The answer to the question What am I? is A divine Soul. This soul is related to, and rooted in, God. But that does not make us equivalent to God. Those who say so are using language carelessly.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10605 – 6.8.1.38

BN – Z – DK

The ego must be there, for it is needed to be active in this world; but it need not take sole charge of the man. There is this other, this higher Self too.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10606 – 6.8.1.39

BN – Z – DK

There are other forces at work in us besides those which everyone recognizes. Some are higher and nobler than our ordinary self, others lower and unworthier.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10607 – 6.8.1.40

BN – Z – DM

Ramana Maharshi’s frequent reference to the “I-I” simply means the Unchanging Self (as contrasted with the ever-changing ego).

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10611 – 6.8.1.44

BN – X – DK

Man is like an actor who has become so involved in the interpretation of his role that he has forgotten his original identity. It effectively prevents him from remembering who and what he is.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10613 – 6.8.1.46

BN – ZZ – DK*

Not Descartes' formula I think, therefore I am but the mystic's The Soul is within me, therefore I am. For Descartes' I is relative and changeful, whereas the mystic's is absolute and permanent.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10614 – 6.8.1.47

BN – Z – DK

The "I" knows itself as the Overself when it ceases to limit itself to the individual entity, thereby liberating its will to the full extent at last. Schrödinger's idea of the self is pure consciousness, or "ground stuff" upon which our personal experiences merely collect.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10616 – 6.8.1.49

BN – Z – DEK

The essence of man is perfect, but the ego of man is not.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10617 – 6.8.1.50

BN – Z – DK

One's adventures in self-discovery will only fulfil themselves when he discovers that which is beyond the ego.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10618 – 6.8.1.51

BN – ZZ – DK

What is man's permanent identity? Is it not logical that when a man's mind is full of his "I" to overflowing, there can be no room for that which transcends it, the Overself?

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10619 – 6.8.1.52

BN – ZZ – DEK

There is the personal self within me. There is the impersonal Self or Overself also within me. We can react wrongly through the ego's limited outlook—or recognize the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10621 – 6.8.1.54

BN – ZZZ – DK

Our real Self is not in movement or change or form. We have to identify with this unseen Self.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10622 – 6.8.1.55

BN – Z – DK

Just as the Divine Being is both Mind-in-itself and Mind-in-activity, according to which aspect we look at, as well as Power-static and Power-dynamic, so its ray in man is Pure Being-Consciousness appearing as the mentally-active ego, as well as Life-Force appearing as physically-active body.

The Ego > What Am I? > Egoself and Overself

#10624 – 6.8.1.57

A231220 – Z – K

Neither the body with its senses nor the mind with its thoughts is the ultimate being that I am. The body acts and the mind moves, but behind them is the thought-free Awareness, the Knowing Principle.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10625 – 6.8.1.58

BN – Z – DK

The first great error to be thrown away is a common one—acceptance of the physical body as the real self when it is only an expression and channel, instrument and vehicle of the self.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10626 – 6.8.1.59

BA11 – Z – DK

You have a body but the real you is not physical. You have an intellect but the real you is not intellectual. You have emotions but the real you is not emotional. What then are you? You are the infinite consciousness of the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10628 – 6.8.1.61

BA11 – ZZZ – DM*

The ego expresses desires and preferences, the intellect thinks and remembers, the body's sense organs experience and perceive the world outside. None of these three is the real “I”-ness of a man.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10629 – 6.8.1.62

BN – ZZ – DK

The body in which he dwells is not himself. The intellect with which he thinks is not himself. The consciousness by which he utters "I" IS himself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10632 – 6.8.1.65

BA11 – ZZ – DK

There is something in each man which says ”I.” Is it the body? Usually he thinks so. But if he could set up a deeper analysis, he would find that consciousness would carry him away from the body-thought into itself. There, in its own pure existence, he would find the answer to his question, ”Who am I?”

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10636 – 6.8.1.69

BN – ZZ – DK

This sense, force, or feeling within him, which calls itself I, has its innermost part in that which observes it, the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10637 – 6.8.1.70

BN – ZZ – DK

Everyone can give his assent to the statement that his physical environment is not himself, but it requires great penetration to give his assent to the equally true statement that his thoughts are not himself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10638 – 6.8.1.71

BN – ZZ – DK

We all think, experience, feel, and identify with the ”I.” But who really knows what it is? To do this we need to look inside the mind, not at what it contains, as psychologists do, but at what it is in itself. If we persevere, we may find the ”I” behind the ”I.”

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10640 – 6.8.1.73

BN – ZZZ – DK1

It would be wrong to believe that there are two separate minds, two independent consciousnesses within us—one the lower ego-mind, and the other, the higher Overself-mind—with one, itself unwatched, watching the other. There is but one independent illuminating mind and everything else is only a limited and reflected image within it. The ego is a thought-series dependent on it.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10641 – 6.8.1.74

BN – Z – DK1

There is only a single light of consciousness in the mind’s camera. Without it the world could not be photographed upon the film of our ego-mind. Without it, the ego-mind itself would be just as blank. That light is the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10645 – 6.8.1.78

BN – ZZ – DK

If only he could become aware of his own awareness!

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10646 – 6.8.1.79

BN – ZZ – DK

We must indeed make a distinction between the conscious self which is so tied to the body and the superconscious self which is not got at or grasped by the bodily senses.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10649 – 6.8.1.82

BN – Z – DK

Is it true that most men suffer from mistaken identity? Normal experience leads a man to identify with his body but he fails to go farther and deeper to ask himself: 'Who is present in the body?'

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10653M – 6.8.1.86

BA11 – ZZZ – DXK

The final ‘I’ is not the ‘I’ of the senses nor of the desires but a deeper entity, free and unattached, serene and self-sufficient.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10658 – 6.8.1.91

UR_5 – ZZZ – DK

The ultimate goal is to regard oneself as primarily a mental being and not a physical one, to cease this idolatrous identification of self with flesh, blood, and bone.

The Ego > What Am I? > Body and consciousness

#10663 – 6.8.1.96

BN – Z – DK

How is it that I am—and know that I am—substantially the same man today as yesterday, that I remember the happenings of a year ago? The answer must be that there is a continuous self, or being, or mind, in me, distinct from its thoughts or experiences.

The Ego > What Am I? > I-sense and memory

#10664 – 6.8.1.97

BN – X – DK

Neither deep sleep nor brain concussion prevents us from recovering the sense of I when they end.

The Ego > What Am I? > I-sense and memory

#10665 – 6.8.1.98

BN – X – DK

If we look for the self in this jumble of contradictory instincts and changing tendencies, we find only a jumble. These things are the content of awareness, not the faculty of awareness.

The Ego > What Am I? > I-sense and memory

#10666 – 6.8.1.99

BN – X – DK

Even the shell-shocked soldier who suffers from an almost total amnesia, forgetting his personal identity and personal history, does not suffer from any loss of the consciousness that he exists. Its old ideas and images may have temporarily or even permanently vanished, but the mind itself carries on.

The Ego > What Am I? > I-sense and memory

#10667 – 6.8.1.100

BN – X – DK

The personal ego of man forms itself out of the impersonal life of the universe like a wave forming itself out of the ocean. It constricts, confines, restricts, and limits that infinite life to a small finite area. The wave does just the same to the water of the ocean. The ego shuts out so much of the power and intelligence contained in the universal being that it seems to belong to an entirely different and utterly inferior order of existence. The wave, too, since it forms itself only on the surface of the water gives no indication in its tiny stature of the tremendous depth and breadth and volume of water beneath it. The work of the quest is simply this: to free the ego from its self-imposed limitations, to let the wave of conscious being subside and straighten itself out into the waters whence it came. The little wave is thus reconverted into the infinite Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10669E – 6.8.1.102

BN – ZZ – DEK

It is ludicrous if that part of the mind which is only within the personal consciousness, the ego, sets itself up to deny the Mind-in-itself—its own very Source. For the ego is shut in what it experiences and knows—a much limited area.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10670 – 6.8.1.103

BN – X – DK

When it is said that separateness is the great sin, this does not refer to one's relation with other human beings. It refers to having separated oneself in thought from one's higher self.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10674 – 6.8.1.107

BN – Z – DK

Even irreproachable conduct and impeccable manners belong to the ego and not to the enlightenment.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10676 – 6.8.1.109

BN – ZZ – DK1

We draw the very capacity to live from the Overself, the very power to think from the same source. But we confine both the capacity and the power to a small, fragmentary, and mostly physical sphere. Within this confinement the ego sits enthroned, served by our senses and pandered by our thoughts.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10677 – 6.8.1.110

BN – ZZ – DK1

This narrow fragment of consciousness which is the person that I am hides the great secret of life at its core.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10678 – 6.8.1.111

BN – X – DK

Thoughts rise and fall on the surface of consciousness just like waves on the ocean. Both thoughts and waves disappear again into their source. The ego is a totality of strongly held thoughts with a long ancestry behind them. So it too dissolves eventually into the universal mind. Its supporting consciousness is not lost, is this same permanent Mind. The personal self is an individualization of this mind. It did not emerge from nothing and therefore cannot go back into nothing when it dies; it dies into this living Universal Mind, is absorbed by it.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10681 – 6.8.1.114

BN – Z – DEM

The lower part of man's mind which calculates, analyses, criticizes, blames, and organizes is the part which has no understanding of divine principles, and therefore its plannings are frequently futile. Man has no business to limit himself to the lower mind, and when he understands this he will leave his future in the hands of God, and then his real needs will be met.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10684 – 6.8.1.117

BN – ZZZ – DK

It is an irony of life that a man can plainly see the physical ego, but that on which it depends for existence, the Overself, he does not see. Therefore he neglects or ignores the attention it needs and misses much of the opportunity that a reincarnation offers to further his inner unfoldment.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10686 – 6.8.1.119

BN – ZZ – DK

The egocentric view of ordinary men is not final. One day they will evolve to the cosmic view.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10687 – 6.8.1.120

BN – ZZZ – DK

Beneath the little “I” stretches the universal Consciousness.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as limitation

#10691 – 6.8.1.124

BN – X – DK

The ego to which he is so attached turns out on enquiry to be none other than the presence of World-Mind within his own heart. If identification is then shifted by constant practice from one to the other, he has achieved the purpose of life.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10694 – 6.8.1.127

BN – X – DK

What we find as the attributes of the ego are a reflected image, limited and changing, of what we find in the Overself. They ultimately depend on the Overself both for their own existence and their own nature.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10695 – 6.8.1.128

BN – X – DK

However badly we all reflect the Overself in the personality, however tiny broken and distorted the reflected image usually is, still it is a reflection. It is within the capacity of all to make it a better one, and within the capacity of a few to make it a perfect one.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10696 – 6.8.1.129

BN – Z – DK

If we could pin down this sense of I-ness which is behind all we think, say, and do, and if we could part it from the thoughts, feelings, and physical body by doing so, we would find it to be rooted in and linked with the higher Power behind the whole world.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10701 – 6.8.1.134

BN – Z – DK1

The ego's consciousness is a vastly reduced, immeasurably weakened echo of the Overself-Consciousness. It is always changing and dissipates in the end whereas the Other is ever the same and undying. But the ego is drawn out of the Other and must return to it, so the link is there. What is more, the possibility of returning voluntarily and deliberately is also there.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10702 – 6.8.1.135

BA11 – ZZ – DK

Unless the human ego were itself an emanation of the Overself it would be quite unable to identify itself with the sensation of severance from the body during the process we call dying.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10703 – 6.8.1.136

BN – Z – DK

This thing which the Overself has projected in space-time has not lost all link with its source, whatever outward appearances suggest to the contrary.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10704 – 6.8.1.137

BN – X – DK

Just as a shadow bespeaks a light, so the ego bespeaks its source in the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10705 – 6.8.1.138

BN – X – DK

The personality is rooted in the Overself. Hence its own power and movement do reflect, albeit minutely, slightly, and distortedly, some of the Overself's own attributes.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10706 – 6.8.1.139

BN – X – DK

Expressed in more familiar religious language, it may be said that God has put something of Himself into each one of us. But it is there only as a potential; we must make the necessary effort to make ourselves more and more conscious of it.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego as presence of higher

#10707 – 6.8.1.140

BN – Z – DK

The ”I” of the ego is supported by the ”I” of the spiritual being, the spiritual self. Indeed the first derives its reality from the second and the second survives when the first passes away.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10709 – 6.8.1.142

BN – Z – DK

The personal ego has its singularities and particularities, its present aims and past memories, its life within time, its own temperament and special characteristics. All this amounts to this: it is unique. The individuality is the highest, subtlest, and finest, even divinest part of being. It is out of time. It is pure essence, the other is a compounded entity. For it the hours do not pass; for the other there is a constant sequence, a moment-to-moment existence. Sometimes men catch a glimpse of it, this other self which is really their own best self and which is not something to be attained by a progression since it is forever present. It does not have or need thoughts. Every moment which they give to identifying themselves with it is their salvation. If this takes one far from kith and kin, from all speech with all persons, it also carries him into a diviner relationship and communication with them.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10710 – 6.8.1.143

BN – ZZZ – DEK

As egos they are certainly individual lives and beings. Their separateness is unquestionable. But as manifestations of the One Infinite Life-Power, their separateness from It is a great illusion.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10711 – 6.8.1.144

BN – Z – DM

It is what stands behind the individual, and not the individual himself, that really matters.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10712 – 6.8.1.145

BN – ZZ – DK

That which separates a man from others, which makes him a person, an individual being, is his ego.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10717 – 6.8.1.150

BN – X – DK

Outwardly all differ but in the deepest root of consciousness all are the same. This is the Reality that is hidden in me and you, in the whole universe itself. It acts everywhere and exists eternally.

