So what is ego?

Where is the balance between ego and passion? For that matter what is passion?

Is it something that I have / do in the name of allowing “drama” to continue to play a part in my life when it’s no longer visible on the surface?

For the moment, lets focus on the ego.

I prefer the definition of ego as “edging God out” to the more stoic and traditional “The conscious and permanent subject of all psychical experiences, whether held to be directly known or the product of reflective thought” compliments of www.dictionary.net.

Additionally, there is this one “The awareness of self, the concept of I. It is discriminated from soul as being potentially without a conscience…” Found on http://www.theorderoftime.com/spiritual/terms.html

And as a third perspective there is a list of potential answers to “what is ego” found here that includes everything I’ve ever thought of – and then some – WITHOUT my own definition http://www.livereal.com/psychology_arena/what_is_ego.htm

So what about the definition that I’ve used for ego, “Edging God Out”—

I feel like every time I get too “full of myself” – what “I” can do I experience little things like – finding myself distanced from people, waking up with a stiff neck, unable to really focus. From a performance perspective I am anywhere but in the “zone”. Then I tend to choose to let myself get caught up in the “good” / “bad” dialogue which serves no purpose. I find processing virtually impossible because I let myself get into the mental dogma of what is going on. In fact, that is exactly what I’m doing here – yet there is a sense of doing this to be able to “see” what it looks like as opposed to running with the feelings.

I’ve done this a lot – I don’t know if it’s true for everyone else – and it doesn’t matter as the best I can do is “clean my own house”.

But back to the subject at hand – since I believe that freedom is simply a matter of choice then it’s a matter of choice to get hung up with the ego and let it run rampant. As I write this there are two butterflies that keep fluttering and dancing outside my window. There is a quality of lightness, an airy freedom in their movement  and now they are joined by a third butterfly. They stay in that “freedom” place and maybe that is it. The butterflies don’t try to be beautiful they just are. They are a reflection of God’s perfection. And so am I – the challenge is when I try to “make” it look one way or the other. On that point I think that is a universal truth – each of us is a reflection of something so perfect that it is almost beyond our comprehension.

Maybe one day I will be at the perfect place where I can release all of the fear that stands in the way of that acceptance and be like the butterfly.