadness occurs when something you care about has already been injured. The only way to eliminate anger, fear, and sadness in life is to cease caring about anything.
This is a very effective technique, of course! But is the modicum of relief found in release from anger, fear, and sadness worth the cost of giving up love, caring, joy, and happiness? That is the price that must be paid for the life that would be rid of those so-called “negative” emotions. I reply to the proposition with a resounding “Hell, no!” I gladly take on board the pains of those dark emotions in order to retain the capacity to elate in the bright moments of life. For the latter vastly outweigh/outnumber the former.
To try to eliminate the negative emotional life by the only effective means — that is by jettisoning the positive emotional life — is like treating a broken toe by amputating the whole leg.
I thought exactly the same thing for the unreality of free will (i.e. that it should be intuitively obvious that there’s no such thing as free will if one pays adequate attention to how we make decisions). There is no free will because there is no independent agent or entity that “makes” the decisions — decisions simply happen; they just “pop” into consciousness. As obvious as I think this should be, no other topic has even come close to generating the number of arguments I’ve had online about the unreality of free will. Perhaps a topic for a future essay?
The self-improvement situation was the only thing Watts was dead-wrong on, as far as I know. Contrary to what he said countless times, you can improve yourself. He was (understandably) completely ignorant of the fact of neuroplasticity. Our bad habits are fundamentally plastic. He mistakenly regarded them as immutable. But that’s yet another topic for a future essay.
Except for Freud’s definition. But seeing as how his definition is factitious/fantastical, we don’t need to be concerned about it.
Because of the fact of neuroplasticity in general — and the case study of Gary Weber in particular — it seems there can be such total cessation of selfing thinking. Weber called this kind of thinking the “Self-Referential Internal Narrative” (SRIN). We all experience shorter or longer periods of cessation of the SRIN in normal life. Apparently it is possible to train the brain (specifically, the Default Mode Network) into a state of permanent cessation.
There are two caveats to this insight, however. 1.) Doing so takes a tremendous amount of arduous practice (potentially tens of thousands of hours) and 2.) doing so is completely unnecessary in order to experience full awakening — that is the recognition of what the Fundamental Nature is and that you are it.
The permanent end to SRIN thoughts is “gravy” in the spiritual seeking journey. I like to say the seeker should “season to taste.”