The Ego > What Am I? > Two views of individuality

#10723EM – 6.8.1.156

UR_1 – ZZZ – DXK

How can man fully express himself unless he fully develops himself? The spiritual evolution which requires him to abandon the ego runs parallel to the mental evolution which requires him to perfect it.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10725 – 6.8.1.158

BN – Z – DK

Despite all the talk disparaging the ego, it is not wrong but praiseworthy to develop the best personality one can and then use it. Its character can be purified, its passions controlled, its weaknesses overcome, its ignorance dispelled. New virtues can be introduced and new power developed. One can then make better use of such a personality—for one's own advantage and for service of others—and one should.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10726 – 6.8.1.159

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

We came to this Earth to understand ourselves, bit by bit. There is really nothing to be achieved here; only something to be accepted—the fact of your own divinity.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10729M – 6.8.1.162

B_01 – ZZZ – DXK

This very egocentricity has prepared the way for its own collapse, and thence for the spiritual mentality which transcends it and which is next to be developed.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10730 – 6.8.1.163

BN – Z – DK

The ego is a part of the divine order of existence. It must emerge, grow, enslave, and finally be enslaved.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10732 – 6.8.1.165

BA11 – ZZ – K

This is the paradox, or irony, of evolution: that first the ego grows into full being through plant, animal, and human form; then it reverses the objective and assents to its own alteration and death.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10733 – 6.8.1.166

BN – X – DK

If he will stop looking at his own life from the shut-in standpoint of his little ego and instead look at it from the wide-angle standpoint of its place in the reincarnationary cycle of development, it will become filled with new meanings, rich with higher significances. To bring his personal idea into alignment with the World-Idea will then become both his duty and his happiness.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10736 – 6.8.1.169

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

Is it not ironical that the Overself projects the ego so far that it denies its source, and then waits indefinitely for the ego to give itself back?

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10737 – 6.8.1.170

BN – X – DK

After the physical, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual capacities of the ego have been developed, then it is the correct time to renounce, not before. But the selfishness and indiscipline of the ego may and should be renounced at any time.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10739 – 6.8.1.172

BN – ZZZ – DK

When the ego discovers that it is a part of the whole, it will naturally cease to live only for its own good and begin to live for the general good also.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10740 – 6.8.1.173

BA11 – ZZ – DK

If the earlier experiences of life are intended to develop the ego from the primitive animalistic to the fully humanistic stage, the later experiences are intended to induce the man to give the ego as an offering to the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10741 – 6.8.1.174

BN – Z – DK

The ego is not in itself evil, but what seems to make it so is its refusal to recognize and then take its subordinate place to the Overself, which it ought to serve.

The Ego > What Am I? > Perfection through surrender

#10742 – 6.8.1.175

BN – Z – DK

It is not so much a matter of destroying the ego as of balancing it with the Overself, for its need of development must be recognized. Such an act will not give it equal power but put it in its proper place, as a child’s individuality needs to be balanced with its parents’.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10746 – 6.8.1.179

BN – Z – DK

Every individual life from the mighty elephant down to the microscopic cell is a self-evolving entity moving through time and space. It has meaning, a purpose, and eventually, a fulfilment here. Why then talk of destroying the one with which you are most intimate—your own ego?

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10748 – 6.8.1.181

BN – Z – DK

The ego will not end its existence but it will end its dominance.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10751 – 6.8.1.184

BN – ZZ – DK

Nothing can annihilate the ego during the body's lifetime, but its function can be reduced to one of mere subservience to the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10752 – 6.8.1.185

BN – ZZ – DK

The highest goal of the Quest is not illumination gained by destruction of the ego but rather by perfection of the ego. It is the function of egoism, which is to be destroyed, not that which functions. The ego’s rulership is to go, not the ego itself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10756 – 6.8.1.189

BA11 – ZZZ – DMK1

At every stage of this quest, from that of the veriest postulant who has just entered upon it to that of the well-advanced proficient, the need of subduing the ego is ever-present.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10761 – 6.8.1.194

BN – Z – DK

When examined, the ego is found to be a complex of body and thought, physical senses and mental tendencies.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10763E – 6.8.1.196

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

There is much confusion about this matter of the ego and much looseness in the use of words concerning it. We are told to eliminate the ego and to eradicate the personal self. But the fact is that so long as he is upon this earth he is using a body and a mind and inheriting a whole combination of factors, tendencies, characteristics which have come down from former lives and together now constitute his personality. They will still be present so long as he is alive. To destroy the ego completely would necessarily mean to destroy the physical body, which is a part of it, and to remove his particular individuality which sets him apart from others. This cannot be done, but what can be done is to render the ego subservient to the higher self, an obedient instrument of the higher will.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10764 – 6.8.1.197

BN – ZZ – DEK

Perhaps one day some bright mind will write a book entitled Inspired Egoism to bring people into the understanding that the ego too has its place in the scheme of things. It is the little circle within the larger one of the Overself, and if it remains conscious of its true relationship to the Overself, it may still rest there and carry on with its functions.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10765 – 6.8.1.198

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego may stay in its proper place attending to the needs and sustenance of his body and intellect, but always as a subordinate to the higher self and obeisant to the higher will.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10768E – 6.8.1.201

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK

The ego cannot, indeed, be destroyed so long as we need its services while in the flesh; but it can be subjugated and turned into a servant instead of permitting it to remain a master. When this is understood, the philosophical ideal of a fully developed, mastered, and richly rounded ego acting as a channel for the inspiration and guidance of the Higher Self will be better appreciated. A poverty-stricken ego will naturally form a more limited channel for the expression of the Higher Self than would a more evolved one. The real enemy to be overcome is not the entity ego, but the function of egoism.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10773E – 6.8.1.206

UR_5 – ZZZ – DEK

The real enemy to be overcome is not the entity ego, but the function of egoism.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10773E – 6.8.1.206

BSG_4 – ZZZ – DEK

It is both true and untrue that we cannot take up the ego with us into the life of mystical illumination. The ego is after all only a reflection, extremely limited and often distorted, of the Higher Self… But still it is a reflection. If we could bring it into correct alignment with, and submission to, the Higher Self, it would then be no hindrance to the illumined life. The ego cannot, indeed, be destroyed so long as we need its services while in the flesh; but it can be subjugated and turned into a servant instead of permitting it to remain a master. When this is understood, the philosophical ideal of a fully developed, mastered, and richly rounded ego acting as a channel for the inspiration and guidance of the Higher Self will be better appreciated. A poverty-stricken ego will naturally form a more limited channel for the expression of the Higher Self than would a more evolved one. The real enemy to be overcome is not the entity ego, but the function of egoism.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego subordinated, not destroyed

#10773 – 6.8.1.206

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK1

Is the ego totally lost, utterly obliterated in this attainment? I can only say that none of our usual concepts fit the actual result, that it is hard to describe, and that suggestion must here replace description. For the ego and the Overself fuse and unite, yet the union does not destroy the ego's capacity to express itself or to be active in the world. Its own annihilation is a transient experience during the contemplative state. Its resumption of worldly life while permanently established in perfect harmony with, and obedience to, the divine Overself is the further and final goal.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10774 – 6.8.1.207

BN – ZZ – DEK

If a man could withdraw sufficiently from his ego to stop letting its interests and desires overpower him, he would thereby let peace come to triumph in his heart. The true paradise, the real heavenly kingdom, which has been postponed by an ignorant clergy to the post-mortem world, thus becoming far-off and elusive, is in fact as near to us as our own selves, and as present as today. If we are to enter it, we can and must enter while yet in the flesh. It is not a time or place but a state of life and a stage of development. It is the ego-free life.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10775E – 6.8.1.208

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DEK

The ego is not asked to destroy itself but to discipline itself. The personal in a man must live, but only as a slave to the impersonal. These two identities make up his self.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10775E – 6.8.1.208

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK

If the ego continues to perform its functions, as it needs must even after Fulfilment, it no longer does so as his master, no longer as his very self. For henceforth the ego obeys the Overself.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10776 – 6.8.1.209

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

For the man in that high consciousness and identified with it, the ego is simply an open channel through which his being may flow into the world of time and space. It is not himself, as it is for the unenlightened man, but an adjunct to himself, obeying and expressing his will.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10777 – 6.8.1.210

BN – ZZZ – DK

If he loses his ego utterly and completely so that no trace of it exists at all, he would have to die, for his body is part of the ego. But he lives on. This shows that what he really loses is not the ‘ego-nature’ but the ‘ego-will’. It is replaced by the higher will.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10782 – 6.8.1.215

BA12 – ZZZ – DK*

The ego fades away into a kind of non-entity, subsides like a wave into the ocean of universal life.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10786 – 6.8.1.219

BSG_4 – Z – K

Yes, the ego is there and must be there if we are to live on this plane. But it can undergo a spiritual rebirth and no longer be a tyrant who denies us our spiritual birth right and our spiritual consciousness but rather a channel serving that consciousness.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10789 – 6.8.1.222

BSG_4 – ZZ – DM

The ego will always have its problems. By always, one means from birth all through the years until death. This is true of every human being, although a superior human being will deal with them in a superior way.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10790 – 6.8.1.223

BN – ZZ – DK

The "I" is still here, not the old familiar petty uncertain creature but another "I," a gloriously transformed one.

The Ego > What Am I? > Ego after illumination

#10795 – 6.8.1.228

BSG_4 – Z – DK

That part of man which is within the physical world, the ego, must in the end come to recognize and revere his higher individuality, unseen and unknown though it may be. This requires a growth through time, through many rebirths.

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10797 – 6.8.1.230

BN – Z – DK

It would be an error to believe that it is the Overself which reincarnates. It does not. But its offspring—the ego—does.

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10799 – 6.8.1.232

BN – Z – DK1

"My Emanation far within/ Weeps incessantly for my sin." How wrong was William Blake when he wrote these lines!

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10800 – 6.8.1.233

BN – X – K

This is the ego that we falsely think of as being our real self. This is the ego to which memory ties us. This is the illusive part of our dual personality; this is the known part of our being, a mere shadow thrown by the unknown part which is infinitely greater. This moves from one earthly body to another, from one dream to another through the phantasmagoria of existence without awakening to Reality.

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10801 – 6.8.1.234

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The entity which lives in the spirit world after death is the same ego that dwelt on earth, emanating from and sustained by the same Overself. In this relationship, they are still distinct and separate entities, even though as intimately connected as parent and offspring.

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10803 – 6.8.1.236

BN – X – DK

How senseless it is to demand permanency and immortality for an ego which has already undergone countless changes of inner nature and outer form, only the resolute truth-seeker, unwilling to live by illusions, can perceive.

The Ego > What Am I? > Renunciation

#10804 – 6.8.1.237

B_05 – Z – K

What we commonly think of as constituting the "I" is an idea which changes from year to year. This is the personal "I." But what we feel most intimately as being always present in all these different ideas of the "I," that is, the sense of being, of existence, never changes at all. It is this which is our true enduring "I."

