‘…To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand…’
1δ. Ego and its subjugation
‘Consciousness’, the ability to feel separately from other beings, leads to the perception of ‘ego’. The substance of ‘ego’ (not the ego) is the existence itself, which in religious terms could coincide with the ‘soul’ of the living being. Thus, ego is the image that obtains the ‘soul’ (substance) when perceiving itself through consciousness (the ability to perceive and conceive). What we are is therefore a triple quality (substance, ability to perceive/conceive and image of the substance through perception) in a body [1]. Whether the substance demands the body or independently exists is an arguing point between religions and atheism. To avoid the word ‘soul’ as this is traditionally a concept in religions, we will use the word ‘ego’(in italics) to state the triple quality revealed through consciousness.
Ego soon realizes the needs dictated by the body, the need to feed, the need to be protected, the need to find a partner, the need to survive. And if these needs are not fulfilled, pain is the result. This applies to all living creatures. In man, however, through the process of learning and with the tools of logic (reason) [2], consciousness will start, better than any other known creature, to build the experience on how to avoid pain and how to serve the needs of the body. The ego is subjugated to the demands of the flesh, so that by obeying it receives the relief from the pain as a reward. Pain is continuously produced by the needs of the body and addressed to the ego through consciousness [3].
The distress caused by the continuous struggle to keep the pain away, inevitably leads consciousness through logic to adopt the function of ‘comparison’, to have a measure of the running risk of failure to fulfill our needs. We constantly seek to compare ourselves to other men, to prove we are better; better appearance, advanced intelligence, superior physical strength and so on. If indeed we are better, we are likely to enjoy the benefits of sexual joy, of wealth and of social acceptance. But if we are not, then we will suffer the agony of the certainty of a coming pain. This agony is the source of major psychological complexes that haunt our lives. Being unable to deal with agony, consciousness takes refuge to distortion of the image of the ego, creating inferiority or superiority complexes, lying and masking qualities, thoughts and acts from the self and from the surrounding, and expressing a varying degree of social hatred.
Comparison becomes an obsession that persecutes ego consuming a large part of the daily energy. We have to be more beautiful, stronger and more intelligent to receive less pain. Ego precipitates deeper and deeper in the slavery of the bodily needs, in an attempt to secure the longest possible coverage of needs and, therefore, postponing the pain.
[1] ‘This that hears and sees in you, is the Logos of the Lord, and Nous is the Father-God. It is impossible to distinguish the one from the other’ (Corpus Hermeticus, Poimandris). Ego (the portion of the universal Logos residing into the being, thus the soul) is therefore indistinguishable from the ability to conceive (consciousness), both residing in the matter/body.
[2] ‘Logic’ or reason is a quality of the brain, a tool available to the ego to handle the data from the inside (feelings) and outside (images of any quality) world. Interfering with the normal brain function destroys the normal function of the reason (e.g. drugs or psychosis).
[3] ‘Descending into the depth of our consciousness’ – step 1: This travel begins with the perception of ego as a separate entity in an unknown world. This is the only indisputable truth – I exist in a world that exists, although I can’t conceive why and how. Then ego realizes the fear and feels the pain produced by the outside world through the body. Ego recognizes the condemnation of existence to death and rotting, while birth provides existence with new consciousness, eternalising the fear and pain through our descendants.