A common misconception that many of us have is that ‘ego is pride’, but it is far more pervasive than pride. It is the sum total of everything that we have taken from the outside and accepted as our beliefs and identities without applying intelligence. But we are not a sum total of external influences. Even if everything external is taken away, the pure existence still remains — we have an existence of our own. Ego is this forgetfulness of our pure existence.
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Acharya Prashant: What to do when you encounter a person with a lot of ego? He has used two words: High ego and bad ego. Let us understand this. When you use the term ‘bad ego’, you necessarily mean that there is something called ‘good ego’ as well. Correct? Logical?
What is this ego? And can it have these two varieties—good and bad?
What is the ego?
Questioner: Ego is when you put yourself above someone when you think yourself to be superior to others.
Acharya Prashant: Is that the ego — you putting yourself above someone? What if you necessarily put yourself below someone? What if you are habituated to saying that ‘I am the worst of all?’ Your conditioning and culture have told you that when someone says ‘I am best of all,’ you immediately say that this fellow is egoistic. I am asking you, what if someone says, ‘I am the worst of all?' Is this not a statement of ego?
