Witnessing The Destructive Force of Ego

Many of us are feeling upset and afraid. Our democracy appears to be crumbling at the hands of a zealous “make America great again” movement. The security we have enjoyed in the United States, and the stability of the entire world order, seem on the brink of collapse. And we are polarized, each seeing the other side as a demonic force that needs to be destroyed.

I am not here to offer a solution or point fingers of blame. My intention is to put this in perspective and give us a way to understand what is happening.

America First

The rallying point for the MAGA movement, with Donald Trump at the fore, is America first. Ideals like white male supremacy and Christian nationalism are becoming more prominent. The thinking seems to be that we can solve our problems by going back to traditional hierarchies and top-down social structures.

The United States under Trumps leadership is snubbing international relationships and trade agreements that have been carefully constructed over decades. We are putting our immediate needs ahead of anyone else’s and withdrawing from our role in the world in order to look out for ourselves. To some of us this seems rash and suicidal. To others, perhaps, it is just the medicine that is needed.

It is easy to judge the MAGA movement as being wrong, or right. A more effective response, however, is to get perspective in order to understand it and its consequences.

All of us who rely on our ego for survival have these tendencies toward isolation, segregation, and fundamentalism. We want to feel empowered. And we get a semblance of that by asserting our values and opposing anyone who is not like us.

Under the influence of ego, we sacrifice our needs for connection, community, unity, and belonging. We believe that proving ourselves right and defending our values will secure our individual survival.

Righteous Indignation

Ego’s way of empowering us is to see ourselves as victims of exploitation by someone else. This generates a righteous indignation that justifies anger and floods our system with adrenaline.

Righteous indignation is similar to the effect of strong caffeine. It boosts our energy and motivates us for a short period of time. And, in order to keep the energizing effect going, we have to repeat the process again and again.

So, we see the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, declaring himself a victim of our government’s regulatory system. And those with the most privilege, wealth, social status, and political power, are blaming minorities and third-world countries for holding them back.

Donald Trump and his administration are creating a pretense of empowerment for US citizens with a surge of this temporary, ego-generated force. They portray the US as the victim of other nations, even long-standing allies. And they continuously fuel indignation and anger toward anyone who is not on “our side”.

The Republican MAGA members are not evil people doing malicious things. They are innocent people, unaware of their own ego, and blindly following its dictates. They believe they are doing the right thing.

Behind the bluster and machoism, people who align with the MAGA movement are afraid. To them the world is threatening and requires aggression in order to survive. They are trying to insure their own survival using the only means they know. They are doing what anyone who is under the influence of ego would do.

The Influence of Ego 

The chaos and destruction we are witnessing makes sense if we understand ego and its design. Ego is the idea of “me first”. It makes us feel special, and promises to secure our place in the world. It convinces us that we can only count on ourselves.  

         The premise of ego is that we each have to fight for our own individual survival. When push comes to shove, we are on our own. This mentality is deeply imbedded in the psyche of the United States. It is exalted in the image of the rugged individual cowboy of the wild American west.

Ego is the idea that we can survive better on our own, and are justified in doing whatever it takes to insure our personal security and prosperity. Any authority limiting our behavior becomes the enemy, and everyone is a potential threat. This perspective is what drives the gun rights movement.

Ego builds a false image of a permanent self by establishing and defending personal values and ideals. It tries to appear real by convincing us that we are right and good. And to do that, others have to appear wrong and bad.  

Ego cannot tolerate diversity and always strives for uniformity. It tries to make everyone else be like itself. People of a different sex, race, religion, nation, or political party threaten our ego. The more different others are, the more they challenge our fundamental beliefs of what is right and good and true.

Ego seeks prowess and supremacy in order to validate its existence. It requires constant attention from others, and has to be right all the time. It only sees people as opportunities to get attention, or threats that need to be eliminated.

         Caught in the trance of ego, we mistake being right for getting our basic needs met.

We fight with each other in order to prove that we are right, and neglect our universal needs for connection, community, and belonging with all of life.

However, being right only satisfies the demands of our ego. It does not nourish our true being.

A Closer Look at Ego

Human life is defined by our identification with ego. Ego is the idea of a separate self, apart from the whole. It is an image that we use to represent us in the world.

We are so accustomed to ego that most of us barely notice it. We only become aware of the influence of ego when it becomes exaggerated and causes damage.

Most of us believe that we can’t live without ego. We may not like it, but we are resigned to the idea that we need it in order to survive.

Two truths about ego are important to consider.

