The Ego and the Soul
One is timeless, the other is fleeting. One is who you are, the other just who you think you are. How are we supposed to know the difference? Who is talking and who is listening? What is our ego and how does that relate to our soul?
I have come to a understand our souls as timeless travelers comprised of light and energy. There is no beginning and no end to our existence, only change. We are all made of the same stuff, sharing divine love and natural perfection.
When we are born and take on the physical presence of our bodies, our energy merges with that of our parents to become beings of gravity and matter. This new form needs a personality in order to fully experience the outside world. Our personality or sense of separation is created, also known as the ego.
Have you ever been around a baby? Yes, of course you have. You were a baby at one time. Babies, puppies, kittens, all young life have yet to develop an ego. They see no beginning or end. They are still timeless and have not adjusted into their new form of matter.
Their ego is developed out of necessity so they can identify and interact with other people, animals, nature. By default the ego has no bad will or ill intention.
However, we all get it twisted at some point. Our ego gets wrapped up in our emotions. We feel things like jealousy, anger, frustration, sadness, not emotions that we are used to feeling in our previous timeless realm.
And here in the west we hold money, power and fame as some of the most coveted achievements one can obtain. We compare ourselves to others, how much and how fast we accumulate, we wrap our personalities and self worth into these twisted views of success.
We try to control more and more of the outcomes of every situation as our ego takes a further stance in our feeling of separation, away from our natural state.
Our ego gets confused and makes us believe we are missing out. That house, that car, that next step up to middle management comes with a 2% pay increase! I’ll take it.
We chase after these things and feel as though we are failing if we do not follow a path that has been imprinted in our thoughts.
During the race to beat our neighbors at everything, you might wonder where our soul is in all of this?
The ego gets so powerful in some people it’s really hard to tell if they have a soul. Think our current president.
The soul never goes anywhere, even when we think it does. The soul never leaves us even though we might be standing alone. Yes, the president has a soul too. Capable of love as much as everyone else is on the earth.
The soul is our backbone into our true nature. Our connection to our neighbors, to love and to source energy, God. We’ve just stopped paying attention at some point.
The soul does not need and does not want. It does not hate, get jealous or fear survival. How can it? Remember that it is timeless.
Your soul is the foundation upon which your life was formed, it is the power that compels your everything.
The soul is who we really are, and I have spent the last few years trying to find ways to connect deeper within. In the past I have become lost in emotion, separation, anxiety and for a while alcoholism.
I felt like I never had enough. Compared myself to others. Was bitter at the world for not giving me what I thought I should have fast enough. When I quit drinking things cleared up in my body but my head and my heart were still very twisted.
I searched for deeper meaning, right around my 40th birthday. What am I running so fast for?
They say we spend the first half of our lives developing and growing our egos, and the second half trying to get rid of it. I say amen to that.
Recently I have had moments where my soul took over and provided a place of indescribable comfort. It’s like I already know what I need to do, I had just forgotten. I find this place through meditation and leading my life with love first.
After those experiences of deeper connection I thought I needed to kill off my ego. I would run from my ego, do the opposite of everything it said, avoid it, resist it’s wants.
But this was counter productive, I can’t run from something that is also part of me. My personality is a necessary part of who I am here in this life.
Instead of running from it try and get the soul and ego to shake hands. Let the soul guide the ego to make better decisions.
Remember that the ego is not a bad thing, it has no ill intent by default, we just believe it is who we are.
If my soul and my ego are not in balance than my agenda is all fucked up and all over the place. I get anxious, can’t sleep, feel tons of stress and drama creeps back into my life.
When I am in balance between soul and ego, I feel a genuine connection and presence with other people. I feel like my entire experience through my day is more present, more alive and more whole.
I feel a deeper sense of satisfaction just to be this way than I ever felt from a 2% pay increase.
Don’t run from who you are, embrace it and enhance it. Root all that you do back into your deeper self and you might just be able to put a little more love in this world.
The world could use that right now.
