The poet, Shelley, sings of the futility of a life lived for the self-centered "ego" and the glory of this world:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Shelley

"Detachment from created things is absolutely indispensable for arriving at Christian perfection, but it would be of little avail to detach oneself from external things if one is not likewise detached from one's own ego, which constitutes the greatest of all the obstacles to one's free flight to God. St. Thomas states that egoism or disordered self-love is the origin and root of all sin. St. Augustine says: "Two loves have erected two cities: self-love, carried to the extreme of disdain of God, has built the city of the world; the love of God, carried to the point of disdain for one's self, has constructed the city of God. The one glories in itself; the other glories in the Lord." (Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Spiritual Theology," Passive Purgation, Ch.8)

WHAT IS THE EGO:

According to Collins English Dictionary the ego is the "seat of consciousness," and can be viewed as the individual, conscious mind, conscious of itself as a separate identity or "subject of awareness." In authentic Eastern traditions, spiritual transformation means freeing oneself from the rebirth and suffering that come from the "illusion" that one is an "ego," or identity as a separate self. In Eastern thought, the ego does not really exist, and the self is not separate, but exists as part of God. According to this ideology, once one is free of this separative illusion, one realizes that rather than being a separate self, one is "everything that is," i.e., one is God. And the experience of seeing this is called "Enlightenment." And after this experience, one will not suffer nor have to be born into the world any more. So, the spiritual path consists in large part in a variety of systems aimed at achievement of enlightenment or "destruction of the ego," and thereby, simultaneously, the illusion of the separate self.

This is also called spiritual "awakening." And the Eastern seeker after truth progresses by a series of enlightenment experiences leading hopefully, to permanent awakening, or "full-realization," called the bliss of "Nirvana," and identification with the True-Self(God), at the moment of complete ego-death. This theology is very attractive to Westerners because, if only God exists, there is no sin, no serious punishment for sin, and no need for me to worry too much about my immoral behavior, since there are no eternal consequences. Therefore, because of such major errors in Eastern doctrine, it should be remembered that "neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised are an invitation to the Church to withhold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ" (John Paul II, "Ecclesia in Asia," November, l999)

From the Christian point of view, the ego is often used to mean the conscious subject of a person, who is a separate, individual subject of awareness, which is not illusory, and which can never be completely destroyed. This subject of awareness is the soul, and is the element which endures through all the changing mental phenomena, attachments, and experiences. And it is this subject of experience which must be purified of attachment and slavery to bodily pleasures and inferior levels of being so that it may surrender in complete freedom to Almighty God.

A person is the unique individual of a rational nature, having faculties of reason, will, memory, and imagination, feelings, and sensory apparatus, in a unity of body and soul. As used in connection with spiritual transformation, however, the person can be more narrowly considered as the ego. And the ego, for the Christian generally, due to Original Sin, includes "egotism," the changeable element of the person which must be purified, or the false-self, comprised of a complex of selfish habits, mental self-image projections, and delusional thought patterns binding the will in self-centered attachments, and blinding the pure vision of the intellect created by God. In this sense, ego or egotism is a disease of the spirit, an absense of health, wherein man uses all his intellect, will, and energies to serve himself, reinforcing habits of selfish desire, and becoming an invincible "god-like" creature, supreme above all other creatures in his own eyes.

And for Christians, like Easterners, ego, in this sense, is mainly "pride," and the main obstacle to transformation and the cause of most suffering, and its dismantling is the ascetical side of spiritual transformation in Unselfish Love. For the egotistical man has his will bound up in all manner of material and spiritual loves and attachments, the worst of which is attachment to self. Unlike the Self-Giving, Divine Love which is characteristic of the Life of the Trinity, and manifested on earth in Jesus Christ, the selfish love of the modern man seeks grasping, sin, and self-exaltation rather than self-giving and love of neighbor. In this sense, ego-love as "pride," is the spirit of the world, and the basis for all the hatred, greed, and exploitation of others found in today's milieu. It takes the grace of God and supernatural unselfish love to enter within such a spirit, and by touching it, to awaken it to the possibility of a completely different way of being, so that the will of such a one may be purified of attachments and may be made available for the perfect Love of God.