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10807 – 6.8.2.1

BN – X – DK

Everything remembered is a thought in consciousness. This not only applies to objects, events, and places. It also applies to persons, including oneself, he who is remembered, the I that I was. This means that my own personality, what I call myself, was a thought in the past, however strong and however persistent. But the past was once the present. Therefore I am not less a thought now. The question arises what did I have then which I still have now, unchanged, exactly the same. It cannot be I as the person, for that is different in some way each time. It is, and can only be, I as Consciousness.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10809 – 6.8.2.3

BN – X – DK

All that a man really owns is his "I." Everything else can be taken from him in a moment—by death or destiny, by his own foolishness or other people's malice. But no event and no person can rob him of his capacity to think the "I."

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10811 – 6.8.2.5

BN – Z – K

With the body, the thoughts, and the emotions, the ego seems to complete itself as an entity. But where do we get this feeling of I from? There is only one way to know the answer to this question: the way of meditation. This burrows beneath the three mentioned components and penetrates into the residue, which is found to be nothing in particular, only the sense of Be-ing. And this is the real source of the I notion, the self-feeling. Alas! The source does not ordinarily reveal itself, so we live in its projection, the ego, alone. We are content to be little, when we could be great.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10812 – 6.8.2.6

BN – X – DK

That which claims to be the "I" turns out to be only a part of it, the lesser part, and not the real "I" at all. It is a complex of thoughts.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10813 – 6.8.2.7

BA11 – ZZ – DK

When the "I" is thought to be the body, appearance has replaced reality.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10814 – 6.8.2.8

BN – ZZ – K

This feeling of I-ness may be associated with the body, emotions, and thoughts—whose totality is the personal ego—or shifted in deep meditation to the rootless root of being, which is the Overself; or, it may be associated with both, when one will be the reality and the other a shadow of reality.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10815 – 6.8.2.9

BN – X – DK

The idea of a self first enters consciousness when a child identifies itself with bodily feelings, and later when it adds emotional feelings. The idea extends itself still later, with logical thoughts and, lastly, completes itself with the discovery of individuality.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10816 – 6.8.2.10

BN – X – DK

If we analyse the ego, we find it to be a collection of past memories retained from experience and future hopes or fears which anticipate experience. If we try to seize it, to separate it out by itself, we do not find it to exist in the present moment, only in what has gone and what is to come. In fact, it never really exists in the NOW but only seems to. This means that it is a phantom without substance, a false idea.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10820 – 6.8.2.14

BN – Z – DK1

His first mental act is to think himself into being. He is the maker of his own "I." This does not mean that the ego is his own personal invention alone. The whole world-process brings everything about, including the ego and the ego's own self-making.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10821 – 6.8.2.15

BN – X – K1

Our attachment to the ego is natural. It arises because we are unconsciously attached to that which is behind it, to the Overself. Only, we are misled by ignorance wholly to concentrate on the apparent “I” and wholly to ignore the unseen, enduring self of which it is but a transient shadow. The “I” which trembles or enjoys in the time-series is not the real “I.”

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10824 – 6.8.2.18

BN – X – DK

What is the most immediate of all experiences? It is the ”I.” For all others are experiences of an object, be it a thing or a thought—the body, the world, or the mind; but this is their subject, the first identity in life, the last before death.

The Ego > I-thought > I-sense and I-thought

#10830 – 6.8.2.24

BN – X – DK

The ego is nothing more than a shadow. Its stuff and reality are merely that transient ever-changing play of light and colour. It exists—a word whose very meaning, "to be placed outside," is also metaphysically true. For he who immerses himself in its consciousness places himself outside the consciousness of Overself.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10835 – 6.8.2.29

BN – X – DEK

Constant remembrance of the Overself's presence becomes a way to counter the much more evident presence of the body and the world―that is, the illusion of matter. The term "illusion" here used must not be read as meaning that the human being and the world do not exist. It means that they exist, yes, but that they do not exist as other than a transient appearance. They are not fundamentally 'real'.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10836M – 6.8.2.30

BSG_1 – ZZZ – DXK

There is no real ego but only a quick succession of thoughts which constitutes the ÓIÓ process. There is no separate entity forming the personal consciousess but only a series of impressions, ideas, images revolving round a common centre. The latter is completely empty; the feeling of something being there derives from a totally different plane—that of the Overself.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10837 – 6.8.2.31

BN – Z – DK

When it is declared that the ego is a fictitious entity, what is meant is that it does not exist as a real entity. Nevertheless, it does exist as a thought.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10838 – 6.8.2.32

BA11 – ZZ – DK

If he identifies with the ego as a real entity by itself, and not as the complex of thoughts and tendencies which it is, he is caught in the net of illusion and cannot get out of it.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10839 – 6.8.2.33

BN – ZZ – DK

The practice of the impersonal point of view under the guidance of mentalism leads in time to the discovery that the ego is an image formed in the mind, mind-made, an image with which we have got inextricably intertwined. But this practice begins to untie us and set us free.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10840 – 6.8.2.34

BN – ZZ – K1

The ego is a collection of thoughts circulating around a fixed but empty centre. If the habits of many, many reincarnations had not given them such strength and persistence, they could be voided. The reality—MIND—could then reveal Itself.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10843 – 6.8.2.37

BN – Z – DK

It is not only that man does not know his spiritual nature but, which is worse, that he holds a false idea of his own nature. He takes the shadow—ego—for the substance—Overself. He takes the effect—body—for the cause—Spirit.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10845 – 6.8.2.39

BN – Z – DK

When he is conscious of himself he is conscious only of his idea of himself, the fantasy which the ego has made for him.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10850 – 6.8.2.44

BN – ZZ – K

The ego is a structure which has been built up in former lives from tendencies, habits, and experiences in a particular pattern. But in the end the whole thing is nothing but a thought, albeit a strong and continuing thought.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10851 – 6.8.2.45

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

If we have written of the ego as if it were a separate and special entity, a fixed thing, a reality in its own right, this is only because of the inescapable necessities of logical human thinking and the inexorable limitations of traditional human language. For in FACT the "I" cannot be separated from its thoughts since it is composed of them, and them alone. The ego is, in short, only an idea, or a trick that the thought process plays on itself.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10852 – 6.8.2.46

BN – Z – DEK1

Because this emanated consciousness of the Overself ties itself so completely and so continuously to the thought-series, which after all are its own creations, it identifies itself with the illusory ego produced by their activity and forgets its own larger, less limited origin.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10853 – 6.8.2.47

BN – Z – DK

All our thoughts necessarily exist in the successiveness of time, but the thought of the ego is a more complicated affair and exists also in time and space, because the body is part of the ego. Whatever we do, the ego as such will continue its existence. But we need not identify ourselves with it; we can put some distance between us and it. The more we do so, the more impersonal we shall become, and vice versa.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10855 – 6.8.2.49

BN – ZZ – DK

From childhood through adulthood, man passes from one change to another in himself—his body, feelings, and thoughts. The idea of himself, his personality, changes with it. Where and what is the I if it has no unbroken integrity?

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10860 – 6.8.2.54

BN – X – DK

The tendencies and habits, the physical and mental activities which we have brought over from our own past, settle down and congeal themselves into what we call our personal self, our individuality, our ego. Yet life will not permit this combination to be more than a temporary one, and we go on changing with time. We identify ourselves with each of these changes, in turn, yet always think that is really ourself. Only when we still these activities and withdraw from these habits for a brief period in meditation, do we discover for the first time that they do not constitute our real self, after all. Indeed, they are then seen to be our false self, for it is only then that we discover the inner being that is the real self which they hide and cover up. Alas! so strong is their age-old power that we soon allow them to resume their tyrannous ways over us, and we soon become victims again of the great illusion of the ego.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10862 – 6.8.2.56

BN – ZZ – DK

When all thoughts vanish into the Stillness, the ego-personality vanishes too. This is Buddha's meaning that there is no self, also Ramana Maharshi's meaning that ego is only a collection of thoughts.

The Ego > I-thought > Ego exists, as series of thoughts

#10863 – 6.8.2.57

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego of which we are conscious is not the same as the mind by which we are conscious. He who perseveres until he can understand this, opens the first door of the soul's house.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10871 – 6.8.2.65

BN – Z – DK

All your thinking about the ego is necessarily incomplete, for it does not include the ego-thought itself. Try to do so and it slips from your hold. Only something that transcends the ego can grasp it.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10872 – 6.8.2.66

BN – ZZ – K1

The body is in reality an object for the mind, which is its subject; and not only the body, but also whatever the ego thinks or feels becomes an object, too. It is less easy to see and even more necessary to understand that this ego, this subject, is itself an object to a higher part of the mind.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10873 – 6.8.2.67

BN – X – DK

We understand correctly our relation to external possessions like chairs and carpets, but not to possessions like hands and thoughts. Here our understanding becomes confused. Our habitual speech betrays this. We say, “I am hurt” when it is really the body that is hurt, or “I am pleased” when a thought of pleasure arises within us. In the first case the body still remains an object of our experience, despite its closeness. In the second case, thinking is a function performed by us. Both are to be distinguished from our being, however interwoven with our activity.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10874 – 6.8.2.68

BN – X – DM

To the real person, the consciousness, body, nerve, and sense organs are only objects being used as mediums and channels.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10877 – 6.8.2.71

BN – X – DK

Wherever human consciousness exists, wherever there is a thinker, there are also his thoughts. Subject and object join to make conscious existence of an ego, an ”I,” possible, both in waking and dream states.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10878 – 6.8.2.72

BN – X – DK

The ego is an object. The mind knows only objects. Therefore man does not know himself when he knows only ego.

The Ego > I-thought > Subject-object

#10880 – 6.8.2.74

BN – Z – DK

The ego is like a repression which must be dug out of the subconscious mind, seen and understood for what it is, and then let go until it vanishes, losing all its secret power thereby.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10882 – 6.8.3.2

BA11 – ZZ – K

The ego, although itself a projection, draws from its creative source enough power to project in turn its own small world.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10884 – 6.8.3.4

BN – X – DK

The ego has two sides to its nature: a dark and a bright one, an animal and a human one.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10886 – 6.8.3.6

BN – X – DK

The ego is the shadow-self accompanying the light-self, or Overself. The ego holds all that is dark in the man’s character.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10895 – 6.8.3.15

BN – X – DK

The persona, the mask which he presents to the world, is only one part of his ego. The conscious nature, composed of thoughts and feelings, is the second part. The hidden store of tendencies, impulses, memories, and ideas—formerly expressed and then reburied, or brought over, from earlier lives, and all latent—is the third part.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10897 – 6.8.3.17

BA11 – Z – DK1

Inside ourselves there is not one ego but several. We live in a condition of recurring feelings that successively contradict one another, deny each other, or shame each other. The “I” is really torn into pieces, each claiming ascendency but none holding it permanently. The animal, the human, and the angel jostle elbows in our hearts. We are degraded today, elevated tomorrow. The quest seeks to integrate all these different egos.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10898 – 6.8.3.18

BN – X – DK

When we talk of the ego we mean the mind, the body, the senses, and the memory. For take them away and we are as nothing.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10899 – 6.8.3.19

BN – Z – DK

A man is made up of several different factors: what he has inherited from his parents; what he has picked up from his surroundings; what he has brought over from previous reincarnations; what he thinks, feels and does; what his reactions are to other people. It is the combination of all these elements which make one man.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10901 – 6.8.3.21

BN – Z – DK

The sum total of our past actions and thoughts, and especially of our tendencies, constitutes our character and makes us what we are today.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10903 – 6.8.3.23

BN – X – DK

The ego moves from childhood to old age, from waking to dreaming, but it moves round in a circle. It does not move toward freedom, reality, or peace.

The Ego > Psyche > Ego as knot in psyche

#10904 – 6.8.3.24

BN – Z – DK

There is really no subconscious mind. There is only the thinking mind and the still centre behind the mind.

The Ego > Psyche > The “subconscious''

#10908 – 6.8.3.28

BN – X – DK

Jung thought he had found, in what he called the unconscious, the source which twisted, negated, or opposed the ego's ideals. This source was the shadow. He needed to go farther and deeper for then he would have known the shadow to be the ego itself.

The Ego > Psyche > The “subconscious''

#10909 – 6.8.3.29

BN – X – K

Men suffer from various illnesses, for which they flock to physicians, clinics, and hospitals to find a cure. But they ignore the only illness which is more deeply rooted than all the others and which never leaves them. It is the ego's octopus-like hold upon every atom of their being.

