The MORE of Ego

It's difficult for many of us to grasp the essence of the ego, because, as I've mentioned in here several times, in the English language the meaning of the word ego has changed significantly over the last few decades. It's no longer a clinical psychological concept, but instead, a critical term used to describe someone who is arrogant, or boastful, or excessively proud -- someone who is an egotist.

However, the ego is by no means limited to those who show-off all the time. The language of the ego is more subtle than this, and can be captured by a single word that we all understand: more.

The ego is always driven by more. It can be more money, more power, more fame, more anything. It can be more virtue, more character, more idealism -- and on.

But that compels us to ask: why does the ego always crave MORE?

The reason for this is simple: the ego does not exist. It seems to exist -- it's like a well in the ground that seems to have a bottom. And so it makes promises, to you, that go a little something like this: if you get a little more [something], I'll relax and be happy.

And so many people -- most people, at least in the western world and increasingly the eastern world -- do all kinds of harmful, stressful, and very strange things with their LIMITED TIME on this planet, in order to satisfy this bargain; in order to give the ego that "little more" that it promises will be enough.

But...it's never enough. This is why wealthy people almost always seem very...well, they seem very tense, don't they? You'd think, really, that it would be the other way around, right? That these folks don't have to worry about money -- they could live comfortably for hundreds of years -- but they don't seem happy; not if you really look into their eyes, listen to their stories, and just watch how they behave.

Why not? Why aren't they happy? Because they have the same delusional ego as before -- the same ego that said "$10000 is enough" is now saying "$1 million" is enough, and then it will say "$10 million will be enough" -- there is no end to the enough, because the ego is always craving MORE. It exists through that craving -- and only through that craving.

Ego is like the heat that is generated from friction -- without the friction; without different surfaces rubbing up against each other generating heat, there is no heat.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't do things in your life to increase things that matter to you. By all means, make more money. Get more health. Have better relationships. Get a better house, increase your knowledge, and do all of that. Life is an adventure! But if you do any of these things with the notion that it will make you complete -- which is the empty promise of the ego -- then you will simply suffer. Yes, you may suffer in a nicer house, with better health, and with better relationships -- but you will still suffer.

The ladder of the ego has no top rung -- there is never a top rung, because there is no ladder. The ego is a treadmill -- a wheel inside a hamster's cage. It seems to be going forward, but it goes nowhere. That is the delusion -- the illusion of it all. And that is why wonderful people waste their entire lives trying to "get more" -- when the realize, after a long life of doing this, that they are EXACTLY where they started -- but have wasted 40, 50, 60+ years -- the dismay and despair is incomprehensible. It is beyond pathetic to look into the face of an elderly person who comes to the dramatic realization that there is no end to the needs of the ego.

There is only one antidote known to the excessive needs of the ego, and that is meditation. Meditation is a mechanism -- and yes, it is a mechanism -- to increase your consciousness; your awareness. That is real.