Everyone
knows the word ego. In Latin it means “I”. In modern times it is associated with
selfishness, arrogance, and ignorance. The ego may also seem merciful, humble,
caring, but all its actions are done out of interest. In short, the ego is: the
false self, the idea we have of ourselves; thought we are this body.
The true “I” comes from the heart, while the false “I” seems to come from the
head, although in reality it doesn't come from anywhere. We took this phantom
“I” from the mental world as an idea, a thought. This idea wrapped itself like a
curtain around our being and follows us through our life. If we removed it, all
the suffering, pain, and agony would disappear from our lives. Those who managed
to remove this curtain are now free and are called Sages. Their consciousness is
no longer condensed into one small point called the body but extends to all
sides and in all dimensions.
The person who is ruled by the ego feels he is an individual isolated from
everything, afraid and lonely he always seeks protection in the company of other
people. A being who is free from the ego (Sage) knows he is a meed of everything
and that everything is a fragment of him, so he is fearless, always happy,
whether he is in the company of people or not.
Because of the sense of separation from the physical, mental and all other
dimensions, it seems to us “we must fight in this world for our place under the
Sun”. To achieve this, we need to gather as much information as possible which
we call knowledge and education. On the other hand, Sages are not burdened with
either the physical or mental, because they know everything will work in their
favor. When they need food or shelter, there is always a situation that benefits
them, when they need words to express themselves a thought always appears for
them. Such ease of living makes the Sages happy and carefree. Their state of
being carefree manifests in the brain activity that is almost equal to zero.
Thoughts flow through the Sages as well as through you, but they have no need to
reach for any of them. Therefore, their brain is not burdened with constant
information processing and giving commands to the body. Any task the Sage
performs will be done without thinking, but simply by doing. His work is the
result of the current (here and now) action from the heart, so there is no
burden on him.
An ego-driven person is burdened with: existence, concern for themselves, for
others, for what he does not have but could have, for what he has and does not
want, with life and death….and all this causes a constant processing of thoughts
and emotions, which are manifesting in a high brain activity. The only time you
are not under the influence of the ego is during deep sleep. But before the ego
appeared, there was a part of your life when you were awake, and happy, carefree
like the Sage.
Thoughts, emotions, ideas, desires….all of these we cannot notice with the
physical senses. We can only feel the power of a thought or emotion “from
within” when we accept them as our own. There is no device capable of detecting
them on the physical level, because they belong to another dimension. The only
thing we can detect is their impact on brain activity. The more emotions and
thoughts we accept, the busier brain is, meaning it must process more data.
There are several devices used to monitor brain activity, and one of the most
famous is an EEG (an electroencephalogram). The functioning of this device is
based on the simple fact that nerve cells in the brain constantly produce small
electrical signals. This device records them in a form of waves. With the help
of this and other devices (such as an MEG and fMRI), numerous studies of brain
activity have been conducted. Five main types of brain waves have been
identified.
Delta waves are the lowest frequencies and range from 0.5 to 4 Hz. The baby’s
brain shows the presence of only the delta waves up until the second year of
life. The same goes for every person who has fallen into a deep sleep.
From the second to the fifth or sixth year of a child, theta waves are present.
This state of low brain activity 4 to 7 Hz adults can achieve during meditation.
By the age of five to eight, alpha waves are present in children, range 8 to 12
Hz, which shows a moderate brain activity. These waves are present during
relaxation in adults as well.
From the age of eight and onwards, beta waves are present, and this is an
enhanced brain activity 12 to 38 Hz, in which each person spends most of their
life.
There are also gamma waves, a high brain activity40 to 100 Hz, which occur
occasionally, in moments of excessive brain activity.
According to the above indications of brain activity, which are characteristic
for every human being, it could be said the more brain develops the more its
activity increases. However, modern studies show how the human brain, which
becomes active as early as in a 32nd week, develops until the age of 25. If the
brain activity followed the brain development, then the increased activity would
occur only upon the full brain development after the age of 25, and not already
in an eight year of life. This shows us the activity is not related to the brain
development, but to development of the ego.
When describing the condition of a newborn, doctors use the expression “a state
of pure consciousness.” All spiritual records suggest the pure consciousness is
a state of perfection. Babies remain in this state until their second year. On
the EEG device, this condition manifests itself in the form of delta waves. We
find ourselves in the same state every night during deep sleep, when the senses
are turned off. Babies are in delta state (pure consciousness) while awake, when
their senses are active.