The Ego > Psyche > The “subconscious''

#10912 – 6.8.3.32

BN – ZZ – K

At every chance of a forward step he will be tricked, deceived, misguided, or even driven back by the ego—if he will not be alert enough to recognize the endeavour.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10917 – 6.8.3.37

BN – ZZ – DK

The ”I” gets angry when someone provokes it, then remembers it must gain self-control, and thus forms a higher and calmer state for itself but one which is still within the personal ego-sphere. It has not escaped from itself but only replaced a negative emotion by a positive feeling.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10920 – 6.8.3.40

BN – X – DK

It is natural for the ego to react negatively to its experiences when these bring loss or opposition. But this is so only when, as is most common, man is still unawakened, untaught, uncontrolled, and unable to enter into higher states of being.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10922 – 6.8.3.42

BN – X – DK

If the ego can keep your energies entangled in its psychical doings, or your time absorbed in developing its occult powers, it will keep you from devoting them to seeking the Overself and thus preserve its own existence.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10924 – 6.8.3.44

BN – Z – DK

There is no limit to the ego’s pretensions. It will pose as the humble pupil today but as the pontifical master tomorrow.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10931 – 6.8.3.51

BN – Z – DK

The ego knows well enough how to protect itself, how to prevent the seeker from straying away from its power over him.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10934 – 6.8.3.54

B_05 – ZZ – DK

The ego is just as powerful whether it is condoned or condemned, for in both cases it keeps the man engaged on a self-centered quest.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10935 – 6.8.3.55

BN – Z – DK

Every move made by the ego has as its basis the desire of its own survival, its own self-perpetuation.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10936 – 6.8.3.56

BN – Z – DK

The ego is perfectly capable of making all sorts of compromises or truces with itself—moral ones with its conscience, logical ones with its intellect, spiritual ones with its aspirations—and perfectly capable of all sorts of dodges, quibbles, evasions, and disguises, whether dealing with matters on the highest or lowest level of reference.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10937 – 6.8.3.57

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The ego poses as being the only self, the real self, the whole self.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10940 – 6.8.3.60

BN – Z – DK

The ego can find many dodges and give many pretexts to prevent him from making the first humiliating gesture of mental surrender. They are intended to protect its own life or power and to keep him, through pride, from making any space for the Overself’s entry.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10945 – 6.8.3.65

BN – ZZZ – DK

The ego uses all the cunning of its logical intellect and all the seduction of its pleasure-loving nature to keep a man away from the quest.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10951 – 6.8.3.71

BN – Z – DK

The ego is defiant, cunning, and resistant to the end.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10958 – 6.8.3.78

BN – ZZ – K1

The ego is by nature a deceiver and in its operations a liar. For if it revealed things as they really are, or told what is profoundly true, it would have to expose its own self as the arch-trickster pretending to be the man himself and proffering the illusion of happiness.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10959 – 6.8.3.79

BN – Z – DM1

Everyone is crucified by his own ego.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10960 – 6.8.3.80

BN – Z – K1

The ego is arrogant, haughty, conceited, and self-deceived.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10961 – 6.8.3.81

BN – ZZ – K1

If the ego can trick him into deviating from the central issue of its own destruction to some less important side issue, it will certainly do so. Its success in this effort is much more common than its failure. Few escape being tricked. The ego uses the subtlest ways to insert itself into the thinking and life of an aspirant. It cheats, tricks, exalts, and abases him by turns, if he lets it. Anatole France wrote that it is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown. It is a constant habit and an instinctive reaction to defend his ego against the testimony of its own activity's unfortunate results. He will need to guard against this again and again, for its own powers are pathetically inadequate, its own foresight conspicuously absent.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10962 – 6.8.3.82

BN – Z – K1

The ego lies to itself, lies to the man who identifies himself with it, and lies to other men.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10963 – 6.8.3.83

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

Behind a self-deceiving facade of pretexts, excuses, alibis, and rationalizations, the ego is forever seeking to gratify its unworthy feelings or to defend them. The ego lies to itself, lies to the man who identifies himself with it, and lies to other men. The ego offers bitter resistance all along the way, disputes every yard of his advance, and is not overcome without incessant struggle against its treacheries and deceptions.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10963EM – 6.8.3.83

BA11 – ZZZ – DXK

So long as the ego's rule is preserved, so long will the karmic tendencies which come with it be preserved. But when its rule is weakened they too will automatically be starved and weakened. To start this process, start trying to take an impersonal detached view.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10964 – 6.8.3.84

BN – ZZZ – DK

True altruism of a philosophic kind is not done by the self but through the self, not by the ego but by the Overself using the ego. Few make this grade. Most practise their altruism by blending it with selfish motive or, in other cases, by masking that motive entirely so as not to upset their own or other people's illusion.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10965 – 6.8.3.85

BN – ZZZ – DEK

The Overself is there but the ego intercepts its communication.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10972 – 6.8.3.92

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego is soon appeased by flattery, soon bruised by criticism; but the man who transcends its tyranny is able justly to evaluate both.

The Ego > Psyche > Trickery, cunning of ego

#10976 – 6.8.3.96

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego, which is so quick to complain about other people's bad treatment of it and so slow to confess its own bad conduct, is his first and worst enemy.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10984 – 6.8.3.104

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

The ego will always seek, and find, ways to excuse itself. It will do anything else it can rather than honestly confess its own vileness or weakness or erroneousness. It will cling stubbornly to them rather than admit the need for a thorough change.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10986 – 6.8.3.106

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

When the ego sees a danger to its own continued existence in any proposed move or decision, it creates fears, invents false hopes, and exaggerates difficulties in order to prevent it.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10988 – 6.8.3.108

BA11 – ZZ – DMK

If the ego were as prone to condemn itself as it is to justify itself, or to justify others as it is to condemn them, how quick and easy would the quest be.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10992 – 6.8.3.112

B_13 – ZZZ – DK

So strong and deep is the hold which the ego has over him, that the flattery which condones that hold is accepted smilingly, whereas the criticism which weakens it is rejected irritably.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10993 – 6.8.3.113

BN – ZZ – K

The ego's cunning endeavour will be to persuade him to ascribe his irritating troubles to anything but the correct primal cause—within himself—and to anyone but the correct primal person—he himself.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10994 – 6.8.3.114

BN – ZZZ – K

The ego knows well how to cover up its ugliest activities with the noblest self-justifications.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10996 – 6.8.3.116

BN – ZZZ – DK

The more he advances intuitively, the more will the ego’s sophistries seek to lure him astray.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#10998 – 6.8.3.118

BN – Z – DK

Alas! the ego pursues him wherever he goes. This is bad enough but when he fails to recognize it and blames other egos only for his troubles it is pathetic and even saddening.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#11002 – 6.8.3.122

B_13 – ZZ – K

The ego senses the peril in which it is placed and resorts to tricks, deceptions, and subterfuges to save itself.

The Ego > Psyche > Defense mechanisms

#11010 – 6.8.3.130

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego's self-flattery keeps out most suggestions that its motives may be tainted, its service not so disinterested as it seems, and its humility a pretentious cloak for secret vanity.

The Ego > Psyche > Self-idolatry

#11023 – 6.8.3.143

BN – ZZZ – K1

The ego's self-love is so strong, its attachment to old attitudes so tenacious, its justification of wrong or foolish deeds so blind, that the likelihood of vanquishing its rule is a thin one. All this shows how absurd is man's complacent self-righteousness and smug virtue.

The Ego > Psyche > Self-idolatry

#11026 – 6.8.3.146

BN – ZZZ – K

It is the ego's self-love which makes us try to defend ourselves in every situation where we are plainly at fault. It is done to justify our actions where consequences have shown that they are grievously wrong.

The Ego > Psyche > Self-idolatry

#11027 – 6.8.3.147

BN – ZZ – K

A man's pride in his own capacity to find truth, gain enlightenment, and achieve purity shuts out the humility needed to let the ego go and let the Overself in.

The Ego > Psyche > Self-idolatry

#11028 – 6.8.3.148

BN – ZZ – DK

Egoism, the limiting of consciousness to individual life as separate from the one infinite life, is the last barrier to the attainment of unity with the infinite life.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11029 – 6.8.3.149

BN – ZZ – DK1

So long as the ego lives in him, so long will all his motives, acts, impulses, and aims be infected with egoism.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11032 – 6.8.3.152

BN – ZZZ – K

Those whose egoism is impenetrable by inspired wisdom or religious injunction must have it punctured by adversity.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11033 – 6.8.3.153

BN – ZZ – K

When his own egoism becomes offensive to himself, and even insufferable, he may regard it as a sign of progress.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11034 – 6.8.3.154

BN – ZZ – K

A man has many burdens to bear at different times during his life, but the heaviest of them all is the burden of his own ego.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11035 – 6.8.3.155

BN – ZZ – DK

The disease of egoitis is neither easily nor quickly cured.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11037 – 6.8.3.157

BN – Z – K

If his egoism is too strong, the highest part of the Overself's light will be quite unable to get through into his consciousness, no matter how fervent his aspiration for it may be.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11041 – 6.8.3.161

BN – Z – DK1

If I love the ego, then I fear other men or the opinion of other men. I will so act as to please them rather than the higher will.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11042 – 6.8.3.162

BN – Z – DK

It is not wrong that we love and serve ourselves—for who else is closer?—but only that we do so by excluding the higher purpose of life.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11043 – 6.8.3.163

BN – Z – DK

From the moment that the lower ego manifested itself, it embarked on a career of ever-expanding separativeness from the other egos and ever-increasing externalization from its sacred source.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11052 – 6.8.3.172

BN – X – DK

The same mixture of egoism and idealism will show in his character through most of the Quest. Only in the more advanced stages will the egoism thin down and down until its final elimination.

The Ego > Psyche > Egoism, egocentricity

#11056 – 6.8.3.176

BN – Z – DK

Our deliverance from the miseries of life hangs solely on our deliverance from the bondage to the ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11057 – 6.8.4.1

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

One important reason why the great spiritual teachers have always enjoined upon their disciples the need of surrendering the ego, of giving up the self, is that when the mind is continually preoccupied with its own personal affairs, it sets up a narrow limitation upon its own possibilities. It cannot reach to the impersonal truth, which is so different and so distant from the topics that it thinks about day after day, year after year. Only by breaking through its self-imposed pettiness can the human mind enter into the perception of the Infinite, of the divine soul that is its innermost being.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11058 – 6.8.4.2

BN – ZZZ – DK

To all things there is an equivalent price. For awareness of the Overself, pay with the thing that blocks your way—sacrifice the ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11060 – 6.8.4.4

BN – ZZZ – DK

No ordinary man really knows himself. He knows only his idea of himself. The two are not the same. If he wants to know his true self, he must first liberate himself from this false one, this imagined one, this idea.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11062 – 6.8.4.6

BN – ZZ – DK

He identifies himself with all the movements of thought, emotion, or passion—and thus misses his real being.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11063 – 6.8.4.7

BN – ZZ – DM

The ego which gets a man into his troubles is unlikely to get him out of them—unless it reforms, learns, or lets some wisdom in.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11064 – 6.8.4.8

UR_5 – ZZZ – DK

If a man wants continual access to the Overself, he must remember that it is not free; there is a high price to be paid—the price of continual submergence of the ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11066 – 6.8.4.10

BN – ZZZ – DM

Rebirths, memories, occult powers—all these things exist and continue because they perpetuate the ego—the very thing we should try to escape from!

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11072 – 6.8.4.16

BN – Z – DK

Consciousness as ego has cut us off from the Source. But it need not do so forever. Through the quest, we can come closer and closer to the reintegration of a subdued ego with its Source, which will thenceforth act through us.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11073 – 6.8.4.17

BN – ZZ – DK

So long as man is attached to the belief that his ego is real and lasting, or thinks and acts as if it were, so long will he be attached to material possessions and worldly desires. For the one is the root of the other.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11075 – 6.8.4.19

BN – Z – DK

It is not possible for men to live together amicably while the ego rules them. All they can do until this source of all disharmony is itself ruled is to reduce their friction to a minimum by reducing its chief provocations.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11081 – 6.8.4.25

BN – ZZZ – DK

So long as the little self feels itself wise enough to make all its decisions and solve all its problems, so long will there be a barrier between it and the Higher Power.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11084 – 6.8.4.28

BN – Z – DK

A man can hold only one thought at a time. Even when he seems to hold two different ones (by doing two different actions simultaneously), close analysis will show that the ideas are successive but so rapidly as to appear together. Applying this, it follows that it is his holding of the thought of his personal separate ego alone which prevents him achieving identification with the Overself. Is this not said, in another way, by Jesus?

