“primary function of control to ensure continuance and survival”
The ego plays a huge role in our unconscious false self and the collective unconscious. Its primary goal is to guarantee its existence and it has dazzling strategies and smokescreens to assure its success.
Eckhart Tolle says “the mind in itself is not dysfunctional. It is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek yourself in it and mistake it for who you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life.”[i]
The objective world of physical reality is an illusion. We must eventually dis-identify with the mind, body and emotions—the world of form—but this causes the ego great anxiety. Unfortunately, most people give in to ego control and opt out of the challenge of Self-Realization.
Insight # 72 comes to us from Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. (1913-2002) an internationally renowned psychiatrist, physician, researcher, spiritual teacher and lecturer.
“The relinquishment of the ego self as one’s central focus involves the letting go of all these layers of attachments and vanities, and one eventually comes face-to-face with the ego’s primary function of control to ensure continuance and survival. Therefore, the ego clings to all its faculties because their basic purpose, to ensure its survival, is the ‘reason’ behind its obsession with gain, winning, learning, alliances, and accumulation of possessions, data, and skills. The ego has endless schemes for enhancing survival—some gross, some obvious, others subtle and hidden.”[ii]
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Additional Reading:
- Ego, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
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[i] Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now. Novato, California: New World Library, 1999, p. 40.
[ii] Hawkins, David. The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing, 2001, p. 85.
