I'd like to introduce you to a character who is very strange but surprisingly familiar.
A character that happens to be your own ego.
Not ego in the sense of pride or arrogance but in a more fundamental sense;
as your inborn sense of individuality.
The word "ego", as you know, is actually the Latin pronoun "I",
and here it means your inner "I"; your feeling of I-ness.
Ego is a thought that represents you.
It's the I-thought in your mind.
The simplest way to identify it is to notice what happens when your ego is not present.
Think about a time when you were enjoying your favorite kind of music
and you found yourself getting lost
in an enchanting tune, becoming deeply absorbed in its delightful melodies.
While you were lost in that sublime experience,
could you still hear the music?
Yes, of course, because you were still there.
So then, who is it that got lost in the music?
It was your ego that got lost.
Your ego temporarily disappeared while you were absorbed in that powerful experience.
And in the absence of your ego, you felt different.
You weren't aware of your physical body,
you didn't feel your usual sense of being an individual person
with a name, a birthday, and a lifelong history.
Your sense of personal identity had vanished for the time being.
Then, when that state of blissful absorption faded away,
your ego returned to his usual dwelling place in your mind
and you felt your personal identity return.
So ego is your sense of individuality,
your feeling of being an individual person.
To make all this more clear, let's hear from your ego itself,
from its place of residence inside the vast expanse of your mind.
Allow me to introduce myself; I am your ego.
I am the voice in your mind that says "I".
In sanskrit, I am called ahankara, which literally means I-maker.
So technically speaking, I am the particular activity in your mind
that's responsible for your feeling of I-ness; your feeling of individuality.
Mental activities like me, don't have physical form, shape or color.
So this image of me here is merely a product of Swami Tadatmananda's overactive imagination.
I'm stuck here inside your mind, which is like an enormous chamber.
Lining its walls are all the compartments where your memories are stored.
Everything you experience takes place in this vast space.
Whatever you see, hear, smell, taste or touch,
emerges in here as mental events called perceptions.
For example, when you see something your eyeballs capture the object's appearance
and then neurons in your brain produce images.
Images that appear here, inside your mind, for you to experience.
In the same way, any kind of noise your ears happen to pick up
causes various sound perceptions to emerge here inside your mind.
Everything you perceive with your five senses emerges in your mind in the form of mental events.
And as each mental event emerges it's immediately experienced by you.
You are aware or conscious of what's happening in every corner of your mind.
In every nook and cranny, so to speak, because your mind is permeated by awareness.
Your mind is completely filled with conscious awareness,
like a room that's completely filled with light shining from a bright lamp.
In ancient India, the rishis or sages discovered that the consciousness shining in your mind
is your true self, your essential nature, the inner divinity.
They said, "consciousness is the unchanging light of awareness
by which you know or experience all the changing activities in your mind".
And just like the Sun is utterly unaffected by all it shines upon,
in the same way, consciousness is utterly unaffected by whatever it illumines.
The rishis boldly concluded:
"Because unchanging consciousness is your essential nature,
you are utterly unaffected by everything that happens in your mind".
This is one of the most powerful and consequential teachings of the ancient sages.
We'll return to this important point later.
Right now, let's hear more from your ego.
Now, you might ask, what is my role in this complicated process of sense perception?
How am I, your ego, involved when you see, hear, smell, taste or touch something?
Well, when you see a flower you have the experience "I see the flower".
In the sentence there's an object, flower, and a subject, "I".
These correspond to two different mental events here in your mind:
One is the flower-thought and the other is the subject, the I-thought.
That "I" is me, your ego.
Whenever you perceive something I am present in that experience
as your sense of individuality.
When the doorbell rings...
you have the experience "I, an individual person, hear the doorbell."
When you smell freshly baked bread you have the experience
"I, an individual person, smell the bread."
In each case I am present along with the objects you perceive.
So your experience of an object has two parts:
one consists of all the sensations produced by the object...
and the other part is me, your ego, your feeling of being an individual person.
Next, you might ask, is it possible to perceive something in my absence?
Can you see a flower without me, your ego, being present in your mind?