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11087 – 6.8.4.31

BN – Z – DEK

Your handicap is the strong ego, the I which stands in the path and must be surrendered by emotional sacrifice in the blood of the heart. But once out of the way, you will feel a tremendous relief and gain peace.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11089 – 6.8.4.33

BN – ZZ – DK1

Until he learns that his enemy is the ego itself, with all the mental and emotional attitudes that go with it, his efforts to liberate himself spiritually merely travel in a circle.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11090 – 6.8.4.34

BN – ZZ – DK1

We shall discover the truth about what we really are in the measure that we discover the error of believing that we are the ego and nothing more. This discovery will take effect and bring us on the way towards realization and liberation only to the extent that we live it, for philosophy is not philosophy unless it is practised in life.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11096 – 6.8.4.40

BN – ZZ – DK

Man begins his search for the highest Truth with his ego and rises to its higher and higher levels, but in the end he must leave the ego if the Truth is to be found. The manner of finding truth is such that he must leave the ego's limitations and look to its origin, its universal source.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11097 – 6.8.4.41

BA11 – ZZ – DK

We sit in the ego with all its limitations as in a prison and we do not know that we are prisoners, for we identify ourselves with it and blind ourselves by those very limitations. It is there and it has to be there, but it need not be there to imprison us or to narrow our outlook. The ego imprisons us, for instance, with its memories which keep us steeped in the past when the wisdom of the spirit is to live in the eternal now—which is all we have in reality and which alone is real for neither past nor future possess any reality.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11098 – 6.8.4.42

BN – Z – DEK

The soul’s presence is to be realized, its consciousness is to be attained. But the ego's conceit overshadows the one, its turbulence obstructs the other.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11101 – 6.8.4.45

BN – ZZ – DK

The ego is the centre of conflicts which lead to sorrow. There is no way of liberating ourselves from the latter without prior liberation from the former.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11102 – 6.8.4.46

BA11 – ZZ – DK

How true is the Bible's metaphorical statement that man shall not look upon the face of God and live. Yes, he, the ego, must die if God is to be present.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11108 – 6.8.4.52

BN – ZZ – DK

So long as his ego asserts its supremacy in everything he does, so long as it arranges everything for him, so long will he be the victim of its own ignorance and blindness.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11111 – 6.8.4.55

BN – ZZZ – DK

There are various obstacles which get in the way of truth but the biggest is the seeker himself—his limitations, his attachment to the ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11113 – 6.8.4.57

B_05 – ZZ – K

No one is keeping him out of this enlightenment except himself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11114 – 6.8.4.58

BN – Z – DK

It is this personal ego which tricks us into believing that it is ourself, our true self, ever grasping and ever desiring, ever creating fresh illusions and false beliefs; it is this ego, with its wily ways, which keeps us from discovery of reality.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11122 – 6.8.4.66

BN – ZZ – DK

While the human entity lives apart from the consciousness of its own real Self, it cannot live in peace. But when it is able to repose completely in that Self, there will be no second thing to draw it away from that peace.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11125 – 6.8.4.69

BN – ZZ – DK

When his various thoughts and feelings begin to appear as objects to his I, it is a welcome sign that he is no longer so bound to his ego as before.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11128 – 6.8.4.72

BN – X – DK

Such is the separative ego's hold on most men that although they carry the divine treasure with them they regard it not.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11129 – 6.8.4.73

BN – X – DK

When the mind is clogged by memories, hoarded from the ego's past experience, it cannot free itself from the ego, and "come home".

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11130 – 6.8.4.74

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The patterns of habit in thinking and behaviour become so rigid with time that the introduction of a new style of life, however desirable it may seem, initiates a long struggle.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11132 – 6.8.4.76

BN – Z – DK

We are prisoners of our ego because we are prisoners of our past.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11133 – 6.8.4.77

BN – ZZ – DK

The constant movement of thoughts and the ego's fascination with itself hide from us the divine Overself, from which both are derived.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11138 – 6.8.4.82

BN – ZZ – DK

Wherever he goes he brings this ego with him, looks at the world with the same eyes, the same desires and limitations.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11141 – 6.8.4.85

BN – ZZ – DK

Even if the highest truth were to appear in all its glorious fullness before his mind, he would be unable to recognize it for what it is—much less understand it—if there had been no preparation or purification for it. He would not even be free to look at it if the ego held him tight in its encircling network.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11143 – 6.8.4.87

BN – ZZ – DEK

The ego gets in its own way and shuts out the truth. It is so immersed in itself that it sees nothing else than its own views, its own opinions. And this is true even when it apparently undergoes a mental change or emotional conversion, for in the end it is the ego itself, which sanctions the newly accepted idea or belief.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11146 – 6.8.4.90

BA11 – ZZ – DEK

His way to the goal is blocked by the ego; his glimpses of truth are subverted by the ego; his aspiration for the Overself is contradicted by the desires of the ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11151 – 6.8.4.95

BN – Z – DEK

Memory creates for us the patterns, traditions, values, and habits by which we live. It is the dominant authority. But it is also the tyrant which keeps us captive and denies us freedom—a deprival which effectually prevents the finding of truth and effectually builds a barrier to reality. Anyone can remember the ego-coloured past in this way, but only the sage can forget it and dissolve all these patterns.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11157 – 6.8.4.101

BN – Z – DK

Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11158 – 6.8.4.102

BA11 – ZZZ – DK1

I am dubious whether anyone can be perfectly sincere if his actions do not come from this deeper source. He may believe that he is, and others may believe the same of him, but since his actions must come from his ego, which is itself spawned by deception and maintained by illusion, how can they achieve a standard which depends on complete truth and utter reality?

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11159 – 6.8.4.103

BN – ZZ – K1

To describe the ego as "little" and the personality as "petty" is to look at it from outside, where it is lost among such a multitude of others; but to look at it from within the man himself is to find it vastly important, dominating his consciousness, a giant holding him down. It is there, and after all the verbal analyses which reduce it to nothing, its presence reasserts itself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11160 – 6.8.4.104

BSG_4 – P – DE

With one part of himself he honestly seeks truth, but with another part he tries to evade it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11162 – 6.8.4.106

BA12 – ZZ – DK

The ego may in the beginning miss a truth, if it is unwelcome and unpleasant, by subconscious aversion to it. In that case it will look anywhere else than the right place if it claims to be a seeker.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11164 – 6.8.4.108

B_05 – ZZ – K

He tries to avoid recognizing that he is held prisoner in ignorance and in suffering by his own ego, that its condition is unhealthy and unbalanced, and that he must find some way to liberate himself from its thraldom.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11170 – 6.8.4.114

BN – ZZ – DM*

The ego, with its petty conceit and private desires, shuts him in on itself and cuts him off from the universal life, with its truth and reality and power.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11175 – 6.8.4.119

BN – ZZ – DK

It is an old, known fact that the truth can be very disturbing and that is why it is more honoured than practised. Let us ask, To whom is it disturbing? and we shall find that the answer refers to the personal ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11179 – 6.8.4.123

BN – ZZZ – DK

Men are locked up within their little egos. They are in prison and do not know it. Consequently they do not ask, much less seek, for freedom.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its importance

#11184 – 6.8.4.128

BN – ZZ – DK

We have to accept the fact that most people have an immense capacity for being quite comfortable within the limits of the ego, and have no wish to get away from them to a higher level.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Why most people won't do it

#11186 – 6.8.4.130

BN – ZZ – DK

Engrossed as they are in personal and family life, they fail to open themselves to the delicate radiation from their innermost being and live as if it were not there.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Why most people won't do it

#11199 – 6.8.4.143

BN – ZZ – DK

It is perhaps not that the multitudes of people are evil as that they get so immersed in working for a livelihood, rearing a family, finding some pleasures, that the little ego provides their sole being. How much they lose if they attend only to this and never to the supreme question: Why am I here?

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Why most people won't do it

#11201 – 6.8.4.145

BN – ZZZ – DK*

They are so accustomed to thinking in terms of the ego that it seems impossible (to them) to think in any other way.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Why most people won't do it

#11202 – 6.8.4.146

BN – ZZZ – K

If we succeed in detaching ourselves from the claims of past memories and the anticipations of future results, we succeed in detaching ourselves from the ego. This is a practical method of reaching the goal, a veritable yoga-path.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11206 – 6.8.4.150

BN – ZZZ – DEK

To surrender the ego is to surrender the thought of it, and this is done by stilling the mind whenever, in daily life, one becomes self-conscious. This silenced, ego vanishes…

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11207E – 6.8.4.151

BSG_4 – P – DEK

Until it is brought to his attention, he may not know that the idol at whose feet he is continually worshipping is the ego. If he could give to God the same amount of remembrance that he gives to his ego, he could quite soon attain, and become established in, that enlightenment to which other men devote lifetimes of arduous effort.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11209 – 6.8.4.153

BN – ZZ – DK*

Whatever helps to lead him out of the ego's tyranny, be it an idea or a situation, an induced mood or a particular service, is worth trying. But it will be easier, and the result more successful, to the extent that he releases himself from his past history.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11211 – 6.8.4.155

BN – ZZ – DK

If he could stop being in love with his ego and start being in love with his Overself, his progress would be rapid.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11213 – 6.8.4.157

BN – Z – DK

There is a useful technique to help attain this purpose. It is to refuse to identify oneself, one’s “I,” with the personal ego. This calls for frequent, if momentary, awareness of thoughts, emotions, and the body. It can be done at any time in any place and is not to be regarded as a meditation exercise.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11215 – 6.8.4.159

BN – Z – DK

The more he tries to fight the ego, the more he thinks about it and concentrates on it. This keeps him still its prisoner. Better is it to turn his back on it and think about, concentrate on the higher self.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11217 – 6.8.4.161

BN – Z – DK

A man begins to come into his own the day he rejects the ego. His rejection may not last more than a minute or two, for the false self is strong enough to reclaim its victim. But the process has started which will bring it to an end.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11218 – 6.8.4.162

BN – Z – DEK

It is more prudent to be habitually suspicious of his own ego, and its motives, than not.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11220 – 6.8.4.164

BN – ZZZ – DK

The amount of energy he pours into sustaining the ego and holding to illusions to his own detriment could just as well be poured into sustaining a quest of the Overself to his own gain.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11221 – 6.8.4.165

BN – Z – DK

The ego has enthroned itself. It asserts its supremacy in all matters. This situation may be allowed for ordinary people in the ordinary affairs of everyday living but it cannot be allowed for truth-seeking people in the graver issues of the quest. The seeker must indeed cultivate the habit of looking on his ego as his enemy, must resist rather than flatter it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11225 – 6.8.4.169

B_05 – ZZZ – DK

The actual change-over from being the ego to becoming the watcher of the ego is a sudden one.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11228 – 6.8.4.172

BN – ZZ – DK

It is much easier to identify with our own ego than with the Overself. This is why incessant return to these ideas and exercises is needed.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11231 – 6.8.4.175

BN – Z – DK

My dear Ego: "It is obvious that in this world I cannot live without you. Your presence is overwhelming, fills every instinct, thought, feeling, and action. But it is also obvious that I cannot live with you. The time has come to adjust our relationship. So I have one request to make of you. Please get out of my way!".

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11232 – 6.8.4.176

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

We cannot help living in a human ego and feeling its wishes and desires, for most of us are infatuated with it. But it can be put in its place and kept there, first through a profound understanding, next through a lofty aspiration to transcend it, and third through a following of the Quest until its very end.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11233 – 6.8.4.177

BN – ZZ – DK*

In analysing ourselves we are helping to crush the ego. But this is true only if analysis is unbiased and if it is balanced by the Short Path attitudes. Otherwise there is excessive and morbid preoccupation with oneself, which suits the ego very well!

