Sitting before my teacher, frustrated, anguished, feeling exhausted and suffocated from the invisible chains that seemed to tie me down, I simply burst out – “Only if I could kill this ego which is bringing me all the suffering and pain, wouldn’t life become simpler! Why do we even have this thing which serves us no purpose?”

As usual my Guru had his most hearty laugh, which forced me to laugh with him.  The air had become light, and I instantly felt a sense of calm.  I could feel the agitation and frustration dissolving and a space being created within me.  Smilingly he said,” once you figure out how to kill the ego, teach that to me as well.”  It was just another Koan which I had to decipher as part of my journey, as part of me wiping the accumulated dust off the mirror so that the true self could reflect itself and shine bright. (Koans are a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment.)

Ego was just another word – the meaning of which was difficult to understand or fathom ever since I first heard it and then of course without having really understood it, I too was using it in the limited “conditioned” way that I had heard and learnt from people around me.  For me “Ego” meant, being rude, being angry, having a false sense of pride, self-importance, or self-obsession, being boastful, having an inflated sense of superiority over others.  It was normal to hear while growing up that it’s bad to be Ego-istic, being humble was all about not having an Ego. 

But as I progressed along life’s journey of being re-directed to my true Self – I realized how limited our insight was in knowing the real purpose and relevance of Ego, and how misplaced we were in our day-to-day usage of the term.  How having not understood the software Ego, life had become a roller coaster ride, the rides of steep mountains and valleys, and how far removed we have become from the simplicity of life and all the experiences encompassed in this journey called life.

I had heard / read some wise teachers define Ego as “Edging God out”.  When we edge God out, instead of being in a space of love, compassion, gratitude, abundance, limitlessness we are in the space of ingratitude, fear, living our life with anxiousness, with self-limiting belief systems and most importantly a sense of lack, a sense of not being good enough, doubting our existence in this world, seeking approval and validation.  It was clear to me that whenever we are angry or frustrated at something or someone, or dissatisfied with someone or something, or whenever our desires are thwarted, we move away from the Divinity within us and become more self-involved in this time bound existence as human beings.  That self-involvement is nothing but Ego.  And that state defines our experience of life – whether we are happy or sad or content or discontented.  So, whether it is superiority complex or inferiority complex (self-doubt, self-pity, sense of lack), that we are dealing with or suffering from, we are dealing with an aspect of Ego where the Ego has become a Master. Unfortunately, today most of the time what we see around is, be it on social media or how we process our interactions with fellow human beings, animals, flora and fauna, or nature at large or overall environment, a set of highly self-obsessed individuals, society, nation.   

But the definition that resonated well within me was “Earth Guide Only”.  It made me think about what it really means to be a guide.  I then realized that Ego is a tool that we need to exist on this planet, in this physical form – in this form as a human being, having a separate identity of our own.  This identity was needed to distinguish myself from the others. I needed this identity to experience myself by way of my interaction with others and the environment.  Ego is that tool that helps us put food in our mouth, protect ourselves from danger, an essential tool which we need for survival. 

Nature is perfect and as a corollary the Creator of this nature, this Universe is perfect.  The gestation period of nine months in the mother’s womb is nothing but an absolute wondrous perfection in making. What comes forth is a jewel brighter than a diamond – pristine, pure and life itself.  But then the spell is cast and something triggers – which starts making the identification of “I”, “me”, “mine” and thus starts the process of differentiation between the self and everyone else.   We simply can’t run this life without the software Ego.

One of the laws of the Universe is the law of Duality.  Duality means there is an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something i.e., to say that we live our lives in a space of opposites.  There is day and then there is night, there is darkness and then there is light, there is positive and there is negative, there is birth and there is death etc.  Without darkness we would not have understood or appreciated light, without hunger we would not have understood or appreciated food, without bad we would not have understood or appreciated good, without death we would not have understood or appreciated life, without Fear, we would not have experienced what Love truly means, so on and so forth.  Duality means looking life as two sides of the same coin, without which the coin wouldn’t be the coin.

So, what purpose could possibly EGO have in our existence?  If this entire UNI-VERSE is one Song, Divine is one presence, one Essence, God is one unit and we are all part of that Unit, Ego must be a necessary part of this law of duality, of this plane of physical existence.   Something which helps us experience the divinity within us, the oneness within us – because in absence of Ego, we in any case are ONE.  Before being born – coming onto Earth, the so called “I” existed as an energy somewhere – a place which had absence of duality. Ego to me was then the opposite of oneness.

I am, therefore, of the understanding that Ego is nothing but an “Earth Guide Only” because in the absence of which we wouldn’t be able to experience this life.  This realization at my core was one of my big AHA moments! It made perfect sense to me why the Enlightened masters say that “Ego is a good servant, but an extremely poor master”.  So, if we want to live our lives as Masters, then we need to know how to use this Earth Guide Only tool.  But this tool is like the AI (Artificial intelligence) – which learns by itself, through its own experiences. And as it learns, it grows to start focusing on whatever we put our mind to.

For most of us, with an untrained mind, we have become experts in focusing of what is missing, lacking or negative and this AI has grown so big that Life is no longer easy.  We chase happiness, thinking that getting more, becoming more will help us become Happy. Unfortunately, this kind of chase for happiness is endless and pretty much elusive.  Since this chase comes from that part of EGO which holds all the opposite of LOVE i.e., fear, attachments, insecurity, jealousy, anger, hatred, a sense of lack, a sense of not being enough. 

It’s time that we introduce the bug of wisdom for the process to reverse this AI and get us back to use it for the purpose for which it has been created in the first place and then experience life with LOVE, with GOD, in alignment with the entire UNI-VERSE.  We can’t kill the Ego for sure.  We need to embrace it for what it is with compassion and love and then experience the richness of life.  Like they say, think from the Heart where Divine is present and then do from the mind where the Ego resides.