Have you noticed a curious occurrence? Reflect on the last 50 arguments you have been in, and you will find that the only thing common to them is your perception that you were right and the other person was wrong! The other people in those arguments “knew” with as much conviction that they were right and you were wrong. Why is this so?
Eastern mystics point to a hidden mechanism in human beings that brings tremendous unhappiness in our personal lives and in the wider world, as well: the curse of the ego, individual or national.
As a man who has been married four times, I truly know the devastation ego can cause when we value being right more than the benefits of being happily married.
The ego is not limited in its ability to wreak havoc in just one sphere; it permeates the whole of our life. The Indian mystic Osho, who left behind a legacy of over 2,250 books, described the human ego as cunning, insidious, tenacious, resilient and indestructible.
Politics, religion, marriage, work, friendship, parenting are all fair game. It's a force that feeds the illusion of your superiority, looking good, impressing others, dominating others and avoiding the domination of others.
In a country divided by politics, Republicans know they are “right” and the Democrats know, too, that they are “right.”
We lose our tempers and excessively punish a child for an innocent mistake and feel fully justified.
Ego convinces us that we are the “better” romantic partner and the harder-working employee. Or perhaps we are the only truly religious one in our congregation. The ego is even capable of convincing us that we are more humble or altruistic than others. There are no limits.
In this way or that, the ego will assure you, by some form of convoluted logic, that you are the most virtuous of all.
The question then arises: If the ego is causing such damage, how do we overcome it? Osho taught that striving to overcome ego only strengthens it.
The key is to transcend the power of the ego, by simply becoming aware of it, by watching it operate in our lives and by laughing at ourselves when we are gripped by it.
A world in which we can laugh at ourselves every time we are filled with righteousness is a liberated world. Otherwise, life becomes a futile game of righteous indignation. In the midst of an argument, if we can switch places and argue the merits of the opposite point of view, that’s real liberation. If we can just deepen our awareness of the ego, it will loosen the grip on our lives and let us be.
Imagine if we supported children in schools to become aware of the havoc of the ego. Real education should never be about feeling superior that you know. It should be about celebrating the mystery of what you don't know.
A real education is also about cultivating the capacity to accept people and love them for who they are and for who they are not, which trumps being right and making them wrong.
In transcending our ego, we appreciate every human being as a miracle and embrace each individual as a mystery to be celebrated, rather than as an entity to be defeated.