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11234 – 6.8.4.178

BN – ZZZ – DK

In all situations he must strive to distinguish and follow the lead of the Soul, subduing the clamour of the ego. The former will so guide him that all things will work out for the best in his spiritual welfare, the latter may merely make bad situations worse.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11235 – 6.8.4.179

BN – Z – DK

What is in your heart? Ramakrishna's was full of the Divine Mother, as he called God. Before long he found her. Saint Francis of Assisi gave humility highest place in his own. He became the humblest man of his time. Fix an ideal in your heart. That is the first step to finding it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11236 – 6.8.4.180

BN – Z – DK

The work begins by removing whatever obstructs the mind from viewing the truth, those qualities and conditions which made it impossible to see Reality as it is.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11242 – 6.8.4.186

BA11 – ZZ – DK

Those who feel frustrated because of the absence of mystical experience in their lives, needlessly depress themselves. For their progress to higher values, their rise above egoism to principle, their choice of true well-being over mere pleasure, show their response to the Overself and mark their real advancement better than any transient emotional experience.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11245 – 6.8.4.189

BN – Z – DK

We have to learn to recognize the individual self, the person, the ego, as a mind-made thing and therefore to withdraw from it, away from it, to put space between ourselves and it, and to detach ourselves more and more and more from it. As this process develops we come more and more into the Truth, the enlightenment.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11246 – 6.8.4.190

BN – ZZZ – DK

The more we try to put impersonality into our thought and life, the less we are likely to identify ourselves with the ego. This makes way, makes room, gives place for that which is behind the ego to begin to manifest itself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11247 – 6.8.4.191

UR_3.2 – ZZ – DK

That Consciousness which men seek so variously in ecstasy or despair is already there but covered up, suffocated by their own little self-consciousness. Day and night they stay only in the narrow, the personal, be it again in ecstasy or despair. They run to others, to gurus or gods, begging to be liberated. But in the end they have to liberate themselves.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > As genuine spiritual path

#11249 – 6.8.4.193

BN – ZZ – DEK

The tightness with which we hold on to the ego and thus separate ourselves from the Overself’s life and the tenseness with which we shut ourselves in the old miserably limited existence are the results of habit. If we are to escape from it into the free creativity of the greater life, we will have to break its vicious circle. This may be enforced upon us by the shock of drastic events, or it may be made possible for us by the grace of an illumined human being, or it may be achieved by us through the determined arousal of a desperate will. Whichever way it happens, it will be the beginning of the end for the ego and the beginning of the best for ourselves.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11250 – 6.8.4.194

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

"Blessed are the poor in spirit" said Jesus. What did he mean? To be "poor" in the mystical sense is to be deprived of the possession of the ego, that is, to become ego-free.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11252 – 6.8.4.196

B_11 – ZZZ – DMK

It was a wise teacher who said to me: ‘Do not demand from human beings a selflessness they are not capable of giving; demand only that they understand this is the direction toward which the divine World-Idea is pushing them. Through one way or another, they will come in the end to suffer attrition of the ego until it is finally reduced to complete subservience to Overself’.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11253 – 6.8.4.197

BN – ZZZ – DK

He will advance most on the Quest who tries most to separate himself from his ego. It will be a long, slow struggle and a hard one, for the false belief that the ego is his true self grips him with hypnotic intensity. All the strength of all his being must be brought to this struggle to remove error and to establish truth, for it is an error not merely of the intellect alone but also of the emotions and of the will.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11254 – 6.8.4.198

BA11 – ZZ – DMK1

When all of a man's thoughts are put together, this total constitutes his ego. By giving them up to the Stillness, he gives up his ego, denies his self, in Jesus' phrase.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11256 – 6.8.4.200

BSG_4 – ZZ – DK

"Lose yourself if you would find yourself", said Jesus. Lose the false conception that the self is something by itself, able to stand separate and alone, capable of being regarded as an object knowable by you, the subject. Let this untruth go, and you will find the truth. Cease this identification with the personality, and you will find the Overself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11259 – 6.8.4.203

B_11 – ZZZ – DEK

It is a matter of changing his self-image, of moving over from the picture of a personal ego to the non-attempt to form any image at all, remaining quite literally free from any identification at all. It is not an active work of negating ego but a passive one of simply being, empty Being! For the ego will 'always' strive to preserve itself, using when it must the most secret ways, full of cunning and pretense, camouflage and deceit. It takes into itself genuinely spiritual procedures and perverts or misuses them for its own advantage.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11263 – 6.8.4.207

BN – ZZ – DEK

The ego will 'always' strive to preserve itself, using when it must the most secret ways, full of cunning and pretense, camouflage and deceit. It takes into itself genuinely spiritual procedures and perverts or misuses them for its own advantage.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11263E – 6.8.4.207

BA11 – ZZZ – DEK

No one else can do for a man what Nature is tutoring him to do for himself, that is, to surrender the ego to the higher self. Without such surrender no man can attain the consciousness of that higher self. It is useless to look to a master to make for him this tremendous change-over within himself. No master could do it. The proper way and the only way is to give up this pathetic clinging to his own power, to his own littleness, and to his own limitations. To turn so completely against himself demands from a man an extreme emotional effort of the rarest kind and also of the most painful kind. For to surrender the ego is to crucify it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11267 – 6.8.4.211

BN – ZZZ – DEK

"The truth shall make you free", promised Jesus. What kind of freedom was he talking about? The answer can only be—from the ego! And this is corroborated by his own statements, uttered at other times, concerning the need to die to oneself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11268 – 6.8.4.212

B_11 – ZZ – DK

If he is willing to give the intuitive forces mastery within himself, then he will have to exert his will against the egoistic ones.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11271 – 6.8.4.215

BN – ZZ – DK

Those who are unable or unwilling to destroy the ego's rule from within must suffer its destruction from without. But whereas the first way brings emotional suffering and mental perturbation, the second brings that along with troubles, disappointments, sicknesses, and blows in addition.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11272 – 6.8.4.216

BA12 – ZZZ – DK

Before we can cultivate the best in us, we must crucify the worst in us. The ego must be hung and nailed by degrees if the Overself is to be resurrected in our consciousness. This is why it is so important to cleanse our emotions and correct our thoughts. The desires and the negatives must be overcome to make a way for the Truth, the Beauty, and Goodness.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11276 – 6.8.4.220

B_01 – ZZZ – DK

To die to the ego means that he will free himself from the thought-grooves that usually dominate his life.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11278 – 6.8.4.222

BN – ZZ – DK

What he must do is to renounce the ego with all its pride, its greed and passion, and learn to understand his dependence on the Overself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11279 – 6.8.4.223

BN – ZZ – DK

The desire to continue life in the ego contains all possible desires. This explains why the hardest of all renunciations for which a man can be asked is that of his ego. He is willing even to suffer mortifications of the flesh or humiliations of his pride rather than that last and worst crucifixion.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11284 – 6.8.4.228

BN – X – K1

When his own ego becomes intolerable to him with increasing frequency, he may take this as a good sign that he is moving forward on this road.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11285 – 6.8.4.229

BN – Z – DK1

If this abnegation [of this unbalanced interest in the lower activities of this world] leads to the extreme point of withdrawal from the world then they must even be willing to obey and to take the consequences. But since it is fundamentally an inner thing, it does not necessarily lead a man to take this extreme step—so long as he keeps his inner life and being inviolable even whilst trafficking with the world.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11286E – 6.8.4.230

B_11 – ZEL1/2 – DEK

Such an achievement [the abnegation of this unbalanced interest in the lower activities of this world] may seem very far off from human possibility and indeed we find in history that not many have either cared, or been able, to realize it, for it is far too painful to the ego. But the metaphysical truths of successive rebirth on earth and of the unreality of time should give some comfort here. The first teaches a great patience while men labour daily at the task of remaking themselves. The second teaches that the Overself is even now ever present with all, that in the eternal Now there is no futurity and that theoretically the possibility of its realization does not necessarily belong to some distant rebirth.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11286E – 6.8.4.230

B_11 – ZEL2/2 – DEK

If there is any single secret of development which the successful mystic can offer us, it is that the ego must go out of us and we must go out of it!

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11288 – 6.8.4.232

BN – ZZ – DK

Even when no longer afraid of others, a man should yet be afraid of himself—so one of the thinkers of old Rome advised. Until the ego is thoroughly conquered, vigilance will always be necessary.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11291 – 6.8.4.235

BN – ZZ – DK

The wisdom of Psalm 46—”Be still and know that I am God”—may be tested by experiment. For in the ego's silence there will be whispered the revelation we await.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11292 – 6.8.4.236

BN – X – DK

The man who has enough respect for himself to realize that he could (and should) become a better man will find that the line of self-improvement stretches all the way into infinite distance. At what point is he to stop? For in the end, however much he polish and perfect the ego, it must give itself up to the Overself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11293 – 6.8.4.237

BN – ZZ – DEK

Give up the outer illusions and gain the inner reality. Give up considering the body as the self and gain the awareness of Overself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11294 – 6.8.4.238

BN – ZZ – DK

Once the work of purification has advanced sufficiently far, the work of divesting himself of his egoism must begin. It is to be carried on as much by reflection as during action, by meditation as through watchfulness.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11295 – 6.8.4.239

BN – ZZ – DK

Every time he resists the impulse to angry action, or the urge to bitter scolding, he resists the ego. The cumulative result of many such disciplines is to thin down the ego and draw nearer the hour of its final destruction.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11297 – 6.8.4.241

BN – ZZ – DK

This injunction of Jesus meant that he was to give up the old self in order to find the new one, to leave himself as a thinking animal in order to find himself as an intuiting illumined being.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11301 – 6.8.4.245

B_11 – Z – K

What is the meaning of the parable of the prodigal son except that he is Man gone away from himself and feeding on the husks of earthly life when the bread of the Overself is being offered him?

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11303 – 6.8.4.247

BN – X – DK

The pushing aggressive will of the personal ego is to be replaced by the passive surrendered will of the overruled ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11307 – 6.8.4.251

BN – Z – DK

The deeper he retires into his inmost being, the farther he retreats from the personal selfhood.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11308 – 6.8.4.252

BN – ZZ – DK

We all seek to fulfil ourselves, each in his own way. Let us not seek blindly, but in an awareness as complete as we can muster let us strive to see what we do from a more than personal standpoint.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11312 – 6.8.4.256

B_06 – ZZZ – K

Every attempt to disassociate himself from his ego, to observe it in thought and action, to unbind himself from its desires and lusts will be successful only as it is merciless.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11316 – 6.8.4.260

BN – ZZ – DK

A time must come, whether in this birth or a later one, when the ego must give up the struggle, which is both with itself and the Higher Power at the same time.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11317 – 6.8.4.261

BN – Z – DK

Each experience in this tumultuous world is a chance to get farther from our habitual egoism.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Surrender is necessary

#11318 – 6.8.4.262

BN – ZZ – DK

For all that is talked and written about it, very few ever succeed in making the full mystical surrender of their ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its difficulty

#11319 – 6.8.4.263

BN – Z – K

Only the deepest kind of reflection, or the most exciting kind of mystical experience, or the compelling force of a prophet’s revelation can bring a man to the great discovery that his personal ego is not the true centre of his being.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its difficulty

#11321 – 6.8.4.265

BN – Z – DK1

Should he attempt to repudiate what is the strongest part of himself—the ego—he is likely to find how strongly attached are his desires. He has transferred the object of his attentions from the worldly sphere to the spiritual sphere, but the ego is still active. When his meditation comes to the threshold of Truth, he stops, terrified by the feeling that he is losing his very self. His little personal world is the subject that really interests him.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its difficulty

#11327 – 6.8.4.271

BN – Z – DEK

He believes he is surrendering to his higher self when all the time he is only surrendering to his own ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its difficulty

#11331 – 6.8.4.275

BN – ZZ – K1

Behind a self-deceiving facade of pretexts, excuses, alibis, and rationalizations, the ego is forever seeking to gratify its unworthy feelings or to defend them. The ego lies to itself, lies to the man who identifies himself with it, and lies to other men. The ego offers bitter resistance all along the way, disputes every yard of his advance, and is not overcome without incessant struggle against its treacheries and deceptions.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Its difficulty

#11340EM – 6.8.4.284

BA11 – ZZZ – DXK

The ego is cunning, subtle, insidious. Even when the aspirant has long left a grosser kind of life behind him, it inserts itself into his prayers and meditations alike, and enters most of his inner work.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11344 – 6.8.4.288

BA11 – ZZ – DM*

The ego easily masquerades as an earnest spiritual seeker.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11345 – 6.8.4.289

B_05 – ZZ – K

If the ego cannot keep him any longer through his animal instincts, it will masquerade as his higher self, flatter him for his lofty aspirations, insert itself into his intuitions, and seek to deceive him as he bends in prayer or sits in meditation.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11349 – 6.8.4.293

BA11 – Z – DK

The ego can take shelter under many lies, illusions, or pretexts, and this of a spiritual as well as worldly kind.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11351 – 6.8.4.295

BN – Z – DK

Messages from his higher Self, messages of guidance and of warning, of instruction and of inspiration, may come frequently to the seeker; and yet he may not receive them aright. If his emotions do not interfere with them, his intellect may do so; if his desires do not interfere, his reasoning may do so. But behind all these interferences stands the ego, sometimes open and obvious but at other times hidden, secretive, and difficult to detect. It lies in wait for every intuitive message and deliberately seizes it during the very moment of manifestation, striving to falsify and to mislead the seeker.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11354 – 6.8.4.298

B_05 – ZZ – K

How easily can the ego clothe itself in false altruism or hide behind high-sounding speech! How quickly can it exploit others to its own advantage! How smoothly can it lead a genuine aspiration into a side-path or, worse, a trap!

