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EGO

Intro

"Perfection"

I don't have an Ego problem.

I'm too perfect to have an Ego problem.

Aren't I.

Tumbleweed

It seems that humans exert every effort to protect their Ego. Apparently it is the most delicate part of our makeup. The Apple-of-our-eye you might say. I wonder what the Sages of the Ages have to say on this topic.

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Here is a proverb that Christianity and Judaism shares:

"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

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Sikhism apparently shares the view:

"The mightily proud ultimately rot in their own arrogance."

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Here is a harmonious view from Theosophy:

"We say that 'Good' and 'Harmony,' and 'Evil' and 'Disharmony,' are synonymous. Further we maintain that all pain and suffering are results of want of Harmony, and that the one terrible and only cause of the disturbance of Harmony is selfishness in some form or another."

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This is an African tradition, that taken out of context may be a bit default to apply:

"Nzame (God) is on high, man is on the earth. Yeye O Yaleke, God is God, man is man. Everyone in his house, everyone for himself."

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Two more shared by Judaism and Christianity:

"The pride of your heart has deceived you, who live in the clefts of the rock, who's dwelling is on high, who say in their heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, thence I will bring you down, says the Lord." (And)

"All your righteousness are as filthy rags."

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And a Shinto view:

"If you desire to obtain help, put away pride. Even a hair of pride shuts you off, as if by a great cloud."

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Also a Buddhist opinion:

"Traveling powerless, like a bucket traveling in a well: First with the thought 'I,' misconceiving the self, then arising attachment to things with the thought 'mine'."

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Here is an insight from Jainism:

"Not knowing the consequences of good and evil karmas, he is afflicted and hurt. Nevertheless, he, due to his egotism, piles up karmas and undergoes births and deaths again and again."

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And this, another from Buddhism:

"The fool who thinks he is wise is called a fool indeed."

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"Confucius said, A faultless man I cannot hope ever to meet; the most I can hope for is to meet a man of fixed principals, yet were all around I see Nothing pretending to be Something, Emptiness pretending to be Fullness, Penury pretending to be Affluence, even a man of fixed principals will be none too easy to find."

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Informative, to be sure.

Let us now take the subject to our Aged Sages.

(Vanity)