On the ego, its discontents, and the fiction of separation.

"The very act of seeking is the impediment to the realization of what we are seeking"

The ego is not authentically us. It can’t be, because the foundation of the ego is thought.

We can’t understand who we truly are on the level of thought. We can only experience it directly. 

Nonetheless, the ego is a valid part of our experience. It serves us to understand it and its origins, if only so that we can give it the love and acceptance it so desperately craves.

So how does this ego come to be? What’s the reason for it? And how can we transcend it?

The intention, quite simply, is to keep us safe, and this shapes how it develops overtime. 

When we are born, we see the world as a rather formless, fluid place. Nothing has a name. We see colors. We hear noises. We feel things. We are living in a state of pure presence through raw sensory and vibrational experience. We emote without reservation. There is no right or wrong in this stage of life. The rules of society are not yet imposed. 

Unless you have extremely unwell caretakers, the following is the case: As a baby, nothing is your fault. Nothing is held against you. You aren’t judged. You can vomit, defecate, and throw food on the ground and you are just as accepted and loved as ever before. 

Yet, over time, love and acceptance become conditional. They are provided when certain conditions are met. They are withheld when those conditions are not met. 

Our experience of the world also changes.

As we get older, we start to see our formless surroundings as defined objects. Whereas before the world was a magical melting pot of sensory experience, we now see a table, a chair, an apple, a window, and a tree. We start to learn object permanence, that something doesn’t vanish just because it leaves our sight. We learn that everything has a name, including ourselves. 

Instead of simply being open awareness, we become defined by a word. We are Benjamin. We are Michelle. We are Christine. We are Mark. We start to develop an identity, an ego. We begin to see ourselves that way. We begin to see other people that way too. 

There also comes a point where we learn that some things are right and others are wrong. We are rewarded for certain behaviors and punished for others. It’s no longer fine to throw food on the ground like it was before.

Acceptance is no longer guaranteed.  We have to act in a certain way to be accepted by our parents, our teachers, our family, and our friends.

Love is either given or withheld depending on how we behave. Love has become conditional. 

We are social beings. We all have the need for love and acceptance hardwired in us because, for most of human history, we lived in close groups and depended on one another for survival. If we were outcast or exiled, death was certain. 

As we grow beyond infancy, we start to build this framework of “right” and “wrong.” We learn to operate in ways that earn us the love and acceptance we need to survive.

And remember, survival is the ego’s priority.

Not happiness. Not peace. Survival.

Given that one of our fundamental priorities as human beings is feeling like we belong (such as by being loved and accepted), we’ve all developed ways of presenting ourselves that we believe will get us there based on our past experiences.

This is the foundation of the ego.

There is an underlying problem here, which is that, if we feel we need to perform in a certain way to belong, there is an inherent belief that we don’t already belong. 

At some point, we learned that we are not enough, and that we needed to act in certain ways in order to be enough. So there’s a sense of inadequacy and insecurity behind the way we live. 

The ego, or the facade we’ve built, is therefore an adaptation intended to help us survive, primarily through gaining the love and acceptance of others primarily in ways that we learned to from our early life experiences with caretakers. 

Since this is driven by inadequacy and insecurity, most of the patterns of thought and behavior we find ourselves stuck in are nothing more than compensation for not already feeling whole. 

When we live in this way, as most of us do, we are living out of fear— fear of not being enough. 

We are blocked from true love, which begins with loving ourselves. 

As long as the core belief is that we are not inherently loved, we live out of scarcity and lack. Love becomes something we have to earn, achieve, or gain from others out in the world. We are blocked from abundance. We are limited. 

The driving force is to fill a void that simply can’t be filled by anything or anyone but ourselves. It’s rooted in our relationship to ourselves. It’s rooted in a lack of self-love.

This is a glaring problem in personal development and self-help. It appeals to those of us who want to improve ourselves. While this sounds harmless, it’s the intention behind wanting to improve ourselves that makes all the difference. 

Many want to “improve” themselves to gain acceptance and finally be enough. That’s a trap. 

I know because I was there for years. I used to read a book a week, feverishly highlighting key points and writing notes in the margins. There was a sense of urgency behind it, because I was searching for something more. Something somehow more important than the present. Something somehow more significant than what was already available to me. I was seeking. I was looking to become more, do more, and be more, because I did not feel that I was enough already. 

Of course, it didn’t work. I would get little glimpses of insight here and there, like little precious gems in a mountain of information I kept piling into my brain.

Freedom only came once I stopped searching. 

Love only came once I stopped looking.

Acceptance only came once I no longer needed it.

You will never get what you truly want until you learn to give yourself what you are seeking around you. 

This is True emotional nourishment.

I still enjoy self-improvement content, but it’s no longer from a place of lack. There’s no longer a void I’m trying to fill. I’m simply expanding upon the joy of living as a creator in the world of form.

There’s no urgency behind it anymore. There’s no need. There’s no urgency. It’s simply an act of creative expression. Being sharper, clearer, more physically fit, more abundant, more expansive, more impactful, and more peaceful does not make me or anyone else a better person. It doesn’t make me or anyone else more worthy of love and acceptance. 

It simply allows me to shape the quality of this already-exceptional human experience.

No circumstances can make you feel like you’re enough. Only you can do that. 

Nothing outside of you can bring about the fulfillment you’re hoping for until you overcome the foundational belief that you are inadequate. 

Is feeling complete, whole, or adequate the driving force behind the pictures you post on social media, the career you’re chasing, the money you’re after, or the person you’re seeking?

If so, save yourself some time. It’s a losing game. 

The very act of seeking is the impediment to the realization of what we are seeking.

Love and acceptance is not out there. It’s within.

If you truly absorb that, you will experience the Truth. 

I know I’ve been coming at you hard, so maybe it’s best to take a look at other people as an example.

This is not about them, but that’s ok… they’re here to reflect your inner world.

Take a look at the people in your life, with their insecurities, worries, and fears. Look at their reactions. Can you see how they stem from not being enough? Can you see how those people are fighting for love, acceptance, and worthiness?

Look at their actions, especially the ones that irritate you. Can you see that they are compensations for a profound sense of lack?

So — quick recap — the ego, or the personality, developed at a young age as a survival mechanism to navigate this world. Its key aim was to gain love and acceptance, and it first learned to do that with your parents or caretakers, which then extended outward to others over time.

The ego took on a very important role: to coordinate the conditions for receiving love and acceptance through acting in a certain way. 

So that’s it. The fiction of not being loved (being love) is the driving force behind the egoic patterns beginning in childhood that you continue to carry out today. 

Of course, there’s no need to fight for something you already have. 

So once your recognize deeply that you already are everything you’re looking for, the ego can rest.

This requires unity with Source.

The ego has to fight for everything because it feels separate. It lives in separation from other people, from the environment, and from life itself.

Of course there is fear. Of course there is struggle. Because there is separation. Separation  is the very nature of the ego, the false self. 

Can you surrender to the fact that you are not separate at all? Just as the ripple of a wave is not separate from the ocean, you are a manifestation of life itself. 

You are part of the whole thing. 

You are… and that is more than enough.

Indeed, that is everything.