Ra's use of the word 'ego'

[Plenum]

Ra has only a few thoughts on the word ego.

it may be seen as a yellow ray blockage:

15.12 The third blockage resembles most closely that which you have called ego. It is the yellow-ray or solar plexus center. Blockages in this center will often manifest as distortions towards power manipulation and other social behaviors concerning those close and those associated with the mind/body/spirit complex.

and the 'ego' can be offered temptations:

62.20 If fourth-density temptations, shall we say, towards distortion of ego, etc. are not successful the fifth-density entity then thinks in terms of the removal of light.

87.9 The fourth-density habit is that of offering temptations and of energizing preexisting distortions.

62.23 Nearly all positive channels and groups may be lessened in their positivity or rendered quite useless by what we may call the temptations offered by the fourth-density negative thought-forms. They may suggest many distortions towards specific information, towards the aggrandizement of the self, towards the flowering of the organization in some political, social, or fiscal way.

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I am guessing that there may be potential for confusion in the use of this term as different psychologists have had their own definings of this word. Ego, to some, may be nothing more than a healthily developed sense of self; which is able to steer its way through personal life and societal experiences.

I know that ACIM has a very disparaging view of the ego; it is seen as the lower self in marked contrast to the 'higher self'.

[AnthroHeart]

I think a lot of the "spiritual" work I was doing in the recent past was actually feeding the ego. It's clever how negative beings can work that way.

[zenmaster]

Carl Gustav Jung proposed the following definition of the ego: "By ego I understand a complex of ideas which constitutes the centre of my field of consciousness and appears to possess a high degree of continuity and identity. Hence I also speak of an ego-complex" (Jung, 1921, p. 425).

http://www.answers.com/topic/ego-analytical-psychology

[Guardian]

Eckhart Tolle describes the ego very well in the Power of Now and A New Earth

"As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life"

"Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you"

"The mind itself is not dysfunctional. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life"

"The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego"

[zenmaster]

@Gardian, that's just an aspect of unconsciously identifying ego which is pathological (unbalanced). So it's like saying that dogma describes teaching very well, or scratching describes a cat very well.

[falcor]

ego is an interesting subject. for me, there is so many facets.....and where to begin. social manipulations and power struggles are big. but the hardest is when it comes to dealing with the false 'i' inside....our thoughts are not original to us. our body is not original to us. the creativity that comes through us is not original to us...etc

but of course, it all depends on what your definition of self is. do you look at every thought, every emotion, every other self, and remember.....that it is all a part of you?

is it possible ego happens everytime you see yourself as being separate from anything?

does ego happen only when you insert your 'i' into the viewing of that perfect equation we call life?

it is said that the true ego of the self will say and understand 'i am that i am'

[Siren]

15.11 Questioner: Can you tell me how you balance the ego?

Ra: I am Ra. We cannot work with this concept as it is misapplied and understanding cannot come from it.

Ego literally means I in Latin, so I always found it quite humorous (not to mention hypocritical) how people speak of the "ego" as being such a bad and negative thing that needs to be overcome, abandoned or eradicated. Wasn't one of the purposes of 3rd-density to become a functioning individuated "self" (I/Ego), after all?

I understand how people use the term nowadays (i.e. the aggrandizement of the self), but I believe it's distorted beyond its original meaning and terribly missaplied. It is an unworkable concept in my opinion.

If Ra were speaking in Latin rather than English, they would say "Ego sum Ra" at the beginning of each answer.

[rva_jeremy]

I come from an ACIM background like the OP, so I agree that there are pejorative connotations to the ego that exceed what those of Ra indicated. It seems that you cannot function in third density without a personality complex of some kind -- I like the Jungian definition that zenmaster recites -- and yet this is a perennial distortion of the highest magnitude.

I'm a bit unique since I come from an individualist political background and find a philosophy called "egoism" intriguing -- not least for its spiritual utility. Having grown up in an ACIM household, my parents would probably be more comfortable with Scientology or Satanism than something aggrandizing the ego. But I find a lot to recommend a focus on the individual ego in matters of values, ethics, and politics because it focuses you to break down this self that modern humanistic society holds in such high esteem.

Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between (A) the broader personality complex of identity and familiarity and (B) the ego as a particular set of thought patterns. It's something I'm very interested in because one of my big challenges has been trying to balance the ego without losing all initiative completely. Much of the ambition that drives us through life originates in the ego -- and, therefore, many of the lessons to be learned. In fact, I abandoned ACIM largely because I found its attitude towards the ego too manichean; it's all about building this abstract system out of a consistent set of precision concepts, whereas the Law of One hints at systems but shies away from reductionism.

My operating philosophy is to regard the ego as another "spook" inside of me like all sorts of learned thought patterns, innate influences, ideas I heard on TV, "things coming in from above", etc. Once we know that this is a conversation with many participants and not with just this one "ego", things become less judgey for me personally. The ego is not good or bad, it just needs to be accepted for what it is, so that it can be released during what must be some absolutely sublime moments of transcendence (I've experienced something like this before and it was weird as ____). This acceptance is not just for forgiveness and love, but also so it can be distinguished from other parts of the self, and so the self can be seen as an ecosystem rather than some hierarchy with a limited sense of self sitting at the top.

The interesting thing is that you might find that the you observing the ego isn't the ego anymore, though if you try to pay attention to that it switches back. It's this sense that the ego is tied to a particular quality of awareness that seems pregnant with some answers. I think maybe it has something to do with the narrative, "believe what you see" empiricism built into the mammalian survival instinct. We attempt to make sense out of an incomplete sensory picture in order to survive, and that promotes a stable selfhood that is biologically superior but spiritually conservative (since it filters out what it cannot make direct use of).

Perhaps what we think of as the ego is the subject-object mode of consciousness that grew out of mammalian/reptilian survival instincts. This orange-ray instinctual self/otherself dichotomy pattern of thinking took on more and more significance as social bonds and cooperation increased in importance in yellow-ray hird density. Indeed, a lot of our ego's thinking centers on crafting the externally perceived self, and perhaps the ego started as an mental avatar of sorts, so that we could model the external social reality by perceiving ourselves the way others do. As we internalized all the complex social signaling inherent in human social intercourse, we began to elevate the ego's social relevance to a paramount place within, burying other matters and "signals" as confusing or distracting.

This is all mysterious, this is all beyond words, and simply noticing the weather inside is such a hard won battle to begin with. I'm trying to figure out what the material prerequisites are, in other words, to even ask the right question about the ego. My thoughts on evolutionary biology are very primitive and surely rather limited, but it doesn't hurt to throw them at the wall to see how slowly they slide down.

Thanks for bringing this topic up.

[Vasistha]

We would have called ourselves “Ego,” except that it would have been misunderstood by each of you, for though it means I AM, the same difficulty would have caused conflict that has caused conflict ever since the entity with consciousness of Jesus said “I AM the Way, I AM the Truth, I AM the Life.” We speak to those within a Christian culture, and we find that this is one of the most misunderstood passages ever offered by the teacher known as Jesus. His I AM was the principle of unconditional love, the nature of the Creator. The great I AM is love, unmanifest and manifest.

I AM THAT I AM. I am Universal Ego.

[zenmaster]

The interesting thing is that you might find that the you observing the ego isn't the ego anymore, though if you try to pay attention to that it switches back.

The "ego" is developmental and at some point, even in context of 3D awareness, many of those negative qualities cited simply do not apply anymore. So it's a catch-all for negativity. I think we might be able to thank Alan Watts for the confusion.
As far as ego meaning "I AM", that's a little bit of a stretch simply due to the fact that the original meaning was simply 'I'.