The answer is yes, but only under certain conditions.
Suppose you were to become entranced by the exquisite beauty of this flower
and you fell into a state of absorption, like when you get deeply absorbed in your favorite music.
Then you wouldn't have the experience "I, an individual person, see the flower."
You would only experience "flower".
Whenever you get absorbed like that
I, your ego, temporarily fade away.
I do that from time to time.
after all, I'm only a mental event and all mental events come and go.
You, on the other hand, are completely unlike all these transient mental events.
You don't come and go.
You constantly illumine whatever is happening in this vast mind of yours.
Even when you are deeply absorbed or sleeping soundly.
You know when I am present here as your sense or feeling of individuality
and when you get absorbed you know when I fade away.
You're aware of my presence and absence.
You're aware of what's happening inside here right now while you're awake
and tonight when you're asleep you'll be aware of the absence of any activity inside here.
Consciousness never sleeps.
Your mind does.
So far we've only discussed sense perception;
when things you see, hear, smell, taste and touch
emerge as mental events in your mind.
But in addition to these perceptions, you also experience other kinds of mental events,
like cognitions and emotions.
Those mental events are not produced by your five senses.
They're produced by your mind itself.
Let's consider your cognitions first.
Some cognitions are abstract and conceptual,
like when you ponder the meaning of life, but others are detailed and practical,
like when you make a list of items to purchase at the market.
While those cognitions are coming and going in your mind,
your ego is also present.
While you ponder the meaning of life or while you're making up a shopping list,
you still feel like an individual person.
You feel the sense of I-ness, because of the presence of your ego.
Now, what about your emotions?
Emotions emerge in your mind, just like cognitions and perceptions.
As soon as they emerge you become aware of them.
And while various emotions come and go in your mind, your ego is constantly present along with them.
When you say "I am happy" or "I am sad",
the "I" you're referring to is actually your ego, your I-thought,
which is present as your sense of being an individual person who feels happy or sad.
The ancient rishis made the remarkable discovery that you, in your essential nature,
don't really become happy or sad.
You are the awareness or consciousness that illumines everything in your mind,
including your emotions of happiness and sadness.
As we discussed before, just like the Sun is unaffected by all it illumines,
in the same way, the consciousness illumining the activities in your mind
remains unaffected by all those activities, including your emotions.
But then, if you are truly unaffected by sadness
then why do you feel so sad sometimes?
The problem is one of confusion.
When you say "I feel sad", the "I" you refer to is your ego, your I-thought.
Not consciousness.
You wrongly identify the I-thought in your mind as being who you really are.
The unchanging light of awareness that illumines the changing activities of your mind.
The truth is sadness belongs to your mind and the ego that dwells there.
Sadness doesn't belong to you, the conscious being.
When you thoroughly understand this fact, you'll be able to experience sadness
without feeling so sad.
Without wanting the sadness to go away.
Really speaking, sadness is not your enemy.
When you watch a sad movie,
you might leave the theater with tears streaming down your cheeks and say,
"That's the best movie I've seen in years."
So sadness is not the problem.
The problem is concluding that sadness in your mind truly affects you,
the changeless awareness that knows the presence of sadness.
And just like sadness is not your enemy,
your ego too is not your enemy.
Many people wrongly believe that to become enlightened or to gain liberation
the ego must be destroyed.
But your ego is just a transient mental event.
Like your perceptions and cognitions and emotions.
And none of these mental events can truly affect you, the unchanging consciousness that illumines them.
Not only that; your ego has a crucial function in coordinating all your thoughts and behavior.
In the absence of your ego, like when you're deeply absorbed in music,
you really can't do anything at all.
You can only passively enjoy the state of absorption.
You need your ego to engage in worldly activities.
It's a natural and vital part of your human nature.
And, in the final analysis, your ego is not to blame for your suffering.
You suffer due to confusion, due to ignorance,
due to the failure to recognize your own true nature as unchanging consciousness,
unborn, eternal, vast, full and complete.
With the help of the powerful insights and teachings of the rishis
you can remove that ignorance and enjoy complete freedom from suffering
even in the presence of sadness.