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11360 – 6.8.4.304

B_01 – ZZZ – DK*

The ego is sitting at his side waiting to deceive him subtly into making wrong decisions and false interpretations, if they will hinder his growth into truth and thus preserve its own life.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11363 – 6.8.4.307

BN – Z – DK

He would be more prudent to suspect the presence of the ego even in his most spiritual aspirations, reflections, and experiences.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11364 – 6.8.4.308

BN – Z – DK

It is to be expected that the ego will protect itself, even if that has to go so far as engagement in a quest which apparently ends in its own utter abasement.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11365 – 6.8.4.309

BN – Z – DK

He will not escape easily from the ego. If he transfers his interests to the spiritual plane, its imagination will transfer itself there too and flatter him with psychic experiences or visions.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11368 – 6.8.4.312

BN – Z – DK

The ego will creep even into his spiritual work or aspiration, so that he will take from the teaching only what suits his own personal ends and ignore the rest, or only what suits his own personal comfort and be averse to the rest.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11371 – 6.8.4.315

BN – ZZ – DK1

Although the ego claims to be engaged in a war against itself, we may be certain that it has no intention of allowing a real victory to be achieved but only a pseudo-victory. The simple conscious mind is no match for such cunning. This is one reason why out of so many spiritual seekers, so few really attain union with the Overself, why self-deceived masters soon get a following whereas the true ones are left in peace, untroubled by such eagerness.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11372 – 6.8.4.316

B_05 – ZZ – DEK1

Although the ego claims to be engaged in a war against itself, we may be certain that it has no intention of allowing a real victory to be achieved but only a pseudo-victory.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11372E – 6.8.4.316

BA11 – ZZZ – DEMK

The ego constantly invents ways and means to defeat the quest's objective. And it does this more indefatigably and more cunningly than ever when it pretends to co-operate with the quest and share its experiences.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11373 – 6.8.4.317

BN – ZZ – DK1

That crafty old fox, the ego, is quite capable of engaging in spiritual practices of every kind and of showing spiritual aspirations of every degree of warmth.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11375 – 6.8.4.319

BN – X – DK1

The ego not only obligingly provides him with a spiritual path to keep him busy for several years and thus keeps him from tracking it down to its lair; it even provides him with a spiritual illumination to authenticate that path. Need it be said that this counterfeit illumination is another form of the ego's own aggrandizement?

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11377 – 6.8.4.321

BN – ZZ – K1

When men mistake their own desires or their own surmises for the will of God, the ego has simply transferred the sphere of its activity from the animal to the pseudo-spiritual.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11383 – 6.8.4.327

BN – Z – DK

However fine the virtues which it cultivates may be, they are still ego-chosen and ego-grown, still self-centered—which may help to interpret Jesus' pronouncement about all our righteousness being as filthy rags to God.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11384 – 6.8.4.328

B_12 – ZZ – K

Despite its zeal to spiritualize its ways, ennoble its actions, and raise the level of its aspirations, the ego never forgets itself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11390 – 6.8.4.334

BN – Z – DK

The ego sits in the saddle all the time that he is travelling the Long Path.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11391 – 6.8.4.335

BN – Z – DK

What he has done is to transfer the ego, with all its self-seeking greed, its arrogant complacency, its colossal ignorance of its own source, from his worldly activities to his spiritual activities. The ego will do everything possible to preserve its existence and devise every possible means to secure its future. This is why the man himself rarely wakes up to what is happening, and why the fates may crush him to the ground to destroy his sleep. If this event takes place while is still comparatively young, when his powers are strong, and not at the close of life, when they are feebler and less effectual, he is indeed fortunate, although he will certainly not think so at the time.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Ego corrupts spiritual aspiration

#11398 – 6.8.4.342

BN – Z – DEK

He knows that it is his duty to look beyond his little ego, to devise withdrawals and enter retreats from the continuous immersion in his own personality. If, in such short periods, he can achieve impersonality and attain anonymity, the result will be beneficial out of all proportion to the time given. And even though it will make him humbler in society, it will lift him to a higher place in heaven.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Humility is needed

#11404 – 6.8.4.348

BN – Z – DK

When a man can forgive God all the anguish of his past calamities and when he can forgive other men and women for the wrongs, they have done him, he will come to inward peace. For this is what his ego cannot do.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 1) > Humility is needed

#11405 – 6.8.4.349

B_14 – ZZZ – DK

The weariness of life which shows itself in the desire not to be born again at all, in the yearning for Nirvanic peace, may come from having endured too deep suffering. But it may also come from having saturated oneself with experiences of all kinds during a series of reincarnations far longer than the average one. It is then really a desire to extinguish the tired ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11409 – 6.8.5.353

BN – ZZZ – DK

It is both the irony and tragedy of life that we use up its strictly limited quota of years in pursuits which we come later to see as worthless and in desires which we find bring pain with their fulfilment. The dying man, who sees the cinema-film of his past flash in review before his mental eyes, discovers this irony and feels this tragedy.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11411 – 6.8.5.355

BN – ZZZ – DK

How trifling all his earthly successes must seem to a dying man! It is both the irony and tragedy of life that we use up its strictly limited quota of years in pursuits which we come later to see as worthless and in desires which we find bring pain with their fulfilment. The dying man, who sees the cinema-film of his past flash in review before his mental eyes, discovers this irony and feels this tragedy.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11411EM – 6.8.5.355

A250930 – ZZZ – DXK

When he finds that he has been following his own will even at those times when he believed he was following the higher self’s will, he begins to realize the extent of the ego’s power, the length of the period required for its subdual, and what he will have to suffer before this is achieved.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11412 – 6.8.5.356

BN – ZZ – DK

One day he will feel utterly tired of the ego, will see how cunningly and insidiously it has penetrated all his activities, how even in supposedly spiritual or altruistic activities he was merely working for the ego. In this disgust with his earthly self, he will pray for liberation from it. He will see how it tricked him in the past, how all his years have been monopolized by its desires, how he sustained, fed, and cherished it even when he thought he was spiritualizing himself or serving others. Then he will pray fervently to be freed from it, he will seek eagerly to dis-identify himself and yearn ardently to be swallowed up in the nothingness of God.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11413 – 6.8.5.357

BN – Z – DEK1

All his longings to escape from the prison of the ego and to reach the I AM in himself reflect themselves in his experiments with drink, drugs, sex, adventure, or ambition.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11416 – 6.8.5.360

BN – X – DK

The impulse which impels men to seek truth or find God comes from something higher than their ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11417 – 6.8.5.361

BN – Z – DK

His quest has reached its end when the ego, by the Overself's grace, has come at long last to desire fully and attain successfully its own extinction rather than, as before, its own aggrandizement.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Longing for freedom from ego

#11418 – 6.8.5.362

BN – ZZ – DK

It is not to be expected that anyone can dissociate himself from the false identification with the ego before he has fully become convinced of the ego's unreality.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11422 – 6.8.5.366

BN – Z – DK

"Give up thyself" is the constant injunction of all the great prophets. Before we can understand why this was their refrain, we must first understand the nature of the self about which they were talking. There is in every man a false self—the ego—and the true one—the Overself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11424 – 6.8.5.368

BN – Z – DK*

The ego stands in the way: its own presence annuls awareness of the presence of the Overself. But this need not be so. Correct and deeper understanding of what the self is, proper adjustment between the individual and the universal in consciousness, will bring enlightenment.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11425 – 6.8.5.369

BN – Z – DK

To know what his real I is not, is a first and most important step toward knowing what it really is. Indeed, it has a liberating effect.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11428 – 6.8.5.372

BN – Z – DK

The ego’s rigidity must first be overcome: it shuts up consciousness within itself. If he can become aware of his imprisonment, this will be the beginning of finding freedom from the tendencies and impulses which largely compose it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11429 – 6.8.5.373

BN – ZZ – DK

He must mentally rectify the errors of those instinctive egoistic reactions which the philosophic discipline will make him aware of—an awareness that may come quite soon after they happen or much later.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11430 – 6.8.5.374

BN – ZZ – DK

He must begin by learning that the ego is very much the lesser part of himself, that it must be kept down in its place as an obedient servant, its desires scrutinized and disciplined or even negated, its illusions exposed and removed.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11434 – 6.8.5.378

BN – ZZ – DK

We begin by understanding the ego—a work which requires patience because much of the ego is hidden, masked or disguised. We end by getting free from it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11435 – 6.8.5.379

BN – ZZ – DK

It is easy to recognize some of the attachments from which he must loose himself—the greeds, the lusts, and the gluttonies—but it is not so easy to recognize the subtler ones. These start with attachment to his own ideas, his own beliefs; they end with attachment to his own ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11436 – 6.8.5.380

BN – ZZ – DK

The self-image which he holds may continue to keep him tied or help to set him free.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11438 – 6.8.5.382

BN – X – DK

Both Shankara and Ramana Maharshi blame identification with the body as ignorance, which the first says results in "no hope of liberation" and the second says is "the root cause of all trouble." What they say is unquestionably so. But what else can happen in the beginning except this identification? It is the first kind of identity anyone knows. His error is that he stays at this point and makes no attempt to inquire further. If he did—in a prolonged, sustained, and continued effort—he would eventually find the truth: knowledge would replace ignorance.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11440 – 6.8.5.384

B_13 – ZZ – DMK

Charity, service, helpfulness, character-building—all such activities are good, but they take and leave the ego as a given fact. They are willing to curb, discipline, correct, reform, polish, or purify the ego, but its permanent and real existence is accepted not only as true but as a part of things as they are in nature.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Knowledge is needed

#11441 – 6.8.5.385

BN – X – DK

So long as we persist in taking the ego at its own valuation as the real Self, so long are we incapable of discovering the truth about the mind or of penetrating to its mysterious depths. It is a pretender, but so long as no enquiry is instituted it goes on enjoying the status of the real Self. Once an enquiry into its true nature is begun in the proper manner and continued as long as necessary, this identification with ego may subside and surrender to the higher.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Tracing ego to its source

#11442 – 6.8.5.386

BN – X – DEK

The ego is always in hiding and often in disguise. It is a cunning creature, never showing its own face, so that even the man who wants to destroy its rule is easily tricked into attacking everything else but the ego! Therefore, the first (as well as the final) essential piece of knowledge needed to track it down to its secret lair is how to recognize and identify it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Tracing ego to its source

#11447 – 6.8.5.391

BA11 – ZZZ – DK

When the great battle is over, the Overself will give him back his ego without giving him back its dominance.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Tracing ego to its source

#11448 – 6.8.5.392

BN – ZZ – DK

Each person's life is coloured by his individual attitude. This is shaped by the ego and limits both his experience and his understanding of life. At every stage of the quest, the seeker must try to track the ego to its lair, but only at the final stage can he force it into the open, to be seen at last for what it really is. It had deceived him all along into believing it was the true self.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Tracing ego to its source

#11450 – 6.8.5.394

B_05 – ZZZ – DMK

The ego knows that if profoundly concentrated attention is directed toward ascertaining its true nature the result will be suicidal, for its own illusory nature would be revealed. This is why it opposes such a meditation and why it allows all other kinds. > >When the ego is brought to its knees in the dust, humiliated in its own eyes, however esteemed or feared, envied or respected in other men's eyes, the way is opened for Grace's influx. Be assured that this complete humbling of the inner man will happen again and again until he is purified of all pride (8.4.430). > >Out of this ego-crushing, pride-humbling experience he may rise, chastened, heedful, and obeisant to the higher will.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Tracing ego to its source

