Ego

20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)

SOLD. In private collection

In psychoanalysis, Ego is the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behaviour, and is most in touch with external reality. It is custom developed for each one of us individuals, as it feeds on the data it receives form the environment it grows in! All our actions and reactions are triggered by this ego! As Sigmund Freud pointed out ‘Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another.’ Ego is also an identification of the self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. Ego can also be an appropriate pride in oneself; self-esteem. But, when this understanding of the self or the pride goes out of realistic bounds of human nature and becomes an exaggerated sense of self-importance it turns to conceit. The question is ‘How much is that much?’ When can we judge that the boundaries have been breached between self-esteem and conceit? And isn’t being judgemental a sure sign of the ego? In spirituality, the ego has been always the villain. As the 14th Dalai Lama said “The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.” So, Ego stands in the way of love, friendship, kindness and compassion; things that the soul craves. I have seen so many lives being ruined because ego becomes the master of the house. The ego is always hungry and the more you feed it the more the fire burns, until the self is obliterated. There is an ancient proverb, “It is the nature of the ego to take, and the nature of the spirit to share.” So, I guess it will be a good thing for all of us to decide whom to feed, the ego or the soul!