The Ego and its manifestation

Many of us have gone to yoga classes and have noticed that at some point, the instructor tells us to close our eyes, sit in an upright posture and hold the fingers in a particular way and breathe deeply. If it was a reasonably knowledgeable instructor, he would have asked you to separate the forefinger from the other three fingers and touch the tip of the thumb so as to create a circle. This is the pose that I want to discuss.

The forefinger represents the “ego”. The other three fingers represent the “body”, “mind” and “intellect” respectively. The thumb represents “consciousness” or “God’.  When we separate the forefinger from other fingers and associate it with the thumb, in essence, we are disassociating the “ego” from the “body-mind-intellect” and associating it with “consciousness”, creating a wholesome existence signified by the circle.

Now, what is this ego? Ego is not what we normally associate the word with. It is not used like the way we say, “He is an egoistic person”. Spiritually speaking, ego refers to that “individualness” or “existence” or “identity”.

When does this world of objects become available to us? In deep sleep, we have no idea that this world exists, because I as an individual do not know I exist. This may take some time to understand. Do I know I exist in deep sleep? I only know that I existed, when I wake up. Only then I know that I existed in deep sleep. Taking it a step ahead, if I die when I am in deep sleep, what happens? Will I not know that I exist? Readers of my earlier blogs will immediately know that though the body does not exist, I continue to exist.

The first thought of my existence or individuality is what is called “ego” spiritually. In deep sleep, there was absolutely nothing. I as an entity did not exist because there was no thought or atleast there was no awareness of thought. The first thought that any of us have after a deep sleep is” I am” or “I exist” and then all other thoughts flow from there. The “I” in deep sleep who was peaceful am now the troubled husband, father, boss whatever, because all other thoughts now arise from the “I am” thought. So, it is the ego which associated with the body, mind, intellect which is the cause of all the vicissitudes of our life.

Most often for us, we associate the ego with the body. We look at the mirror, try to look good, feel bad if someone calls us ugly or panic if we see a pimple of rash, all because we identify our self-worth with the body. Any time anything happens to the body, we are distressed. We say, we feel hot, cold, pain etc because we identified with the body and because the body is feeling something, we say we are feeling it.

We also associate the ego with our mind. The mind is an emoting entity. We see our beloved and say, I am happy, without realizing that it is the mind that is happy and I am associating myself with the vagaries of the mind. Similarly, if there is sadness in the mind, we associate ourselves with that feeling and say, we are sad.

Another typical association is of intellect to the ego. The intellect is the conceptualizing entity. Just because I am born a Brahmin, I conceptualize and associate the ego with the intellect and say I am a Brahmin. I also associate the ego with concepts like education and say I am a graduate or with a profession and say, I am an engineer.

All this happens so unconsciously that we tend to forget our true identity. In my earlier blog on, “
 Who am I?”, I had covered about our true identity as the existential, aware, blissful consciousness. This forgetfulness has lead to our associating the ego with the vagaries of the body/mind/intellect complex and being constantly buffeted by changes to it and suffering because of that.

How do I change this association? Anytime I look at my body, suppose I look at it as a vehicle which is needed to take me on the journey to achieve spiritual enlightenment, then the body just becomes a vehicle. Just as a car is just a vehicle to take me places, the body is just a vehicle. Just as I have to maintain the car so that it is available for my journey, I have to take care of the body to help me on my spiritual journey. Other than that, the body is nothing and I should not associate my feeling of happiness with the state of the body.

Anytime I feel happy or sad, can I take a step back and ask who is happy or sad? Since I am aware of the fact that I am happy or sad, it is obvious that the person who is aware is someone different from the source of the happiness/sadness. I can always say, I am aware that now I am in a situation which is happy or I am in a situation which is sad. That does in no way mean I am happy or sad. During deep sleep, if someone tells a joke or something sad, will it make an impact on me? It does not because, there is no ego association with the body/mind/intellect. So, it is possible through practice to become aware of a situation and tell oneself that I am in such a type of situation, but my original state is always a blissful state.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality