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Richard

Peter

Vineeto

Ego

Metaphysics. Oneself, the conscious thinking subject. Psychoanalysis. That part of the mind, which has a sense of individuality and is most conscious of self. Self-esteem, self-importance; a person’s sense of this in himself or herself. Oxford Dictionary

The self, seemingly located in the head, is composed of the rudimentary animal self which is then overlaid with the social identity imposed since birth. Who you ‘think’ you are. The ego is wrongly assumed to be the total self, whereas it is only half of it. The other half, the soul, or who one ‘feels’ one is and felt to be located in the heart, is given substance by the instinctual passions and subsequent hormonal surges. It is the soul that, up until now, has been held as too ‘sacred’ to question, let alone dared to be eliminated. The Eastern insistence on eliminating only half the ‘self’, the ego, while giving full credence to the other half, the soul, leads to a narcissistic shift of identity whereby one can ‘realize’ one’s true identity – the ‘Self’. Huge problems then ensue as yet another God or Goddess is realized, to peddle yet another ‘unique’ and ‘profound’ version of the same old God-story with the newly Self-Realized one as the latest star on the block.

The other foolishness inherent in the Eastern insistence on eliminating the ego is that the source of malice and sorrow was wrongly imagined in ancient times to be evil spirits or wrong thought, whereas modern research and scientific study has confirmed the instinctual programming of the primitive brain as the seat of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. This instinctual programming is experienced as emotional passion and, at its core, is felt as the soul, or sense of being. It is feeling with its roots in instinctual passion that is the reason that humans find it impossible to live together in peace and harmony – not thought as the ancients imagined. To hobble intelligence, as does the Eastern practice of mindless dismissal of sensible thought, is to avoid the main issue.

It is only with the elimination of both ego and soul, the ‘self’ in its entirety, can we be free of malice and sorrow and their fanciful, imaginary equivalents – Divine Anger and Divine Compassion.

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

© The Actual Freedom Trust