This article was first published on Yoga International.
Ego—a familiar word with an apparently commonplace meaning—refers to the “me” I carry around in my mind, the sense I have of myself. In our everyday way of thinking about it, the ego is attached to feelings. An ego may feel safe and self-confident, or it may feel threatened, ill at ease, or even injured. An ego may be pressured by wants and desires, conflicted over awkward choices, or constricted by the demands and criticisms of others. In other words, although the ego strives for balance and pleasure, it’s not always a source of fun and delight.
Even among psychoanalysts, whose work gave popularity to the use of the English word “ego,” there is not wholehearted agreement about what the ego is. The term itself is borrowed directly from Latin. It means “I,” as in the short Latin sentence Ego sum, “I am.” It is a word that has acquired its modern meaning from Sigmund Freud, who used it to refer to the part of the mind that he believed was instrumental in working out solutions to internal conflicts—conflicts that result from attempting to manage instinctual drives and deal with moral and social constraints. But lately, debates have gone on in psychological circles about whether the ego actually exists. Its very nature is being questioned. And, of course, no one has ever seen an ego under a microscope for confirmation.
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