The origin of Ego

Ego, the entity created by mind, takes its position with in mind space. Ego must have been planted within our mind, even before our birth, may be at the time of formation of our brain. Hence it must have been transmitted from our parents. In other words, it must have been started its transmission from the first human being, who started to think and created ego. That is, an illusionary entity embedded into the human metabolism and continuing for thousands of years.

Now the question may be, is it possible for an illusionary entity being carried over from generation to generation for thousands of generations? One may draw innumerable answers for this question based on the (bonded) knowledge one is having. If one have sufficient freedom from ones own knowledge, one will surely consider all such answers drawn for this question are possibilities, but entirely rely on observable facts. Even the observable facts differ from person to person based on sensitivity and composition of brain/mind of the individual. This is one of the very basic facts to understand for those who are approaching spirituality in the route of knowledge.

No two persons perceive the same object/subject in the same way. What ever perceived is expressed by words. Due to the limitations of language and words, two may express the perception of same object/subject in similar manner. But this is due to the limitation of language and hence the limitation of expression. In other words, the expression is not the expressed or the experienced.

Coming back to the question of ego, an illusionary entity can not be carried from generation to generation. If so, it is not illusion. It must be real. But it is very obvious that ego is nothing but all our so called qualities like dependency, attachment, anger, envy, pride, knowledge and all such psychological entities and for sure non of them are real. When the constituent of content is not real, the content must not be also real. Hence the possibility is that, the ego might not have been transmitted from generation to generation, but the seed for ego is transmitted from generation to generation.

What is this seed of ego? The survival instinct must be the seed. Survival instinct is there with each child as soon as it is born. Or, the survival instinct is transmitted from generation to generation, for all living beings. The ‘I’ sense is required for our survival. Not only for us, for any living being. The ‘I’ sense is required for any living being to get its food, to protect from enemies, to procreate and such essential functions of life. Another way of expressing it is that the brain already has the composition to create ego, for survival purpose. Later, in addition to survival purpose, the ego keep on expanding due to some factors, which we may have to understand to arrest further expansion of ego and dissolving the ego other than the component which is required for physical survival. If we dissolve the ego completely, the life may end there!

We human, have a more advanced social structure compared to that of animals which live in group. This social structure gives more protection for us physically and to be within that social structure, we need to have certain possessions. To live this life within this social structure, we have to be consciousness of this social structure and the activities required from us to fit into that social structure. This consciousness is put together by thoughts. With out thoughts, there is no consciousness and hence we can not live a social life. Hence thoughts have an unavoidable role in our life.

This looks like a contradictory statement. All along it is said that thought creates and secure ego and thought is the root cause of all our sufferings. Now it becomes different! This is because thought has two planes or dimensions in which it is functioning. One is in the physical plane and the other is in the psychological plane. For sure, thoughts have to function in the physical plane to live our life. The thoughts in psychological plane create all our suffering as well as pleasure. It is the psychological domain of thoughts which should be renounced to renounce suffering.

How to distinguish between these two types of thoughts? It may not be possible to express in black and white. The individual, based on his own perception and awareness, probably with a bit of guidance if available, has to find out oneself. No other alternative. Knowledge (yet with sufficient freedom from knowledge) is the tool for that!