First, it is not real. It is a concept we have believed in for so long that it seems to be an undeniable reality. Yet, it is not who we are, and does not exist outside of the story that we tell ourselves in our mind. We are something much bigger, more powerful, and more enduring than our ego.

Second, the consequences of mistaking our ego for ourselves is self-depletion. Because ego is just an idea and is not real, it is fragile and easily damaged. It requires constant attention and support, and has to continually assert its ideological values and beliefs in order to maintain its image.

We perpetually bolster our self-image, believing this is essential for our survival. However, when we focus on the needs of ego, our real needs go unmet. We starve our true self in order to feed our ego.

The purpose of life is to realize these truths about ego. It does not work to believe or not believe them. Each of us has to see for ourselves what is real and what is truly valuable.

There is an infinite, conscious, intelligence behind life that is always trying to reveal the truth to us. Our purpose here is to learn. And we learn my making mistakes and paying attention to the consequences of our thoughts and actions.

We all are under the influence of ego until we recognize it and realize that it does not serve our best interest. And the intelligent source of life will continue to expose the designs of the ego so that we can see it for what it is.   

Boosting Ego at the Expense of Our True Self

         The MAGA movement and many others like it throughout the world, are acting out these predictable ploys of the ego on a global stage. As long as we are blind to our own ego and its patterns, we are likely to be swept up in this tide of righteousness that momentarily makes us feel powerful.

         The thing to pay attention to is the absurd premise that we are empowered by seeing ourselves as victims. In fact it is exactly the opposite. Seeing ourselves as victims locks us into a perpetual state of disempowerment by definition. 

Our ego programming convinces us that we get power out of seeing ourselves as oppressed. Oppression by an evil enemy makes us appear good and right. And this elevates our sense of individual self and justifies our existence.

We then turn to our ego to defend ourselves against those who are bad and wrong. And this makes the ego appear essential to our survival.

         We tend to believe that once we vanquish our oppressors, we will be free with our power restored. However, this is not how it works.

Ego requires a constant contrast of opposites in order to create the illusion of its existence. It makes us believe that we are right and good by continuously painting someone else as wrong and bad. When one villain is avoided or defeated, another one is created.

Look at the evidence. The most wealthy and powerful people on earth still see themselves as victims. And, when the oppressed finally come to power, they often become the next oppressor.

We are caught in a self-perpetuating cycle where being validated and energized depends on having an enemy and seeing ourselves as their innocent victim. This justifies all the hating and violence that we do to each other. And that further confirms our belief that there are evil people who are out to destroy us.

What’s In It For Me?

         Asserting our power globally, as the Trump administration is doing now, is a natural ego strategy. The ego seeks to appear more real by becoming supreme in the world. It strives to always dominate and be on top. The illusion of its existence depends on this.

 Putting large tariffs on the rest of the world, including our closest allies and trading partners, makes the rest of the world subservient to us. Gutting the government of administrators and regulators, and diminishing its capacity to manage, gives ego more room to expand without constraints.

While all of this feeds our ego, and gives us a boost of energy, it tragically neglects our real needs. Isolation is one of the most painful experiences for us. When we feel alone we are naturally afraid and insecure. The world seems a dark and dangerous place.

We share a universal need for belonging, community, connection, and to be of service to others. We thrive as part of a larger whole, and cannot sustain our existence alone.

When these basic needs go unmet, we wither and die. Our existence is constricted by fear and paranoia, and we are chronically anxious and stressed. Beholden to our ego, we live on crumbs while the life-force in us fades away.

This is the lesson of climate change. We are destroying the capacity of planet earth to sustain us because we are focused our own individual survival.

Our ego programming makes us take more than we need, and compete with each other to see who can get the most. This is causing us to needlessly deplete the resources and eco-systems of the earth to the point where they cannot regenerate in time to provide basic necessities for future generations.

This is the lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic as well. We are being shown through these global crises that we have to collaborate for our own best interests. The only way to stop a pandemic or planetary ecological collapse is if we all work together. In this expanded view of our situation, it is clear that our individual, ego-based survival strategies are now the biggest threat to our survival.

This is also the lesson in the extreme measures being taken by the Trump administration. We can play the ego’s game and assert power over the rest of the world, making them subservient to us. We can exclude anyone who doesn’t agree with us, think like us, or look like us. However, in the end, we further isolate ourselves and create more fear and insecurity.

