Controlling The Ego

I’ve done a lot of reading from Eckert Tolle’s “A New Earth…Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose”.  Most of what I have read recently has to do with the ego.  I have never thought of myself as someone with a massive ego but the reality is that I do have an ego and so do all of you.  The more I read the more I am understanding the meaning of ego.  It is not necessarily related to arrogance although I have known people whose ego was so large they could barely get through a doorway.  Let me quote from Eckert Tolle’s book, “You construct a conceptual identity for an individual or a group, and you say, “this is who he is, this is who they are”.  When you confuse the ego that you perceive in others with their identity, it is the work of your own ego that uses this misperception to strengthen itself through being right and therefore superior, and through reacting with condemnation, indignation, and often anger against the perceived enemy”  All of this is enormously satisfying to the ego.  I have never realized before now how much it is my own ego kicking in when I don’t like someone or when I find someone difficult to deal with.  Another thing I read that disturbs me is the idea that what bothers me about another person is also present within me.  Of course, this is usually undetectable to us.  We typically only see what we project as other’s behavior.  Tolle says, “Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you”.  It’s like facing your own dark side.  The trick to dealing with all of this is to remain nonreactive to it and to remind ourselves that the ego is an individual and collective dysfunction, what Eckert calls “The insanity of the human mind”.  I am been trying to deal with my own ego by trying not to react to people or their behavior.  I’m trying to tell myself that everything is not personal.  The behavior of others, and my own reactions to their behavior, are both manifestations of the collective ego of humanity.  The next time someone ruffles your feathers, ask yourself why?  What is it about this person or their behavior, that makes you crazy?  How is this behavior present within yourself?  When someone annoys you, don’t react.  Don’t let your ego, in disguise as your emotions, kick in.  Simply acknowledge that whatever happened, happened, and it “is what it is”.