You see a tree, there is the part of you that notices the tree, and there’s the part who’s noticed they’ve noticed a tree. Humans can do a level of abstraction that animals can’t (as far as we know). The very fact that you can do this, alludes to different parts of ourselves. There are many modern therapy models that are about integrating parts that have been separated or repressed, and in our everyday language we say, “my mind is overactive”, the “my” is possessive, who is the person saying “my mind”?
Ego is the part of your mind that says “I am”, the oldest known recorded version of the concept comes from the vedics, an ancient indian civilization. For them it was “Ahamkara” translated to “I-maker”, the entity that makes the distinctions of “i”. I am important, I am a father, I am smart, I am dumb etc…
This is where you think the furthest level of abstraction is, but its not. We even say things like “my ego is hurt”, again there’s the possessive “my”. There’s an entity that claims the ego as theirs.
In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle says the biggest mistake we make today is identifying with the mind/ego. You think you are your ego, yet ancient students of meditative practice recognized that this is not only false, but the ego causes many problems and is rather one of the more surface level parts of being. Modern Therapy approaches don’t exactly tackle it from this angle, but the work they do is about managing the ego, and using it properly so we limit the friendly fire.
In our society, having an ego is understood as arrogance, but this is where things get interesting. You can have a positive or negative ego, “i am so great” or “i am a loser”. Both of these are egoic statements, and have their own issues. For you to be great, anything that challenges that narrative, is painful and a source of internal conflict. If you are a loser, anything that challenges that narrative is also painful. You may notice your self sabotage tendencies increase as a form of reinforcing this narrative. These are just a few examples, the number of ways your ego will go to reinforce the narrative is uncountable. We are so tied to egoic identity that we will manipulate information and experiences to suit whatever it tells you. The experiences of the ego are illusions under this workflow. You hear the word “transcend” a lot used when describing meditative states, this is referring to transcending from the ego’s game. You realize the ego likes to label things, but there’s a whole other part of you that’s deeper than that that doesn’t care about that stuff, you are not a loser or great, you simply are.
This is so axiomatically different from the ego’s ruleset that it may be hard for you to even conceptualize living in a state where labels do not exist, only the nature of things do.
How does meditation factor in? You cannot multitask, you can only have one point of concentration, multitasking is really just the ability to switch from one task to another. When you hone the skill of focusing on one thing, the ego will start to quiet because you literally cannot give it the time of day. You will notice this, yet you are still present and alive, meaning you are not your ego.
In fact, although they are short, you’ve had plenty of lived experience outside of ego. When you have a painful injury, all of your attention is on it, it has a way of stopping your mind in its tracks because something else desperately needs your attention. Same with a cold plunge. The extreme physical stimuli takes priority for your attention over ego.
If only there was a guideline on how to cultivate this state of being…this is where Patanjali comes in. He is considered the father of yoga, he took the task of collecting the knowledge and teachings that came before him into his yoga sutras in 400 BC.
Yogas Chitta vritti nirodha
This sanskrit is translated into Yoga is the cessation of fluctuations of the mind. Your mind is in a constant state of flux, therefore not focused.
Patanjali had these 8 limbs of yoga which can be viewed as sequential guidelines to achieve this goal
- Yama (social ethics)
- Niyama (personal habits)
- Asana (posture)
- Pranayama (breath)
- Pratyahara (sensory withdrawal)
- Dharana (concentration)
- Dhyana (meditation)
- Samadhi (absorption no mind)
We will not dive into these today but feel free to look these up on your own.
You’ll see that meditation is the 7th step, and you are doing steps 5 and 6 during meditation though they can be their own practices too like a breathing practice a therapist might recommend.
You’ve also noticed these are 8 limbs of yoga, not meditation. We explained what yoga was up above. It’s more than just a pose and a meditation practice.
While you can get benefits from practicing any one of the limbs, you will notice the difference in your meditative practice and quality of mind if you practice all the limbs with as much authenticity and as little ego as you can.
Let’s go back to the example of a painful injury or a cold plunge. What if you have that level of attention and present moment awareness regardless of external stimuli? What does a boring menial task like cleaning your room look like if practiced with full awareness? With the state of mind you have when you meditate?
The answer is its transformative. This is hard to put into words, but those who have done it will know what I mean. This is actually the biggest benefit of following the 8 limbs in the modern day. Our world is set up in a way that makes enlightenment extremely difficult, and for many reasons, I don’t even think enlightenment should be the end goal for the modern person (that’s a topic for another post).
Present moment awareness comes with noticing your ego do its thing while not being absorbed in it. You will notice your ego has all of these attachments to not cleaning your room. “I don’t have enough time”, “I don’t know where to start”, “I won’t do a good enough job”, “this won’t fix anything”. Presence and awareness, is being able to understand these thoughts are of the ego, and choosing to clean your room. This decision comes from a deeper part. This is not brute forcing, this is not willpower. Its awareness.
I invite you to practice one of these limbs each day for 30 days. It doesn’t have to be a monumental increase, it just has to be more than you are currently doing.
Today, take 10 minutes to practice a form of Niyama (personal habits) that you normally wouldn’t. The next day, practice a form of Yama (social ethics) like non judgement or not lying. I find these first 2 limbs are the easiest to follow through with.
I know these things can sound banal, trust me i’ve been there, but question why you are looking for anything else? Is part of you looking for a magic solution? Will quenching your intellectual thirst be more efficient or would it only feel like progress? These limbs aren’t advice, they are guidelines that have been explored over thousands of years, they make up 1/8th of a peaceful mind. The pitfall is that many of these spiritual teachings cannot be fully understood by intellect alone. These are experiences to be observed, not facts to be synthesized.
Wow! Didn’t know about 8 limba of yoga but nice to know that there is actually a framework that we can follow.
I was reading Deepak Chopra’s ” 7 keys to happiness and joy” and the first key he talks about is “awareness”. Do you know anything about that? I think it probably falls under “breath”.
Meditation isn’t a topic I’ve ever learned about in-depth, so this was a fascinating read — the sheer breadth of the analysis that can be put into examining the concept of “ego” surprised me. I’m familiar with the concept of “ego” (in the sense of “self”, “self-absorption” and from past psychology lectures), but the surprise came in the form of recognizing how I encounter and brush aside my own ego in everyday situations without having been conscious of it in that way before.
Like how said ego tries to convince me that washing a small pile of dishes will take forEVER and so let’s-just-do-something-else but then I do it anyway and it takes barely 5 minutes.
I started imagining that my ego (brain) was the person I (mind) was stuck with for a lifelong group project that never put in the same effort that I did and was constantly distorting things. Some days, the ego is unbearably loud and disruptive.
Alas, I am beginning to ramble.
I’ll be pondering this and looking into it more. Thank you for the food for thought!