ego
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Steven Pressfield • The War of Art
Whereas the ego weaves together the world, the shadow unravels the world. Whereas the ego acts as a catalyst of creation in the world, the shadow acts as a catalyst of destruction. Whereas the ego supports the status quo, the shadow is an agent of transformation.
Steven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow
The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems
... See moreRobert A. Johnson • Owning Your Own Shadow
Our ego spends so much energy creating a fragmented identity—constantly categorizing, dividing, and keeping us trapped in dualistic thinking. Jung called this “directed thinking” (CW 7, para. 483), where the mind separates everything into binaries: self and other, good and bad, light and dark. This way of seeing the world reinforces our sense of... See more
Jennifer Leela • Carl Jung’s Path to Spiritual Awakening: A Journey Toward Wholeness
Process-oriented thinking gets around this problem by defining the ego as one of our possible observers. The ego is, to begin with at least, the "I" which identifies itself with the doings of the world.
Arnold Mindell • Working on Yourself Alone
As the psychologist James Hollis puts it, “Your ego prefers certainty to uncertainty, predictability over surprise, clarity over ambiguity.8 Your ego always wants to shroud over the barely audible murmurings of the heart.” The ego, says Lee Hardy, wants you to choose a job and a life that you can use as a magic wand to impress others.
David Brooks • The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
When you don’t know that you are the Tao, you start looking for completion outside yourself. You tell yourself, “If I could just get this job, this relationship, this recognition, then I’d be at peace.” But no matter what you get, the sense of lack remains, because the one who is craving is built on lack. The ego is like a hungry ghost in Buddhist... See more
Forgetting the Tao: why ignorance crestes misery
But ego is not a thing. Ego is a process. Ego is the ongoing act of identifying with thoughts, memories, desires, and fears. When this identification stops, the ego vanishes instantly. There is nothing to kill, cleanse, or battle. There is only a pattern of thinking.
Pollution: karma, ego residue, and the illusion of spiritual contamination.
Does the ego require a dying process, as the themes of myth and alchemy suggest?