The Ego and Me

I understand that what we think and hold in mind becomes the pattern of what is manifest into our physical reality. Most people on the growth path are well aware of that, but what they may not be aware of is the power of their ego to resist change. I was aware of the well worn expression, ‘what you think about most of the time is what you physically create in your life’, and yet however hard I’d try to think of progressive and positive things the more my ego seemed to block it.

An important factor to understand is that it is formed by our experiences and influences in life, and for most of us, that has been pretty negative. An interesting point to understand is that the ego does not think, what it experiences it takes on board as what is good for you, and then strives to maintain that in your life. I often hear people say, “there’s no gain without pain!”, so when you start moving towards success you begin experiencing all manner of difficulties because that is what the ego is actually manifesting because IT thinks that you cannot have success without pain! Wow, how many times has success been within sight and things start going wrong? Man, is that the truth!

I recall that in my family history no one ever owned their own home. No big deal, they never had any money so the never gave a thought to it. So my ego had no experience or thinking about owning your own home. So when I began to think about it my ego strongly resisted and said ‘no that’s not the way we do it, get back in line’. It then proceeded to supply me with a stream of reasons not to become a homeowner … all based on what it had learned. On top of that, my family and friends (who had never owned their own home) all supported the notion that owning your own home was ‘not for the likes of us!’ Right there my ever helpful ego gave me a perfectly logical, well thought-out reason not to do it.

This same conditioning influences our lives in hundreds of different ways, being brought up surrounded by one particular political persuasion will tend to lean you in that direction without thinking. Of course as we grow stronger and more aware that not everything that others think and do is what we would actually choose for ourselves. My mother had a dislike for one particular vegetable and so it rarely appeared on our plate, so it all becomes a part of our conditioning.

As you learn to stand back and observe yourself objectively, many of these irrational and often silly little things are overcome by simple logic; but the original program is still there in mind.

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