It should be remembered, however, that reduction of "egotism" takes place simultaneously with the enhancement of the positive traits and qualities Christians call practicing virtue and "strengthening character." For, as distinguished from Eastern theology which destroys the separate self along with the ego, Christianity accurately posits a non-illusional, separate conscious element, the soul or enduring "subject" of experience and change within a person. And the New man, humbled, and purified of egotism, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is like "purified consciousness," or "emptiness." He is one of perfected nature, whose illusions of self-aggrandisement have been replaced with truth, i.e., the humility of emptiness. He has removed the spiritual possessions and walls keeping God and his fellow man out. He is "full of grace," and strenghtened is virtue and character. Instead of building imaginery castles of ambition, and imagined greatness, he employs all his intellect, will, and energies to love God, to love others, and to properly love himself and his talents by using them for loving service. He becomes like the Son of God, who said he came to "serve," and not "to be served."

In the beginning of the human race, man, like a new-born baby, was confronted with a reality which had no names. Man was completely "enlightened," and he saw the world of nature in its original "suchness," i.e., shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches connected to each other, growing and decaying, rising and falling, and all making up the field of "suchness" of the natural world. And like God, he loved and enjoyed the beauty of all of reality "for itself." However, reality seemed "empty" of essence, because man had not as yet determined the defining characteristics of any part of the field. He was, at this point, in nature as a "witness," passively receiving the field through his senses. It was all just ongoing, ever-changing, interconnected "suchness." And it all seemed to be "him," and "within him," made as he was in the image of God, and giving him great joy as he experienced the goodness and beauty of it, and the realization that all of this wonder was his to enjoy, as a gift. And at this point, although the field of creation was "very real," and available to contact through the senses, it was not yet perceived as "being," by man, for being versus non-being had not yet been developed as concepts in the mind of man.

Then God told him to give names and determine essences in this field of reality. And man began to name and think thoughts about reality, including the difference between being and non-being, and connected with the identification of separate essences. And he even gave a name to himself and his body. However, since he was powerfully united to the Spirit of God, and made in the image of God, he experienced reality as God sees it, with everything having innate beauty, existing in God's Spirit. He did not see himself, like modern man, as looking out from within his body, alone in an alien universe, like some sort of advanced animal. He rather intuited himself in a consciousness that was comprised of a large field of natural reality. He saw that he somehow embraced all of the wonder and beauty of creation within his spirit, as his consciousness imaged God-consciousness; he was in his natural home, and everything was his to enjoy, as a gift from the Creator. He used thoughts of essences, taken from the real field of nature, to make contact with, organize, and understand the reality God had created, but he never had inflated thoughts and delusions about himself, nor his relation to the reality he found in nature. For man saw things clearly then, with humility and the innocense of a little child.

Due to the pride and falsehood of Original Sin, however, man lost his natural innocence. And no longer filled with the fullness of joy coming from God's Spirit, he looked outside himself for pleasure in an alien world. And now he could no longer see the beauty in all of it, nor was he able to enjoy reality for itself. Rather, he could only enjoy it if it gave him visual pleasure and was useful to him, or added to his status and security in some way. And, as a result, we, the decendants of Man, are born into this world without the security of the sanctifying grace of the perfect Union of man's will with the Will of God. And although we are deprived of this gift, our nature is good, in itself. However, egotism, or the illusory mental possessions we accrue due to our entry into the world with an inclination to evil, is superimposed on our true, innocent self because of our sinful pride, and because we are without the powerful security that we were meant to have in an intense loving reationship with God.

