This is a consolidated transcript from a past lecture that had accompanying slides. My hope is that the core ideas continue to resonate, despite their somewhat clumsy presentation in this format. Enjoy! -Dalton
Why are we discussing the ego in the first place? Put simply, because we do what we believe we are. Our lives are an extension of who we think we are. New concepts, insights, and distinctions create new ways of thinking, new beliefs, and new patterns. These allow us to shift our focus, our state, and our identification, which in turn shifts our feelings, thoughts, and actions—which changes our life.
To collapse all the middle steps: a better understanding of the ego initiates a radical change in your life. If you want to improve or change something about your life, you need to understand yourself. That understanding will change your mental world first, then the way you express yourself, and then by extension, change your material world.
What is the Ego?
So, what am I referring to when I use the word “ego”?
The ego is, in my vernacular, your identity construct. It’s your thoughts about who you are. It is a story, or a narrative, based in language and time. It’s an interpretation of experience, not experience itself. It’s the mask you wear in the outside world, through which you filter and interpret your direct experience. It’s a conglomeration of your beliefs and assumptions. And it’s your subconscious operating system of patterns, reactions, and associations.
Hopefully, one or more of those articulations clicked for you.
This brings up a fundamental question: are you your ego? Well, yes and no. That’s like asking, “Is a tree wood?” Kind of. Wood is an integral part of a tree, but not the whole thing. Or like asking your arm, “Are you my body?” Kinda.
Consciousness itself is in a process of evolution, just like every other part of the universe. One of the keys to understanding this evolution is the reconciliation of opposites. Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree (hot/cold, light/dark). Likewise, ego and higher self are both just consciousness, varying in degree. You are the whole spectrum of consciousness packed into one experience, tuning in to different frequencies as you learn and develop.
The ego is a particular perspective, a frequency on the spectrum, a note on the musical scale of consciousness. If you don’t recall ever being outside of your ego, then as far as your waking, everyday consciousness is concerned, you are your ego. But when you dream, sleep, imagine, or enter a flow state, you are not just your ego. These faculties go beyond what we call the ego. When you expand your awareness in a sustained way, you become the observer of the ego, the experiencer of the ego—not the ego itself.
The Default State: Survival and Scarcity
One of the first things to note about the ego is that, by default, it lives in survival, scarcity, and limitation. This was necessary for our survival as a species at one point. We had to secure status within the tribe, accumulate resources, find worthy mates, and be on the lookout for threats. The ego lives in an almost constant state of fight or flight, often felt as a low-level but persistent anxiety or stress, which leads to exhaustion and burnout when not addressed.
None of this is your fault—it’s a natural, subconscious function. But if you want to expand beyond this way of life, it must be done consciously. I’ve never met someone who has subconsciously or accidentally grown beyond this stuff.
This brings us to an important insight: if you live in your subconscious ego, you are not free. You are simply following an instinctual pattern of fear and ingrained responses. The degree to which you understand and integrate your ego is the degree to which you gain your freedom back. Free will is not a binary function; it’s a scale. The more conscious you are, the less you are controlled by your subconscious, and the more freedom you will have.
To make this clear: if you do not make a conscious choice, you are defaulting to your subconscious choice, and your ego is in the driver's seat.
From Drifting to Surfing to Creating the Waves
Let me explain the path to freedom with a visual metaphor.
Imagine you are adrift in the waves of the ocean. The waves fluctuate, oscillate, and flow up and down in an unconscious or subconscious way. Your ego is just a floater in this ocean of unconsciousness.
Raising your awareness and illuminating the subconscious is like learning to swim, and then to surf. You see the waves—the subconscious parts of you—and you learn to recognize and adapt your thoughts, feelings, and actions in relationship to them, consciously.
Raising your awareness far beyond that is like becoming Poseidon. Not only do you see and surf the waves, but you actually create the waves. You are the waves themselves. This is a non-dual level of being.
So how do we transition from the suffering of limitation and scarcity to the freedom of abundance and creation? Put simply, we raise our awareness. A higher awareness gives us more freedom to choose—not only what to do, but what to think, what to feel, and what to focus on. We do this not by ignoring or fighting the ego’s reactions, but by accepting and integrating them.
By doing so, we change our state and our story. We must uncover our current stories so we can rewrite them, and in doing so, we change every aspect of our experience of life. The goal is not to kill the ego; it is to understand and integrate it, and to continue to expand beyond it. Not trying to get rid of it, but to carry it to higher and higher expressions, if that’s the path you choose.