Consciousness & Ego: What are they?

Often we use the terms consciousness and ego. Often others use the terms consciousness and ego. Let's define exactly what these two are, as far as your spiritual evolution and personal growth are concerned, and as far as the Reality Creator Series books concerns itself.

Ego is the lens through which you experience physical reality. It is a device that tabulates all the sensory inputs from your body, your physical surroundings, and your present physical needs. It is a very complex device, enough so that many of you put the ego in control of your lives and think that the ego is all that is you. Not so of course! The ego is just a small fraction of the entire being that is you. It is merely a tool that your consciousness (which we will get to in a moment) uses so that it can survive in a finite reality where you are yourself finite.

Ego's job then is as a protector and as a sustainer in physical reality. It functions as a reminder, to the infinite and immortal consciousness, that the reality it occupies is not constructed in an immortal and indestructible manner, and that certain criteria must be followed if you are to have any kind of existence within the framework. It can and does shout at consciousness very loudly when its needs are not being fulfilled; and if you are not aware at who is really in control of the process, your consciousness will bow to the ego and let it make the decisions. Not such a good idea, and you will see why as we go deeper into consciousness and ego.

In another kind of light, you can look at ego as the lower self, containing all the base instincts of the human being. It wants to be fed, clothed, loved, to be warm, and to feel secure. The ego on its own feels alone and cut off from the rest of the universe. It is always seeking to connect with something or someone to justify its existence within physical reality, because physical reality is the only reality it knows.

If I have just described the way you feel about yourself, don't be put off. This is where you are centered, but that center does not have to be with the ego. You have allowed this device to take control and to dominate all of your experiences and have pushed aside the greater part of yourself - the part of yourself that lives forever and can transcend human experience into pure divine ecstasy.

So, ego is the guy, or part of you, that passes on information about your physical condition to the larger more permanent part of you, which is also you, which we call consciousness. Consciousness is the eternal part of you. It survives death and can do most amazing things. One of the things your consciousness does, which you can relate to, is dream. When you dream the ego is put aside and your consciousness, which touches every part of the universe, comes to the forefront and directs your dream experiences. Dreams are just one example of your greater you acting and reacting in another dimension that is not physical. When you dream there is a different feel to yourself. This different feel is your consciousness without the ego attached. As you can tell, while you dream, you still exist. Yet here, in dreams, there is no ego. So then, you can see that the ego, the physical self that needs and wants, is just a small part of a larger ocean that is also you. That larger ocean is your consciousness: our next part of the discussion today.

Consciousness is the part of you that existed before you were born. It is the self that chose to experience physical reality and came into the physical reality through the birth process. Consciousness knows no limits or boundaries. It just is, now and forever. It's main thrust, if you will, is to experience things, any things. Right now that experience is physically based. When you are dreaming the experience is dream based, or nonphysically based. After death that experience will also be nonphysically based, but in another reality, a reality that is not physical and requires no ego to safeguard its presence.

Consciousness has often been referred to as your higher self. It can certainly be this, but it is not only your higher self, but your middle and lower self. It is all selves! You make a distinction between your higher self and your present you, because that self seems to know so much more and seems a bit more wiser. This all-knowing and wisdom does not come from any more or less evolution of your being. It merely is a product of your consciousness having access to a much larger and more vast bank of information then the ego can access. It is here that the danger of having the ego in control over consciousness starts to have relevance; because anytime you have someone or something in control that has limited access to resources, you've selected the wrong CEO to be in charge, and you are headed for trouble. No one will debate the fact that the head of a cooperation can, does, and must have access to all areas of the business, otherwise the company will fall into ruin very quickly. Consciousness and ego share a similar relationship.

Consciousness is the director, the one that knows the greater purpose of what you are doing and where you are going. It has access to such vast amounts of resources and information that the ego would become overwhelmed if it was suddenly put in its place. Imagine for a moment that you worked in the mailroom of a very large company. One day somebody comes along and says. "Hay! You! You are now in charge of the whole operation!" However, as a mailroom clerk you can only do the job you were given, to read the in coming mail. How then are you going to run an entire company on just knowing the mail? You can't of course. The ego is like the mailroom clerk. It can only do what it was trained to do, and that is a very limited job indeed.

However with the proper perspective, both ego and consciousness can work together to form a happy union. The mailroom clerk is an excellent person to tell the CEO what is going on in the real word - the reality of the moment - because the clerk is involved in that reality every day. The CEO (your consciousness) has access to large knowledge and resources so it can see the bigger picture and gently lead the entire self toward more experiences and learning. This relationship does not give a back seat to the ego at all. The ego is needed to remind consciousness of the reality it is a part of, of what is needed right now, and of any changes that may have to be made. Consciousness must then weigh this ego-centered information along with the larger information of which it has access too. Then consciousness must make a decision as to what the next course of action is, and then the whole self, including the ego, must make do with what was decided. This relationship is the proper one for consciousness and ego and no other one will work.

Now how exactly do you go about putting your consciousness back in control and give that ego the place it deserves without hurting its feelings or making it seem like you are shoving it aside. Naturally we are talking about aspects of yourself here and not any mailroom clerk. Well, you do this change by opening up to that little voice inside that has access to that larger picture. This voice can start as intuition, or just a feeling of knowing, or even a flash of an inner picture or a sound. You will know you have a conflict when your ego says one thing and that small voice (which should not be so small) says that something does not seem right. What has happened is that the ego wants something, but consciousness sees the bigger picture. It is at those moments that you have to say, "That voice inside is telling me to be careful; I will heed its warning!" Soon, you will find that the inner voice, your consciousness, your higher self , if you will, did know a bit more, and it was better that you listened to it and not to the shouting ego, which can only and should only make suggestions and not run the whole show. In doing this change this way, the ego will learn quite quickly that to trust your consciousness is to its advantage, if nothing else, but in the savings of hardship and miss-decision making. As the ego begins to feel the rewards and comforts of consciousness making the big decisions, it will agreeably take a back seat and do what it was supposed to do all along, feed information to big brother and then sit back and enjoy the ride.