We must make our way in a competitive, "every man for himself" world, in which our concupiscense reigns, and things, people, sin and selfish behavior, attract us away from good behavior. For we are not born with a completely sound nature, even though good, but in a nature capable of being tempted by violent temptations. So our naturally loving, cooperative, true-self, made in the image of God, very quickly becomes blinded through our selfish choices and thoughts based on pride, desire, hatred, fear, neglect, and failure to love. We see reality in terms of what we can get out of it, rather than seeing it for its own self, in all its wonder and beauty. And the authentic experience of spiritual "enlightenment" can be understood as seeing through this self-imposed blindness to a natural vision of our kinship and connection we had, and should have, with all that exists.

For the world is the field of actions. And our self-nature is pure when it acts without attachment to the act. This means we do the thing we are called upon to do because it is right, rather than because it is something our self wants, and which gives us reward. When we do it for another, it becomes an unselfish act showing our love for the other. And the harder it is for us to do something for another, the greater our love. "Greater love than this has no man, than to lay down his life for his friend."

All egotistically motivated actions, on the other hand, reinforce our attachment to proud thoughts that give us pleasure as a psychological reward. A psychological reward might be the good feeling we get from the thought, "My action proves my superiority to others." Or perhaps we say, "I am taller and better-looking than others." And the problem doesn't lie with the truth that I am actually taller and better-looking in this case. The problem lies in enjoying the thought and the lie that I am somehow deserving of credit for this fact. And this becomes a secret part of my ego-self. And this thought is delusion, pride and lack of humility, as have been all sins of mankind from the beginning. For the reality is that we should be thankful to God for the gifts we have, for they are his doing. And we have no way of knowing whether the other person's gifts, the one with whom we are making the unfavorable comparison, may not lead him closer to God and real happiness, while our good-looks lead us to hell. (For example, even though the Catholic priesthood is limited to males, possessing its graces is no guarantor of high spirituality. If truth be told, there are many more saints and holy people raised from the population of female believers, even though God has not called them to the honor and graces of "Holy Orders.")

And we as Christians, after Baptism into a new life of grace, must spend most of the rest of our lives making the effort to free our wills and selves from their bondage to pride, fear, and sin. And when we reach the perfection of this process, God's grace, with our cooperation, transforms our will and liberates our true-selves in a spiritual embrace, or marriage, of such sublime intensity that everything else loses most of its power to cause us fear or attraction. And in this new relationship of grace, the depth of our love in the New Man, Jesus Christ, can be greater than it would have been had we never lost Original Innocense, nor had to struggle to overcome the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

So when I look at an object (or a person), from an ego point of view, I see it, and then I immediately label it, have an emotional response based on prior conditioning or current reaction, and think thoughts about it. From then on, my consciousness of this object is somewhat distorted, different than the object itself, and directed to the thought and emotions I have about it, with the truth of the object, itself, fading into the background. I see the object through the prism of "me," and that's how I relate to it. And this self-related perception, and emotional response, become the way I see and relate to that object from then on. Thereafter, I want the object, don't want the object, or am neutral about it, based on this conditioning.

If my response to the object has been positive, then my will becomes "attached" to the experience of that object, and I "desire" it because it brings me pleasure. If my experience has been negative, then my will becomes "attached" to avoiding the object or perhaps destroying it, because it brings me pain. In either case, my will, or part of the power to love, is "attached" to this object, positively or negatively. This becomes part of the structure we call the false-self of egotism. And when you add up all the objects we have ever encountered in this world, and our emotional response to them, and the way we react to memories, images, thoughts, and things or circumstances connected with these objects of love or hate, including hiding them in the unconscious, we begin to see part of the problem of the entanglements obscuring vision of ourselves and the truth of reality.

