What is the ego?

Question

What is the ego?

Answer 1

Variable indirect self-defence mechanism . . . Controllable , when in excess , associates with arrogance , when to low , may stimulate low self-esteem and confidence . . .  So, control it because it is in our presence . . . .

Answer 2

What Is "Ego"

A) It means "I"

B) It's what you're talking about or referring to when you say "I" (like, "I want this, I do that")

C) It's probably your answer to the question "who am I?"

D) "We're all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins." - Tennessee Williams

E) It's your "identity", or who you think you are.

F) It is something close to what we mean when we say somebody has "a big ego": in other words, they see themselves as being something they're really not. It's an inaccurate self-image, a wrong idea of who you actually are.

G) It is the basis of all television, commercials, marketing, salesmanship, politics, economics, and just about everything else.

H) It is, in the field of psychology, a necessary aspect in the growth of your mind and emotions; a product of childhood conditioning; a crucial self-organizing principle of the human personality, the command center of the psyche that coordinates the different aspects of the self, without with it could not function.

I) It is one reason why drugs, alcohol, s*x, pornography, bad television, cough syrup, and other things can be so attractive: because they offer a temporary escape from it, whatever it is.

J) It is "the enemy within," the key ingredient to The Problem of Life "the root of all evil, the enemy of a genuine spiritual life."

K) "The Matrix": it is the veil that "has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth . .. . a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

L) Freud: it is the agile rider of the two horses of instinct and conscience, negotiating the competing demands of both inner and outer forces.

M) Why does Hannibal Lecter kill? "Because he feels like God. Would you want to give that up?" - from the movie Red Dragon

N) "Dear Police: I Am God." - note written from a sniper who killed many people chosen at random.

O) It is that part of almost every person who wants to be God . . . but isn't.

P) It is that subtle sense of separation that keeps us distant from whatever we love.

Q) William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: infinite." (in this case, "ego" is apparently the "door of perception").

R) It is whatever it is that which gets in the way of real happiness

S) "I know what you'd like. Be honest. Generally you'd like to get your own way, get whatever you want, get back at anyone whom you perceive as having crossed you, get your dreams and fantasies to come true right now, get ahead with less sacrifice and effort, and get away with murder (figuratively, I hope) - all without any consequesences or regrets." - Laura Schlessinger

T) ". . . the human face of (that form of) ego is pride; is arrogant self-importance; is narcissistic self-infatuation; is the need to see oneself as being separate at all times, in all places, through all circumstances - and that ego is the unrelenting enemy of all that is truly wholesome in the human experience."

U) "Fear arises in the mind when a sense of being a separate self (in distinction to what is outside of self)

appears in consciousness. For when there is a self, divided from the other, there is an inherent possibility of harm at the hands of that other." V. J. Fedorschak

V) It is a blinding and dulling identification with a separated sense of self, or in other words, a state of being identified with a split-off, separated, unique something.

W) It's a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting through life.

X) It's needed to stave off both psychosis and God.

Y) Ammachi: ("What is ego?") "You are actually asking, what is unreality? But how can unreality be described? What use is there in talking about something that isn't real, that is nonexistent? And how can you speak about that which is real? Amma can only give you a few hints. The mind is the ego. But the ego is a big lie - it is a liar. It is unreal."

Z) A word which is Aramaic is "naphsha", understood as the controlling entity behind the physical, mental, and behaving self." as mentioned in Matthew 10:39: "He who finds his own naphsha shall lose it, but he who loses his own naphsha for my way shall find it."

AA) It's an activity, a verb; something you are actually doing, like folding your arms - and you can stop doing, like unfolding your arms

BB) It is another word for "attachment."

CC) Ernest Becker (in the Pulitzer-Prize-winner The Denial of Death): "Chapter 3: Human Character as a Vital Lie" - "In childhood we see the struggle for self-esteem at its least disguised. The child is unashamed about what he needs and wants most . . .. the prerogatives of limitless self-extension, what we might call "cosmic significance" . . . the heart of the creature: the desire to stand out, to be the one in creation . . . who has to feel himself an object of primary value: first in the universe, representing in himself all of life. This is the reason for the daily and usual excruciating struggle with siblings . . ."

DD) "The barrier between the individual soul and the Supreme Soul is the ego, the ever present enemy. It manifests as a feeling of separateness." (Yoga Teacher) Swami Vishnu-Devananda

EE) "Authentic (practice) paradoxically demands a mature personality with a strong ego." Georg Feuerstein

FF) It is a "self-contraction" - Adi Da

GG) "To define is to exclude and negate." - Jose Ortega y Gasset

HH) ". .. . the agonized ego is a ring of defense around nothing." - Alan Watts

II) "Ego is the human soul wrapped in mental matter and separated." - Torkom Saraydarian

JJ) It is what gets in the way of experiencing happiness; so when "it" is absent, happiness is experienced.

KK) It is what gets in the way of experiencing love; so when "it" is absent, love is experienced.

LL) It is what gets in the way of experiencing God; so when "it" is absent, God is experienced.

MM) It is the deeply buried but ever-present intuition that you are the center of the universe that gives rise to feelings and beliefs in one's uniqueness and specialness.

NN) In yoga terminology, it is Ahamkara, "Ego or egotism; literally 'the I-Maker', the state that ascertains 'I know'."

