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7.5
Identifying behaviour and nature of ego
 
  Ego is the you- the thing that identifies itself as the inner you- the thing that claims to be you speaking inside of your mind. It is the first to identify itself and the first to give advice without necessarily the gut feel. It is the loudest voice in your head. It is the angry mob that want to kill someone in your mind. It is the person complaining about tenancy in your body. It is the friend that never quite seems to say the right things when your alone and considering other peoples actions. It is the advisor that independently tells us to be suspicious or the naughty child that tells us we have a good chance of getting away with it. It is the spiritual guide or the confessor that forgives our indiscretions or the counselor that explains away our actions, or the blamer that blames others for our indiscretions.  
  But it is not completely you- it is only part of you- and one of the greatest achievements of ego is to succeed in the claim that it is the singular you.  
  When someone says "you're selfish", ego doesn't want to be isolated as the failing part of your character. In the first instance, ego wants all of you to feel guilty, or all of you to reject such attacks.  
  For if ego were to be isolated, then the truth can be revealed that only part of you is that way and that "it" does not necessarily have the best interests of the whole of you in heart.  
7.5.1 Offering no hope of resolution  
  Whatever angle ego is approached, it has an answer, for it learns by our experiences as much as what we sometimes call the "other" voice- our conscience. When we try to outsmart it as part of the character, it tells us that it is hopeless, it is too engrained.  
  It is happy to be fought, for it gains strength from such battles. In fighting ourselves, through discipline or repression of previous behaviour, it moves into guerilla mode, constantly probing and pushing. Constantly, it looks for the openings of weakness, our fears, any fear that it can magnify.  
  If it is failure we fear, then ego becomes the fears as manifest as it can make them, the concerns, the uneasiness. If it is guilt that we fear, ego will play on our guilt as hard as it can.  
  For in battle, we see it claim to be our primal nature, our animal instinct. While we see such urban sophistication in this. So long as we are divided or ego is in control, it achieves its purpose- for its best interests have never been our best interests.  
7.5.2 Ego on the spiritual path  
  To end the bizarre tyranny of ego is why we go on the aligned UCA path, but the resourcefulness of ego is almost infinite and it can at every stage sabotage and pervert our desire to be free of it. The truth is simple, and the teachings are extremely clear: but we see it again and again, with great sadness, that as soon as they begin to touch and move us, ego tries to complicate them because it knows it is fundamentally threatened.  
  At the beginning, when we first become fascinated by the spiritual path and all its possibilities, ego may even encourage us and say: " This is really wonderful!. Just the thing for you! This teaching makes total sense!"  
  Then when we say we want to try meditation practice, or go on a retreat, ego will croon: " What a marvelous idea! Why don't I come along with you? We can both learn something." All through the honeymoon period of our spiritual development, ego will keep urging us on "This is wonderful- it's so amazing, so inspiring.."  
  But as soon as we enter, what can be called the "putting into practice" period of the spiritual path and the teachings begin to touch us deeply, unavoidably we are faced with the truth of our selves. As the ego is revealed, its sore spots are touched and all sorts of problems will start arising.  
  It is as if a mirror we cannot look away from were stuck in front of us. The mirror is totally clear, but there is an ugly glowering face in it, our own, staring back at us. We begin to rebel because we hate what we see. We may strike out in anger and smash the mirror, but it will only shatter into hundreds of identical ugly faces, all still staring at us.  
  Now is the time we begin to rage and complain bitterly; and where is ego? Standing staunchly by our side, egging us on: "You're right, this is outrageous and unbearable. Don't stand for it.!" As we listen enthralled, ego goes on to conjure up all sorts of doubts and demented emotions, throwing fuel onto the fire: "Can't you see now this is not the right understandings for you? I told you so all along! Can't you see he is not your teacher? After all, you are an intelligent, modern, sophisticated Western person, and exotic things such as UCA are too strange."  
  As ego watches gleefully as we become more and more ensnared in its web, it will even blame all the pain, loneliness, and difficulties we are going through as we come to know ourselves on the teaching and even the teacher: "These gurus don't care anyway, whatever you're going through. They are only out to exploit you. They just use words like "compassion" and "devotion" to get you in their power.."  
  Ego is so clever that it can twist the teachings for its own purposes: after all "The devil can quote scriptures for his own ends." Ego's ultimate weapon is to point its finger hypocritically at the teacher and his followers and say: "No one around here seems to be living up to the truth of the teachings!" Now ego poses as the righteous arbiter of all conduct and the shrewdest position of all from which to undermine your faith, and erode whatever devotion and commitment to spiritual change you have.  
  Yet however hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego's promises: false hopes and false fears.  
  Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear and enemies of your peace of mind: hopes deceive you and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of you false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the savvy of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.  
  You realize that for years, your ego, like a crazy con artist, has been swindling you with schemes and plans and promises that have never been real and have only brought you to inner bankruptcy. When, in equanimity of meditation you see this, without any consolation or desire to cover up what you've discovered, all the plans and schemes reveal themselves as hollow and start to rumble.  
  This is not a purely destructive process. For alongside an extremely precise and sometimes painful realization of the fraudulence and virtual criminality of your ego, and everyone else's, grows a sense of inner expansiveness, a direct knowledge of the "egolessness" and interdependence of all things and that vivid and generous humor that is the hallmark of freedom.  
  Because you have learned through discipline to simplify your life, and so reduced the opportunities for ego to seduce you; and because you have practiced the mindfulness of meditation and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your mind and the nature of reality.  
     
 
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