{"id":6681,"date":"2017-09-01T14:47:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T18:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tambulimedia.com\/?p=6681"},"modified":"2023-07-24T14:50:47","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T18:50:47","slug":"overcoming-ego-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tambulimedia.com\/overcoming-ego-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcome Ego with Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Kellie Bach<\/span><\/p>\n For a long time, I misunderstood what the ego is.\u00a0 At first, I thought it was the feeling of being superior to another.\u00a0 Then I thought it was when I made myself right and others wrong.\u00a0 I listened to a lot of talks by teachers describing attributes of the ego, and I would cling to the attributes described and use them to provide myself with a neat and discrete definition that at first, likened the ego to an aspect of my personality.\u00a0 Perhaps this is because it is one of the more popular definitions. This understanding of the ego, allows for some spiritual work.\u00a0 You can work to become a less ego driven person, minimizing the more \u201cegoic\u201d aspects of your personality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, I knew I was missing something.\u00a0 The promise of virtually all spiritual teachings is the end of suffering; however, I was still suffering.\u00a0 I would be hard on myself when I realized I had been in an \u201cegoic\u201d state.\u00a0 Relationships did not improve and I found myself in just as many conflicts, if not more than before.\u00a0 I continued to meditate, trying to quiet my mind and just listen.\u00a0 One day as I sat on the beach \u2013 in presence \u2013 (easy to do on a beach!) it came to me in a jolt.\u00a0 I started laughing out loud.\u00a0 The realization came to me:\u00a0 <\/span>While I sat in presence, there was no ego.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n In contrast, every other time in my life, when I am not present, I am in ego.\u00a0 That is why it was so difficult for me to understand what ego is.\u00a0 You see to understand what something is; we need to have a contrast of something that is not it.\u00a0 For example, we understand cold, because we have felt warm and even hot.\u00a0 We understand red, because not everything is red, there are other colors that contrast with red so that we can see what red is.\u00a0 It is only in the contrast, when there is something that is not what we seek to define, that we can actually define it.<\/span><\/p>\n I wanted to share this realization, thinking that there may be others on the spiritual path, stuck where I was. Working on their ego, meanwhile, not understanding that the ego is not something that is part<\/em> of who they are, it is<\/em> who they are. \u00a0Well, those words are not quite right, the ego is not who you really are, but the ego is who you are when you are here in your body and not present.\u00a0 Who you really are is consciousness and the ego is the contrast to that.<\/span><\/p>\n