Ego and the Authentic Self

The ego is the darker side of our nature, while our authentic self is who we truly are as loving and conscious beings. The ego is influenced by our upbringing and the institutions in our lives, like the media, business, politics, and religion, which have their own agendas. Our authentic self is seen in moments of love, inspiration, engagement, gratitude, and pursuing excellence. Both the ego and the authentic self coexist and shape our humanity. It is up to us to choose how to deal with our ego and strive for authenticity, which leads to a better life and the ultimate giving and receiving of love. Examples of people like Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa show the power of feeding the authentic self, while individuals like Adolf Hitler and Bernie Madoff exemplify the destructive consequences of feeding the ego. So, the first question to look at is, what is the ego? And if we understand everything that's been created in nature and the universe as a duality – love and hate, war and peace, light and darkness – if we look at the question of who we are, there really is a duality between our ego and our authentic self. Our authentic self being who we truly are, loving beings, conscious beings, living with God's will in our hearts, the ego being the darker side of our nature. So the question is, what is the ego, and I think there's a few parts to it. Firstly, I think we are all born in terms of the old Christian concept of the willingness to just do the wrong thing, even when we know we're doing the wrong thing, to satisfy a selfish need or desire we have. But I think it's bigger than that. I think we, when we're children, when we're very, very young, we learn behaviours of our parents or behaviours that appear to get us what we want as young children, whether that's to be loud, or whether that's to run away, or whether that's to get angry, or whatever it is. We learn these unhealthy behaviours that serve us while we're children and help us to survive, but aren't necessarily things that are healthy for us as adults, and we carry those into adulthood, often with destructive consequences. I think that the other thing that is in us is that we have a number of institutions in our lives now, in terms of the political system, the media, business, religion, that all those institutions have their own ego, they have their dark side, and none of those institutions I've listed are all dark, they do good things for society, but they have their own agenda. So they, the media taps into our fears, business wants to make money for us, they want us to buy their product, politicians want us to vote for them and be subservient, and religions want us to follow them and to contribute to their funds. So all of these institutions do have their own agenda, and I think as a society we sort of develop this sort of moral norm which actually isn't very authentic, and that's where the desire for money and greed and a lot of that comes from. That is the ego. I guess the next question is, what is the authentic self? Well this is what we truly are. We are loving, conscious people. If we've ever fallen in love with someone, that initial feeling of just utter warmth, utter happiness, that is our authentic self. If we've ever been inspired once and just done something for somebody else, to just do a good thing and it warms our hearts and that's so powerful, then that is our authentic self. If we've ever been truly engaged in what we're doing, whether in a working sense or work or study sense or even a sporting sense, we're truly engaged, pursuing excellence and creativity, that is our authentic self. If we've ever been truly grateful for something, we've jumped into the ocean or we've gone and seen a beautiful work of art and just appreciated it and just felt truly humbled by it, that is our authentic self. And the two coexist. That is what gives us our humanity. If it was a purely evil world, it wouldn't be particularly nice but it would be terribly boring. And if it was truly authentic, if we never did anything wrong, we wouldn't know what right is. We wouldn't be able to experience love unless we experienced the other. So the human experiment, this great universe and world that has been around for billions of years and culminated in human beings, it is a duality. We will always have these two forces. And more so than that, even on an individual level, we will always have the ego. The question is, how do we deal with it? Do we let it run our lives, both consciously and unconsciously? Or do we hear its voice and choose another path? And I think the more we do that, the more authentic we become, the better our life will be. And that is our purpose. The authentic life very clearly leads to love. The ultimate giving and receiving of love. Let's look at some people. Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, these are people that were just like you and I. They had their ego sides but they rose above and they transcended. They fed their authentics. And then they grew as people. Whereas Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe, these people just feed their, Bernie Madoff, they just feed their ego, feed their ego, feed their ego, and that is what they become. Ego.