OO) "The image of ourselves that grows out of our time-and-sense-bound consciousness is, in an ultimate sense, unreal. In fact, all of our self-limiting activities grow out of this false picture of ourselves. As a result of this false picture, we postulate a dualistic world of self and other, of things separated and isolated, of pain and struggle, birth and death, killing and being killed. This picture is untrue because it barely scratches the surface. It is like looking at the one-eighth of an iceberg above the water and refusing to acknowledge the seven-eighths underneath. For if we could see beyond the ever-changing forms into the underlying reality, we would realize that fundamentally there is nothing but harmony and unity and that this perfection is no different from the phenomenal world of incessant change and transformation.

Now ego, that shadowy, phantomlike figure with insatiable desires and a lust for dominance, sits astride the senses like some oriental potentate. Or, to change the simile, ego is like a magician carrying up his sleeve the deadly tricks of greed, anger, and wrong thinking. Worse, he is quite capable of rationalizing his actions with an air of sweet reasonableness. This wily and slippery conjurer deludes us into believing we can enjoy the delights of the senses without pain only by delivering ourselves into his hands . . . " - Zen Master Phillip Kapleau

PP) ". . . ambiguity is the basis of our experience and consciousness at all levels. The "oneness" that pervades the ambiguity, making two sides unacceptable and forcing us to choose one of them, is show itself to be ambiguous: while the most fundamental ambiguity is shown to have as one of its faces the fact that there is no ambiguity. This, we will show, is the ultimate irony of life .. . . Human history - social, political, and cultural - no less than the growth of an individual to maturity could be seen as an attempt to come to terms with an ambiguity that demands an ultimate leap if full maturity is to be attained. Without this leap demanded by life, various kinds of "neurotic" solutions are resorted to . . . (we will) broach this neurosis of human growth and show it to be this abortive attempt to resolve the dilemma of existence within existence that creates what is called the ego. Ego is seen to be an illicit union of "uniqueness," "the center," and the "word." The ego is a metaphor for the universe, a metaphor that is taken literally . . . the role played by uniqueness and the center, both "standing for" the fundamental Oneness." - Albert Low

QQ) "The whole development of (ego) is an attempt on our part to shield ourselves from the truth of our insubstantiality." "The source of the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty as to whether or not we exist. Driven by this uncertainty, we seek to prove our own existence by finding a reference point outside ourselves, something with which to have a relationship, something solid to feel separate from." "we become a bundle of tense muscles protecting ourselves." Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche

RR) "Life seems to consist merely of a series of battles between dualities - good an

Answer 3

The ego is part of Freud's construct of the apparatus of the psyche consisting of the Id, the ego and the superego.

Answer 4

The definition according to Webster Dictionary:

the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality

According to Wikipedia

In Freud's theory, the ego mediates among the id, the super-ego and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives and reality [the Ego devoid of morality at this level] while satisfying the id and super-ego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal. Ego defense mechanisms are often used by the ego when id behavior conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos or the individual's expectations as a result of the internalization of these morals, norms, and their taboos.

The word ego is taken directly from Latin, where it is the nominative of the first person singular personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself" to express emphasis. The Latin term ego is used in English to translate Freud's German term Das Ich, which literally means "the I".

In modern-day society, ego has many meanings. It could mean one’s self-esteem; an inflated sense of self-worth; or in philosophical terms, one’s self. However, according to Freud, the ego is the part of the mind which contains the consciousness. Originally, Freud had associated the word ego to meaning a sense of self; however, he later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality-testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory.

In a diagram of the Structural and Topographical Models of Mind, the ego is depicted to be half in the consciousness, while a quarter is in the preconscious and the other quarter lies in the unconscious.

The ego is the mediator between the id and the super-ego, trying to ensure that the needs of both the id and the super-ego are satisfied. It is said to operate on a reality principle, meaning it deals with the id and the super-ego; allowing them to express their desires, drives and morals in realistic and socially appropriate ways. It is said that the ego stands for reason and caution, developing with age. Sigmund Freud had used an analogy which likened the ego to a rider and a horse; the ego being the rider while the id being the horse. The horse provides the energy and the means of obtaining the energy and information need, while the rider ultimately controls the direction it wants to go. However, due to unfavorable conditions, sometimes the horse makes its own decisions over the rocky terrain.

When the ego is personified, it is like a slave to three harsh masters: the id, the super-ego and the external world. It has to do its best to suit all three, thus is constantly feeling hemmed by the danger of causing discontent on two other sides. It is said however, that the ego seems to be more loyal to the id, preferring to gloss over the finer details of reality to minimize conflicts while pretending to have a regard for reality. But the super-ego is constantly watching every one of the ego's moves and punishes it with feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inferiority. To overcome this, this ego employs methods of defense mechanism.

Denial, displacement, intellectualization, fantasy, compensation, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression and sublimation were the defense mechanisms Freud identified. However, his daughter Anna Freud clarified and identified the concepts of undoing, suppression, dissociation, idealization, identification, introjection, inversion, somatization, splitting and substitution.

Answer 5

ego is the i factor it's mine that's mine

Answer 6

ego is recognizing yourself. Like thanks to the human ego, I can say "I." It also can mean being narcissistic and self-important. Read Anthem by Ayn Rand. Tis awesome and about the ego.