This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We experience the world as a darker and more dangerous place. And then we increase our aggression and wall ourselves off with more defenses in order to try to feel safe. However, all this does is make us feel more alone and afraid.

In the end, blindly following the ego’s strategy for survival destroys us. We just have to look at the example of Hitler in 1930’s Germany, who vowed to make Germany great again. After a decade of horrific and unthinkable violence, blindly driven by these predictable patterns of ego, Germany collapsed in ruins.

The Illusion Of Us and Them 

         Our ego programming convinces us that the threats to our survival are people or situations who are trying to control or harm us. Our focus then becomes avoiding or eliminating those people or situations. And all of our attention goes into that task.

         This is ego’s clever way of distracting us so that we won’t look inward and see that our allegiance to ego is actually the root cause of the obstacles facing us. Ego does not want us to see that our apparent enemies are illusions created to convince us that we need the ego to defend and protect us.

         Many of you reading this likely see the Trump administration and MAGA movement as causing the crisis we are in now. They certainly are acting the part of the evil villain and con artist. They seem to be manipulating and exploiting, lying and cheating, and gaming the system to their advantage every chance they get.

         However, when we demonize them, we simply play into the ego’s hand and compound the problem. It doesn’t matter who the villain appears to be, or how bad their actions seem to us. If we make them the problem, we further obscure the real cause of our problem. We still believe in ego and think that is who we are.

         I know this is a bitter pill to swallow. Giving up our grievance against such an obvious villain seems too much to ask. Our righteous anger appears to be our only strength, and letting that go doesn’t make sense. It makes us feel week and helpless.

You may think that giving up a grievance is the same as condoning their actions. But, please bear with me for just another moment. I am not suggesting that we do nothing and simply go along with the dismantling of our democratic institutions.

I am saying that when we see this as an “us against them” situation we have already lost, and ego has won again. When we buy the ego’s ruse and believe that there really is an enemy out to destroy us, we merely perpetuate the crisis.

         This is what Christ meant in his teaching of forgiveness and plea to “turn the other cheek” when someone strikes you. And this is what Buddha and other teachers meant by practicing compassion.        These are not supplications to be passive or meek. Nor are they signs of weakness. They are declarations of the deception played on us by our own ego, and an invitation to restore our true power and authority by revealing its charade.

         When we focus on demonizing an apparent enemy and believe that our survival depends on defeating them, we are merely addressing the symptoms. Our current situation seems so intractable, and just keeps getting worse, because we are not addressing the actual cause.

Seeing Us In Them 

         We can get to the root of the problem and expose the ego’s design by recognizing parts of ourselves in the evil others. Who among us has not tried to control other people or situations for our own comfort or security? If you thought you could control everything and make it the way you think it should be, wouldn’t you do it?

         The ego is the embodiment of our desire for domination and supremacy. We all have it, until we choose to let it go. Most of us hide this part of ourselves because we are ashamed to admit it, and don’t want others to see it.  Trump and the MAGA movement simply don’t care what others think and are not hiding their ego impulses.

         This is part of the attraction that so many US citizens and people around the world feel for this movement. It has a brazen, raw honesty to it that defies all conventions.

Resolution

         I am writing this because I am concerned about the welfare of our nation and our world. I don’t believe for one minute that Trump and the MAGA movement have our best interests in mind. However, I don’t blame them for that.

None of us have our own best interests in mind when we are under the dictates of our ego. I don’t think Trump and his followers know what they really want or how to achieve that. The only thing they are really good at is creating conflict, chaos, and confusion. This is what the ego does so that we continue to be in fear and turn to it to save us.

The way out of this dire situation is to see it for what it is. The ego is making itself visible on the global stage. And the consequences are likely to be catastrophic on a scale we have not seen before.

This is happening to show us how self-destructive the ego really is. We have to see that our ego is not serving us and does not have our best interests in mind, so that we will finally let go of it.

The key to this is seeing Donald Trump as a representation of your own ego. This is the picture I have tried to paint here. While the immense scale of the destruction is beyond anything you or I might do, the basic foundations of ego are all the same.

The resolution to this crisis, therefore, begins with releasing your attachment to your own ego. This a process, and requires skills and learning. It is the work of inner awareness and insight, personal growth, and grounded spirituality.

This process requires precise tools that make the ego and its effects visible to us. And we have many of the tools that we need to do this.

We know about simple meditation techniques that focus awareness and enable deep insights into consciousness and the nature of mind. We know this inner seeing reveals the ego and makes us aware of its programming.