For there are a lifetime of events, images, and emotional reactions to which we have become negatively attached or fixated, and which we have repressed into our unconscious so as not to have to experience the pain, anger, and hatred they cause us. And these represssions become habits and set limits to our conscious behavior, while they tie-up our will-power and spiritual energy in psychic regions beyond our reach. For unbeknown to us, they influence and color our ongoing conscious perceptions, and our habitual ways of reacting to reality. And they, too, are part of our false-self that must be transformed as part of the spiritual growth process. And on the same basis, when one considers that one is neutral about the great majority of objects or persons in existance, that are neither useful nor threatening to our ego, one begins to understand why our egotistic approach to life blinds us to so much of the reality and beauty all around us.

So, I view the world through the prism of my thoughts and ego-entanglements, and I react to reality on the basis of them. I present myself to the world with an attitude based on the patterns and habits of thoughts I call my self-image, a person who is distinct from other objects, and who has certain positive and negative feelings about the world. I see myself as ultimately "alone" in a universe, in which I do not feel at home.

Moreover, my ego self-image is further developed on the basis of what other people say and do. And I become "attached" in a positive or negative way to "peer pressure," or thoughts about what I think other people want and think about me. And these thoughts of rejection or assimilation of the comments of others, become internalized standards of behavior which I unconsciously adopt as my modus operandi, or as behavior correct for me. They may or may not be correct. And a good part of the spiritual path involves breaking free from these internalized standards based on peer pressure, and wanting people to like me, so that I may be "free" of "human" standards, voluntarily accepting or rejecting them, as I adopt "super-human" standards of Self-Giving Love.

For the reality of peer pressure, my experience of other people's opinions, is that they can bring me pleasure if they think well of me, or they can bring me pain and hurt me if they do not think well of me. And so, in order to maximize my pleasurable responses from others, I work to build and maintain the good opinion others have of me. And when others show me they are pleased with this or that way I have been performing in life, even if that way is immoral or selfish, I become reinforced in my "attachment" to that way. And when they show they are not pleased with certain behaviors, I become "attached" to avoiding those behaviors, or to keeping others thinking I am avoiding those behaviors.

And through this process I become attached to thoughts, emotions and attitudes about myself, conscious and unconscious, based on other people's opinions, and about how other people want me to make my way through life. And some are very good for me, and some are very bad for me. And over time, I become somewhat "enslaved" to these thoughts, and compulsively react the same way to the same or similar circumstances, through this conditioning, without actually experiencing the freshness of the person or reality before me. And these fixed attitudes on my part bring fixed responses from persons and circumstances that are similar. And this mental fog becomes my false-self, and become my life, my possessions, the object of my "attached" love and hatred, and the basis of my egotism, and the delusional filter through which I see the reality all about me. And, of course, when the people and events and reality behind these thoughts and fixed responses undergo change, I still see them and react to them through the filter of my fixed thoughts about them.

And my egotism, and my false-self, requires, if I am to know psychic peace, that I try very hard, every day, to "successfully" maintain it and its attachments to my fixed thoughts and attitudes about the world and the regard of other people. And this works very well until the "real world" penetrates the ego-world through death, disease, loss of job, divorce, friends betrayal, failure to live up to peer group expectations, malevolence of others, and the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." And then, the ego world, and the psychic pain caused through the scope of the gap between it and the real world, becomes the source of my psychic suffering. And I begin to wonder what's wrong with life.

And, when the suffering is acute enough, we may realize that we need help in dealing with it. And then, perhaps, we will look to God and religion as a possible source of help. And when we do, we will find that Almighty God has warned us about peer pressure, the ego, and the enslavement of our wills from the beginning. For He has given us Commandments that take precedence over human opinion, and that require the dismantling of the egotistical, peer-pressure false- self and the liberation of our wills in our true-selves, beginning to see reality for what it is.