#11452 – 6.8.5.396

BA12 – ZZ – DEK

The journey of life is both an adventure and a pilgrimage to our essential being. All the reincarnations which are necessary to the unfoldment of our character and capacities must be lived through. We pass from body to body to collect experience. The fruit of experience is Enlightenment: the established awareness of the essential being's presence, the Overself or soul. The aspirant must take heart that one day the goal will be reached, even if there were no law of evolution to confirm it—as there is.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11453EM – 6.8.5.397

B_01 – ZZZ – DEXK

Being what it is, a compound of higher and lower attributes which are perpetually in conflict, the ego has no assured future other than that of total collapse. The Bible sentence, A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, is very applicable to it: this is why the aspirant must take heart that one day his goal will be reached, even if there were no law of evolution to confirm it—as there is.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11453 – 6.8.5.397

BA12 – ZZZ – DK

In this strange experience when his life passes before his mind’s eye like a pageant but he does not feel that the figure he is watching is really himself, he learns the truth—or rather has the possibility of learning it—that even the personal ego is also a changing transitory appearance.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11454 – 6.8.5.398

BN – ZZ – DK

Detachment from the world is not necessarily withdrawing from it. Getting rid of the ego does not mean destroying its existence (for metaphysically it is non-existent, a whirlpool of water) but destroying its dominant power.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11461 – 6.8.5.405

BSG_4 – ZZ – K

We ascribe permanence and bestow reality on the ego, a mistake which leads to all the mistaken thoughts, attitudes, courses, and acts that follow as its effects. But the fact is that no ego can be preserved in perpetuity and that all egos are made up of ephemerally joined together activities. One of the first consequences flowing from this fact is that any happiness which depends on the ego's keeping its united state must break down with its further changes or disunion. Moreover, since the cosmic law dooms all egos to eventual merger in their higher source, a merger which must be preceded by their dissolution if it is to take place at all, their egoistic happiness is likewise doomed.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11462 – 6.8.5.406

BN – ZZ – DEK

All those thoughts and memories which now compose the pattern of his life have to be put aside if he is to deny himself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11464 – 6.8.5.408

BN – ZZ – DK

So long as these varied thoughts hold together, so long is the sense of a separate personality created in the mind. That this is so is shown by mystical experience, wherein the thoughts disappear and the ego with them, yet the true being behind them continues to live.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11466 – 6.8.5.410

BN – ZZ – DK

The subjugation of his ego is a Grace to be bestowed on him, not an act which can be done by him.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > "Dissolution'' of ego

#11469 – 6.8.5.413

BN – X – DK

In that last battle when he comes face to face with the ego, when it has to put off all its protective disguises and expose its vulnerability, he must call upon the help of Grace. He cannot possibly win it by his own powers.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11470 – 6.8.5.414

BN – X – DK

Each person is stuck in his own ego until the idea of liberation dawns on him and he sets to work on himself and eventually grace manifests and puts him on the Short Path.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11471 – 6.8.5.415

BN – X – DK

There would be no hope of ever getting out of this ego-centered position if we did not know these three things. First, the ego is only an accumulation of memories and a series of cravings, that is, thought; it is a fictitious entity. Second, the thinking activity can come to an end in stillness. Third, Grace, the radiation of the Power beyond man, is ever-shining and ever-present. If we let the mind become deeply still and deeply observant of the ego's self-preserving instinct, we open the door to Grace, which then lovingly swallows us.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11473 – 6.8.5.417

BN – Z – DK

The senses which tempt him to go astray from his chosen path of conduct may be subjugated in time by right thoughts. The thoughts which distract him from his chosen path of meditation may be subjugated by persistent effort. But the ego which bars his entry into the kingdom of heaven refuses, and only pretends, to subjugate itself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11474 – 6.8.5.418

BN – Z – DK

That which keeps us busy with one kind of activity after another—mental as well as physical—until we fall asleep tired, is nothing other than the ego. In that way it diverts one's attention from the need of engaging in the supremely important activity—the struggle with and destruction of the ego itself.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11477 – 6.8.5.421

BN – ZZZ – DK

This whittling away of the ego may occupy the entire lifetime and not seem very successful even then, yet it is of the highest value as a preparatory process for the full renunciation of the ego when—by Grace—it suddenly rises up in the heart.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11478 – 6.8.5.422

BN – Z – DK

It is as hard for the ego to judge itself fairly, to look at its actions with a correct perspective as for a man to lift himself by his own braces. It simply cannot do it; its capacity to find excuses for itself is unlimited—even the excuse of righteousness, even the excuse of the quest of truth. All that the aspirant can hope to do is to thin down the volume of the ego's operations and to weaken the strength of the ego itself; but to get rid of the ego entirely is something beyond his own capacity. Consequently, an outside power must be called in. There is only one such power available to him, although it may manifest itself in two different ways, and that is the power of Grace. Those ways are: either direct help by his own higher Self or personal help from a higher man, that is, an illumined teacher. He may call for the first at any time, but he may not rightly call for the second before he has done enough work on himself and made enough advance to justify it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11480 – 6.8.5.424

BN – ZZZ – DEK1

The ego may have to be broken to bits, if necessary, to let the Grace enter in, to open a way through passivity replacing arrogance.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11481 – 6.8.5.425

BN – ZZ – DK

Virtue and compassion thin down the ego but do not confer enlightenment.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11482 – 6.8.5.426

BN – Z – DK

The destruction of our egoism must come from the outside if we will not voluntarily bring it about from the inside. But in the former case it will come relentlessly and crushingly.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11483 – 6.8.5.427

BA12 – ZZZ – DK

When the ego is brought to its knees in the dust, humiliated in its own eyes, however esteemed or feared, envied or respected in other men's eyes, the way is opened for Grace's influx. Be assured that this complete humbling of the inner man will happen again and again until he is purified of all pride.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Grace is needed

#11486 – 6.8.5.430

BN – ZZ – DK1

Who is the seeker on this Quest? It is the ego. And who undergoes all the experiences and develops all the ideas upon it? It is also the ego. Let us not therefore be too hasty in denigrating the ego; it has its place and serves in its place.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Who is seeking?

#11488 – 6.8.5.432

B_05 – ZZ – DK

What or who is seeking enlightenment? It cannot be the higher Self, for that is itself of the nature of Light. There then only remains the ego! This ego, the object of so many denunciations and denigrations, is the being that, transformed, will win truth and find Reality even though it must surrender itself utterly in the end as the price to be paid.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Who is seeking?

#11491 – 6.8.5.435

BN – ZZ – DK1

The attrition of the ego will come out of this incessant struggle against it, but the atrophy of the ego will not. For who is the struggler? It is the ego himself. He will not willingly commit suicide, although he will deceptively allow a steady grinding-down of his more obvious aspects.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Who is seeking?

#11493 – 6.8.5.437

BN – ZZ – DK

The deep realization of the unreality of ego leads at once to sudden enlightenment. But only if this realization is maintained can the enlightenment become more than a glimpse.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11498 – 6.8.5.442

BN – Z – DK

Although the price of attainment, which is the gradual giving up of the lower self, is agonizing because the lower one is the only self we know ordinarily, there is for every such surrender a compensation equal in value at least to what is given up, and actually of more surpassing worth. This compensation is not only a theoretical one, it is a real experience; and at the last, when the whole of the lesser self is surrendered, the only description of it which mere words can give is blissful peace. Since agony of mind cannot coexist with peace, the agony falls away and only the peace remains. The warning must be given, however, that the Higher Self never yields its compensations until the requisite surrender is made. If this is done little by little, which is usually the only way it can be done, then the lovely compensation will follow also little by little.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11499 – 6.8.5.443

BN – Z – DK

When the ego has dwindled away into nothingness, the Overself takes over.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11502 – 6.8.5.446

BN – Z – DK

Not until the ego is completely deflated and falls into the Void will he know, feel, and fully realize the blissfulness of salvation.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11503 – 6.8.5.447

BN – X – DK

As a highly personal "I" competing against other "I"s, there can be only endless friction and intermittent anxiety. As impersonal I-ness, dwelling in the eternal Now, there are none to compete against and nothing even to compete for.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11504 – 6.8.5.448

BN – ZZZ – DK

The selfish interests, which prompt man's action or guide his reflections, are destroyed root and branch in this vast transformation which attends entry into the Overself's life.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11505 – 6.8.5.449

BN – ZZ – DK

A correspondent wrote concerning an experience during meditation: "It was wonderful not to be limited to the personal self—joyful, peaceful, secure, satisfied. It was a revelation that this feeling of "I"-ness which makes one think one is the personal self comes from Reality itself but narrowly restricted down. It is this restriction that must be thrown off, not the I-ness feeling, and then the kingdom of heaven is found."

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11506 – 6.8.5.450

BN – ZZ – K

The degree of ego-attachment which you will find at the centre of a man's consciousness is a fairly reliable index to the degree of his spiritual evolution.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11508 – 6.8.5.452

BN – Z – DK

The egoistic way of viewing life is a narrowing one. It keeps him from what is best, holds him down to what is base, and prevents him from working with the miraculous forces of the Overself. The farther he moves himself away from it and the nearer he moves into the impersonal and cosmic way, the sooner will he receive the benediction of more wisdom, better health, smoother relationships, and grander character.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11509 – 6.8.5.453

BN – Z – DK

When he can look at his life-experience as something that seems to happen to somebody else, he will have a sure sign of detachment.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11512 – 6.8.5.456

BN – Z – DK

When we can release ourselves from the ego's tyranny and relate ourselves to the Overself's guidance, an entirely new life will open up for us.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11513 – 6.8.5.457

BSG_4 – Z – DK

Everything seems lost to a man when he surrenders his own personal will deep in his heart to the higher self, when he abandons his personal aims, wishes, and purposes at its bidding. Yet the truth is that only then is everything gained.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11514 – 6.8.5.458

BN – ZZZ – DK

To nullify the ego is the only way to perceive and identify his real being.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11517 – 6.8.5.461

BN – Z – DK

The unawakened ego submits passively to the lower influences which come to it out of the shadows of its own long past and to the sense-stirring suggestions which come to it out of the surroundings in which it moves. But when it has found and surrendered to the Overself in the heart, this blind, mechanical responsiveness comes to an end and an aroused, enlightened, fully aware, inner rulership replaces it.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11519 – 6.8.5.463

BN – ZZ – DK

Remove the concept of the ego from a man and you remove the solid ground from beneath his feet. A yawning abyss seems to open up under him. It gives the greatest fright of his life, accompanied by feelings of utter isolation and dreadful insecurity. He will then clamour urgently for the return of his beloved ego and return to safety once more—unless his determination to attain truth is so strong and so exigent that he can endure the ordeal, survive the test, and hold on until the Overself's light irradiates the abyss.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11521 – 6.8.5.465

BN – Z – DK1

The illusion of the ego stands behind all other illusions. If it is removed, they too will be removed.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11522 – 6.8.5.466

BN – ZZ – DK1

Only when a man is dispossessed of his ego's rule and repossessed by the Overself's can he really attain that goodness about which he may have dreamed often but reflected seldom.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11524 – 6.8.5.468

BN – Z – DK

The test of spirituality is not to be found in how long a man can sit still in meditation, but in how well he has denied his ego.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11525 – 6.8.5.469

BN – ZZZ – DK

In the hour when the ego falls away from us, there is a feeling of a heavy burden being dropped, a sense of release from a condition now seen to be undesirable. This is naturally followed by a quiet satisfying joy.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11527 – 6.8.5.471

BN – ZZ – DK

To the degree that we loose ourselves from the ego's grip, to that degree we loose ourselves from its mental anxieties and emotional agitations. As its power wanes, our care-free peace waxes.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11531 – 6.8.5.475

BN – ZZ – DK

When we are wholly absorbed in watching a cinema picture to the extent that we forget ourself and our personal affairs, the ego temporarily disappears and ceases to exist for us. This too means, if it means anything at all, that the ego exists only by virtue of its existence in our consciousness. If we exercise ourself in withdrawing attention from the ego, not to bestow it upon a cinema picture but to bestow it upon our own inner being, we may succeed in getting behind the ego and discovering the Witness-self.

The Ego > Detaching from The Ego (Part 2) > Results of dethroning ego

#11532 – 6.8.5.476

BN – ZZ – DK