The child’s senses are developing while in the mother’s womb. With birth, the
senses of touch, smell and taste are already developed. Hearing and vision take
a little longer to evolve, but after a year, these senses are developed as they
are in adults. For a whole year after full development of the senses, babies
will remain in a state of pure consciousness.
With each new day, the baby is overwhelmed by impressions in the new material
reality. Fascinated by the world of physical senses, babies pay more attention
to the material world, and thus increasingly forgets about the true nature – the
pure consciousness. Up until then, the baby’s consciousness encompasses the
entire space while being both outside the body and in the body, but by
attraction to the objects baby slowly narrows the breadth of consciousness day
by day, until the consciousness becomes completely reduced to the inner limits
of the body. Thus, the ego arose made by the wrong conclusion: “I am this body.”
It is necessary to understand this event did not narrow the consciousness
itself. Consciousness is always all-encompassing, and this can never change, but
the child, believing it to be the limited body, has reduced his experience to
narrowed consciousness. If we honestly wanted to, we could all return to our
primal state, because in reality we are all constantly pure consciousness. But
we have currently chosen to taste what it is like to be within the framework of
the body. Through a play, the baby becomes somewhat familiar with the
limitations of the body, with other objects, and with the limits of space and
time. This entertainment for children science calls the development of spatial
awareness and body-awareness.
The creation of ego is a process that animals also go through, but due to their
limitations, this process seems natural. In children, this process may initially
be met with resistance. Many young children talk about themselves in third
person. Instead of saying “I am hungry”, the child will say “Tommy is hungry!”
Some children initially deny the name given by the parents and would say “I am
not Jessica!”. It will take some time for children to fully accept the idea they
are the body.
This assumption determines our entire life. The body is a part of the physical
world and is not too demanding. All it needs is a daily dose of energy in the
form of food and water. The mental part is what creates the problem, because the
newly formed ego will manipulate us through our lives.
At first, this applies to simple tasks, for example, the child cries until he
gets what he wants. As the ego develops its desires, ideas, and demands become
more complex. It goes from toys, clothes and shoes, motorcycle and car to
apartment, house, swimming pool, villa…etc.
All these material things are actually a reflection of the mental need for
status. Everyone has a need to be special in something, compared to others. Our
identity allows us to do so, making each of us talented for something, but the
ego is the one who has the need to emphasize this talent.
The ego is always competing with something, and for the ego life is a game in
which he must win, whether it is a family, friends, co-workers, school, college,
club, political party, or some government institution. The ego will always fight
for status. Even if you are rejected by your family, friends, and society, the
ego will still hope to restore its status, and when the last chance disappears,
the ego will suddenly “change the record” and encourage an atmosphere of agony,
suffering and despair. Like everything else the ego is of a dual nature and
whether you will be the most powerful or the most miserable man in the world
does not matter to it. All it matters is to compete, and it will run not only
until the last breath of the body, but also afterwards.
With the death of the body, the ego within itself continues to spin the same
film that was unfolding when the body was alive. The ego is a closed package of
energy (information) within the mental world.
A person behaves throughout life according to certain patterns, due to the
belief he or she is the body. These patterns are desires, ideas, hopes, beliefs.
Under their influence, the person goes through various situations, or life
experiences. All these experiences will be repeated over again throughout our
lives, until we correctly understand the lesson from a particular situation.
Once we understood the lesson, such a situation will never repeat itself and so
we release a certain pattern from package. In order to let go of the whole
package, to be free of the ego, we need to go across many experiences, but we
spend most of our lives repeating the same mistakes, so we do not get through
all the experiences necessary to remove the ego. Therefore, the only possibility
to become self-aware, is for our newly formed ego, or package of information
(energy) to take over some already existing packages of information that contain
the experiences we need for our liberation.
During life, each person gathers a considerable amount of experiences. From some
situations lessons are understood and patterns of behavior are noticed, and from
some not. All situations, all our life, the ego stores in its archive in the
form of a movie. When the body dies, this film continues to spin. Then we are no
longer talking about the ego, but about the soul, and in fact it is one and the
same, nothing more than a package of information created as result of
misunderstanding. This rule applies equally to both animals and humans. People
talk about past lives, but actually they are collected experiences in packages
of information. Every newly formed ego will attract a certain amount of
information. Our identity determines which package it will be.
If the newly formed ego does not attract any packages, it means it will contain
enough information for liberation. Every ego is self-destructive, but if you are
not careful, this destruction is more likely to destroy the body than the
ego.
Those people who achieve liberation release not only their ego, but also those
packages of information (souls) they have taken on. It is a great release of
energy in the mental world. The one who is freed from the ego is called the
Sage.