And we know about conscious communication skills and other practices that reveal the programming of the ego in the way that we communicate and relate with others. There are many other practices that are designed to make the ego visible in our daily lives, and thereby reducing its influence.

Becoming conscious of your own ego is the hardest part, and the only part that you really need to do. Once you see the ego for what it is, you will no longer be under its spell and will be able to let it go.

Acting Effectively In The World 

         Once you have questioned your allegiance to ego, and are aware of its influence, you can act much more effectively in the world. You will not blindly perpetuate the oppositional dynamics that feed ego. You will not demonize others or separate “us” from “them”. You will recognize everyone as innocent, and connected as part of one continuous whole. You will see those doing harm as afraid, unconscious, and unaware, not evil.

         This is what some of our greatest leaders in human history have tried to teach and demonstrate for us. I think of Jesus, Buddha, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and many others.

         It does not work to fight fire with fire, or ego with ego. The only way to reduce the effect of ego is first to reduce it within your own mind. Then it becomes clearer when and how to act in a way that further reduces the destructive effects of ego in the world, instead of increasing them. 

         To do this work of changing the human default from “me” to “we” requires big picture thinking. It will not happen in one lifetime. This the real long game. And it is what we are here on earth to do.

The Urgency to Respond

         I understand the urgency to respond now to stop this escalated destruction of our democracy, society, and natural environment. And I am not suggesting that we look away from all that is happening. I am simply urging us to be thoughtful and wise about how to stop it.

         If we only address symptoms, without understanding the cause, we unknowingly perpetuate the problem. Paying attention to the destructive force of ego in the world, and within ourselves, is essential to resolve this crisis.

Once you see the true cause, the effects make more sense. You won’t feel crushed by despair or overwhelmed with anger. You can act with calm certainty, and your responses will be more effective.

We can act in the world to set boundaries around ego, without judging others as wrong or bad. In order to do this, we have to let go of our attachment to being right. And we have to give up the righteous anger that comes from seeing ourselves as wronged.

Once we neutralize our own ego in this way, the motivation for acting to stop the destruction is empathy for those suffering. We become energized by our love for all humanity, and reverence for all life.

I know that righteous anger seems more powerful than love and compassion. We get an explosive burst of energy from acting out of rage. Yet anger and hatred only feed our ego. They burn out eventually, leaving us depleted and further mired in fear and uncertainty.

Acting Out Of Love 

Acting out of love often seems weak and inadequate. The power of love is obscured by all the fear and hatred in the world. And it requires a leap of faith sometimes to believe that love is still there.

Yet what do we have to lose by believing in love? If we trust that it is there, it will appear. And when love reveals itself to us, we will realize that it has always been there, buried beneath our fear.

When we take the risk of letting go of our anger and ill-will, we realize that love is more powerful and enduring. And only love nourishes our true well-being.

As we respond to this dramatic turn in our country and our world, let us not unconsciously re-create that which we seek to change. The key is acting in a way that nourishes ourselves and all of life. We can only demonstrate what an alternative looks like. And in powerfully demonstrating love, compassion, and caring, we create a way for others to follow.

I am reminded of the wonderful scene in the beginning of the classic movie “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy has just landed in Oz and meets the good witch Glenda. Then the wicked witch of the west appears and threatens Dorothy because her house landed on the witch’s sister and killed her.

Dorothy is naturally frightened by the aggressive and hateful threats from the wicked witch, and we are afraid for her. But Glenda waves her wand and with a loving, soft laugh simply says to the wicked witch, “you have no power here”.

The Trump administration and MAGA movement appear full of hate and aggression, and many of us are naturally frightened. This is just ego doing what ego does to try to achieve security for itself. Ego feeds on other people’s fear and insecurity to make itself feel powerful and bolster the illusion of its existence.

In reality, however, ego has no power here. Hatred and fear cannot stand up to love. If there are two forces at battle here they certainly are love and fear, compassion and hatred. And we have to choose which one we will get behind.

Rage, hate, and exclusion will always appear more powerful than love, compassion, and inclusion. Yet this is just the illusion constructed by ego to make itself appear real and gain our allegiance.

The only effective response to this dramatic movement of anger and hatred is love and compassion. Anything else merely feeds the crisis and perpetuates fear and insecurity.

This a moment when our capacity to respond with love is being tested. It requires us to recognize love as a power greater than fear.

We have to reach down deep, below our own ego programming, and recognize love for the infinite and eternal source of life that it really is. And we have to surrender to that love and trust that it will carry us safely through this raging fire.