Ego: Formation & reinforcement of the subjective self

[Guest guest]

The following are some notes I meant to put together after reading "The

Teachings of Ramana Maharshi

</exec/obidos/ASIN/0877288976/qid=914708714/sr=1-5/002-3189569-1592247> " by

Arthur Osborne. Upon a review, I seem to have reflected my past readings of

JK involuntarily.

 

The vedanta describes ego concisely as the "dEhaatma bhava" i.e,

identification of the supreme Self with the physical body. While the

physical body with the senses is at the root of the process of formation &

accumulation of ego, there is a larger process of accumulation of ego. It

can be described in terms of the experiences & the investment of energy on

the part of the individual to reenact his/her chosen experiences from one's

past. I will briefly describe what appear to me as some of the concrete/

visible mechanisms through which the subjective self is continuously being

formed & reinforced.

 

1. Attempt to redefine ego as the "selective focus of experience". The

world around us being vast, my interaction through my senses & intellect

being limited, I only perceive a portion of the reality in whatever

objective situation presented to me. This is the simplest & easily

observable manner in which the ego is formed. Thus, if I am watching a game

with two other friends, our individual observations on the game would differ

based on what we had happened to notice & record. These observations

distinguish the three of us.

 

2. Ego as physical experiences: This is the most easily understood

expression of ego: "my hunger, my pain, my energy, my fever, my shower".

Young children are known to express only this aspect of the ego complex.

This is 'dEhAtma bhAva" in its simplest interpretation.

 

3. Ego as emotional experiences: Then we come to the more "indelible"

formations of ego complex. Some of these are related to physical experiences

such as music, dance, game, study etc. There is another category related to

social experiences: belonging, being wanted, being cared, isolated,

unattended, chastised, praised etc. Both of these mechanisms of ego

formation are difficult to be objectified & in some sense constitute what we

believe we are. Each of such experiences strongly conditions us to be

'sensitive' to the future occurrences of the same experiences. If a felt

happy listening to a certain strain of music, I tend to respond positively

to its replay. If someone thanked me for my help, I tend to help more in

future in the same manner in anticipation of the thankfulness. If someone

misunderstood me, I tend to avoid their company in future. While the

experiences themselves were unconscious, my resolve to stimulate or abolish

them in future is 'somewhat' a conscious formation & conditions my future to

a large extent. While a majority of our experiences tend to be neutral &

leave no permanent impressions in our psyche, there are a minority of them

that are memorized strongly as +ve & -ve. It is these "minority"

experiences that define our identity & the course of the conscious process

of identification.

 

4. Ego as reinforced through social relations: This refers to the

mechanism of reinforcement of ego through social relations. Somewhat

crudely, this mechanism can be explained as follows. Suppose I an

accomplished football player & I goofed a game one day - the immediate

reaction of the spectators would be:"you are a very good player, how did you

do this, ...". While I may not be conscious of the quality of my game, the

crowd tells me that I was a great player & hence am expected to be one. At a

more subtle level, we have our roles & positions in real life: mother,

father, officer, lawyer, student, etc. We all have a certain sense of

identity with our positions. The positions might have been "given to us"

involuntarily or may have been assumed by us voluntarily. Even at times I

personally am not conscious of my role, the social complex constantly makes

me aware of my chosen role (by whatever means). At an even subtler level,

our language & expressions are themselves serve as the identifiers: "I, you,

we, him, us, democrats, socialists, hindus, christians, ...".

 

5. Ego as a cultivated emotional superstructure: After a certain

progression of age & experience, we abstract our +ve emotions & consciously

try to recreate/ amplify them by conscious self assertion about their

desirability. The -ve emotions are similarly abstracted for their desired

destruction. From these abstractions, we try to manipulate our physical

world - sometimes successfully & sometimes unsuccessfully.

 

6. Ego as the energy to "identify". At some stage, our ego is not only

its experiences & the experiences it wants to stimulate & demolish.

Underlying all this psychological activity, there is a certain undercurrent

of psychological energy the propels me to engage in the identification &

stimulation. At times, this undercurrent of energy becomes more pronounced &

successfully recreates the experiences it has chosen from the past. And this

becomes a +ve feedback loop.

 

7. The meaning of empirical "I" or "subjective self: When I say "I did

this", it is the summary of experiences of the individual claiming that he

had a new experience. The ego & the subjective self is an ever changing flux

with the focus on its chosen experiences from the past.

 

8. The summary result of all this: While the individual feels +ve & -ve

about his or her experiences, his/her identification with the experiences (&

the conscious urge to recreate them & banish them selectively) sets up a

constant process of 'unproductive' noise in the foreground of one's mind -

the persistent thinking activity & the obsession to speculate the odds &

gains in every conceivable situation.

 

 

Hari Krishna