In the last post I talked about the self, that thing we think who and what we are. All of our values and feelings born from innate and natural experiences in life. Is that who we are? When someone asks you who you are, how do you answer?
You developed your own personal mandala in the last post which depicts your values and feelings. Maybe, like me, you value being important, achieving things and being accepted for who you are. Maybe you like having peace of mind and fear being helpless. Whatever the case may be, that is not the same thing as the ego.
The ego has everything to do with comparing one's self with others. In order to feel good or bad, as far as an ego is concerned, someone has to be "better" or "worse" than someone else. When we talk about the ego, we are in effect talking about what we believe to be true about our self - our mandala; the self. Notice I said "what we believe to be true about our self."
When you believe that you are the self that is when you start having an ego. When you believe that you are your name and everything that does with it you become attached to the self, and the self needs recognition and confirmation from that point on. The ego constantly strives to prove that it is separate from the rest of the world.
In the next post we will take a look at how to overcome the ego.
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