Operation of Ego

So long as we haven't unmasked the ego, it continues to hoodwink us, like a sleazy politician endlessly parading bogus promises, or a lawyer constantly inventing ingenious lies and defenses, or a talk show host going on and on talking, keeping up a stream of suave and empty convincing chatter, which actually says nothing at all. 


Lifetimes of ignorance have brought us to identifying the whole of our being with ego. Its greatest triumph is to inveigle us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own.  This is a savage irony, considering that ego is so convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become egoless terrifies us.  To be egoless, ego whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain dead vegetable.


Ego plays brilliantly on our fundamental fear of losing control, and of the unknown. We might say to ourselves: "I should really let go of ego, I'm in such pain; but if I do, what's going to happen to me?"


Ego will chime in, sweetly: "I know I'm sometimes a nuisance, and believe me, I quite understand if you want me to leave. But is that really what you want? Think: If I go, what's going to happen to you? Who will look after you? Who will protect and care for you like I've done all these years?" 


And even if we were to see through ego's lies, we are just too scared to abandon it; for without any true knowledge of the nature of our mind, or our true identity, we simply have no other alternative. Again and again we cave in to its demands with the same sad self hatred as the alcoholic feels reaching for the drink that he knows is destroying him, or the drug addict groping for the drug that she knows after a brief high will only leave her flat and desperate.