The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is itself a projection of a surface.
Sigmund Freud
Years studying psychology, which meant studying Freud and this is the best definition of the Id, ego, and superego I have heard.
The Id is the body's representive in the mind
The superego is society's represenative in the mind
The ego is the "I" that stands between the Id and the superego trying to stay sane as it listens to both.
Michael A. Singer
We often fail to understand as we progress into understanding it better, that the mind is a wonderful tool, a gift actually. It is trying to do us a solid. Yes, the personal mind can get us into trouble but the personal mind is basically just the mixed up ego trying to follow the directions of two often opposing voices.
It is good to note as Michael A. Singer reminds us in the linked video, Your mind is not your ego!
The ego is that, which in its self protecting confusion, leads us to misuse the gift that was given to us. The universal mind on the other hand is, as Uell S. Anderson refers to it, beautiful. It is that which allows us to think great thoughts, write great poetry (or mediocre lol), paint pictures, dance and sing, solve important life changing problems. We simply misuse it when we focus on the tiny part of it that is not so healthy...the part that ego has cultivated as its home turf...the personal mind.
Ego draws us, this spacious consciousness that we are, into the small section of mind it built and attempts to maintain at the downfall of our own sense of peace. On this small section of fertile land, ego plants fear, shame, self-doubt and the need to prove and redeem to compensate for any comparitive sense of inadequacy. It plants desire and whispers in a harsh and demanding voice, "Go get what is out there to make it better in here! Do whatever you can do to change, or push away anything out there that will stomp through the not so comfortable comfort zone we are trying to build!"
So that is what we do...we listen to this broken confused part of us that sits precariously between what the body says it wants and needs and what society says it wants and needs from us. We are convinced we are it...we are that "me" ego identifies as. So we desperately try to create a broken little world that blocks out what ego deems as unpleasant, and sucks in the pleasant. Ego tells us how to do that and we listen.
What ego tells us is "sick" right? Are we getting that yet?
You broke mind and try to fix it with mind.
"It sucks in here now," ego tells us. "But if we work together we can make it better...if we continue to pull in what 'feels good' and push away what 'feels bad'.... someday it will be real nice in here. Yeah some day Life will be the way "I"want.
When we begin to wake up we pull back our focus from that tiny perspective. We begin to see and understand mind better. From a distance, we can see how tiny and how sick ego mind is. We begin to see the space and the beauty of the mind that surrounds personal mind. The more we widen our lens the tinier and tinier this fraction of the mind devoted to "me" is and the grander and more beautiful the mind that surrounds it is.
The consciousness that notices your mind is God.
All is well in my world!
Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True/ Temple of the Universe (November 16, 2024) The Ego and the Self: Navigating the Inner World. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIvfJ_yj5Eg&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2
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