And the First Commandment, when fully implemented, results in total freedom from internalized peer-pressure, and the snares and suffering of self-centeredness and egotism. For God has told us, by the First and Greatest Commandment: "Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, thy whole soul, and thy whole mind." And when we come to this point, and when fully live by this Commandment, we no longer have our will selfishly attached to any finite thing, including objects of possession, the fear of other's opinions, regard of signifant persons, and our ego enslavement through delusional thoughts about them. For all our love is freely and thankfully given to a new understanding of life and duty, and to the One from Whom all good things come, Almighty God. And in this freedom from our ego-enslaved-will, we find, through our true-self, made in the image of God, and filled with His Spirit, that we are finally free from internal and external peer-pressure, and are finally able to regard our neighbor as they are, and to love them. (Correspondingly, breaking free of peer-pressure creates a number of people who may secretly, or overtly, dislike and reject us. As we reject their standards of living, they feel we are rejecting them, personally, and we make them angry or make them feel guilty. And sometimes their anger turns to hate or violence, as they are unable to intimidate, control or understand us. Jesus suffering and death is a case in point.)

And when we honestly look at the Ten Commandments God has give us, we realize they are for our benefit, and not God's. For the Ten Commandments require us to deal with runaway "desire," and the very process by which we build selfish ego-entanglements. For God says we shall not "covet" our neighbor's wife, our neighbor's house, or our neighbor's goods. For by "coveting," we desire and attach ourselves to "thoughts" about our neighbor's wife, house, and goods, and the pleasure we take in them reinforces our desire to think about them and to possess them. And these selfish, immoral thoughts, enslave our will and keep it from the freedom necessary to participate in the joy of Unselfish Love found in fully obeying the First Commandment.

That's why Christ said, "If you so much as look at a woman with lustful desire, you have already commited adultery with her in your heart." For through lust, one takes the power of the will and enslaves it to idols, in this case, the pleasure of the adulterous images and thought. And it is for the same reasons that pornography, sexual-promiscuity, artificial birth-control, and sexual self-abuse keep us from fulfilling the Greatest Commandment. For they powerfully enslave the will in idolatry. And it is because sexual concupiscense has such power to enslave and destroy us, that the Church and authentic morality(like Lord Buddha, for example) have always taught control of this powerful source of runaway desire. On the other hand, the proper exercise of physical love under God, in marriage, is a beautiful thing, and a source of grace and strength, both for the marriage, and, through the practice of necessary self-control, for the transformation of the spirit, as well.

So from the point of view of understanding the disfigurement of self caused by pride, delusion and desire, the ego is seen as a complex of fixations, habits, and attachments of the will that stand between us and the transforming love required for perfect union with Almighty God. And the transforming grace of God, which supernaturalizes us with our cooperation, while dismantling our egotism, brings the simultaneous liberation of the will and true-self from habits of imperfection, acceding to negative peer-pressure, and habits of attachment, creating the New Man, born again by the transforming power of Supernatural Love. For the true-self was that possessed by the First Man before the Fall, and that possessed by the New Man found in Jesus Christ. But we must remember that, in this life, the true-self can always be blinded by acceding to temptation; and egotism is never completely destroyed, because it can always reassert itself through sins of pride and failure to love.

And in this manner, we can better understand why the Commandments of the Church become a necessary foundation for an authentic spiritual life. For these Commandments are made for our benefit, so that we may have the capacity to fulfill our reason for being, union of wills between our soul and the Spirit of God. The Commandments keep our craving and desire in check, and prevent us from building selfish ego-attachments, which enslave us and scatter our love among all manner of things and intimidating people who become our idols of false worship. They also keep us from building an ego-life based on "hatred" of people who stand in the way of our selfish designs, and the subsequent evils that flow from such hatred. And through prayer and Contemplation, over the years, the Holy Spirit heals us from our conscious and unconscious habits, fixations, internalized peer-pressure and attachments, and brings us repeated experiences which show us glimpses of our true-self, and our need to be free from the entanglements of desire and attachents of egotism, so that through a purified ego, the perfected true self we may love Almighty God with our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind. (see "Desire," Resources)