Ego at the top

[Tzu-Logic]

The ego is quite simply, a creator of illusions.

As Ramana Maharshi said,

"The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, which is the basis of the perception of the world and everything else, you find the ego does not exist at all and neither does all this creation that you see."

That is probably pretty far out there for most of you. Let me share with you a quote from a more modern teacher, Osho:

"The longing of the mind is to be extraordinary. The ego thirsts and hungers for the recognition that you are somebody. Somebody achieves that dream through wealth, somebody else achieves that dream through power, politics, somebody else can achieve that dream through miracles, jugglery, but the dream remains the same."

What does this mean? Well I think this is going to mean something different to each person that reads it. And I'm not going to bias your view of it with my clumsily worded interpretation.

much respect

[Wastelander]

I feel that, when it comes to martial arts, ego is actually fairly easy to discern from confidence. A confident person is one who believes in themselves and what they do, but with the understanding that they can improve and change, and a willingness to do so. A person with an inflated ego is one who believes so strongly in themselves and what they do that they feel they can do no wrong and do not need to change for anything or anyone.

Confidence: I believe that what I am doing and teaching is effective, but I am open to other interpretations and am willing to change what I do and teach if I find something better.

Ego: I KNOW that what I am doing and teaching is effective, and if you disagree with me it is just because you don't know enough about martial arts.

[Tzu-Logic]

I was looking at my post and It occurred to me that it sounds like a total cop out leaving out my own interpretation of those quotes. Expressing myself through writing is not one of my greatest strengths, so bear with me.

So who are you? Go ahead and stop for a minute and think about it....

All of the things you just defined yourself as, is the ego. Webster’s dictionary defines “ego” as: “the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world”. So your ego is literally your idea of who you are. It's how you define yourself as opposed to another person. I'm not defining it as bad, or negative thing. I'm just defining it.

Now in some schools of Buddhism one of the main goals is to "destroy" the ego. This leaves you in a state of "one-ness" or Nirvana; enlightenment. However, I'm not Buddhist, and as far as I know you aren't either. So let's try to bring it down into more practical terms.

I think Wastelander has an excellent post that shows how attachment to the ego can be destructive.

Ego: I KNOW that what I am doing and teaching is effective, and if you disagree with me it is just because you don't know enough about martial arts.

When you are attached strongly to your ego, your idea of yourself as a powerful, knowledgeable martial artist, you close yourself down to new ideas.

This can be seen in other areas of life as well. For example, A manager who yells at an employee for trying to find a way to be more efficient. His ego is threatened that someone may be smarter than him. Because of the attachment to the ego fear arises that his own image of himself may be false.

By clinging to our (often bloated) definitions of who we are, we often put ourselves into unnecessary conflict with each other, and ourselves.

I'm certainly not trying to push any spirituality on to any of you. I think there are some very real, tangible benefits to reevaluating your idea of yourself. Possibly avoiding a needless ego conflict and using that energy for something meaningful to you.

I hope this was helpful. Thank you for your time

[Zaine]

Webster often doesn't do it for the more technical lingo. Freud gets closer to what we mean by ego. This is to say, the idea that we are so good that we need no further training or critique, there are none better than ourselves. Coming up to the 21st century I think there has been a philosophical/psychological breaking apart of self and ego. Whereas "ego" means "I" in Latin, we no longer think of it in that context. In other words, our language has evolved. When relating ourselves, we much more use the term self, while leaving verbs like "being" to represent some essence of life.

This is all to say that when we think of ego we think of a person who is prideful and hurtful to the people their around by being as such.

The Maharshi quote I think posit something similar. He seems to be seperating the idea of "self" from the idea of "ego." He seems to be using these terms in a modern kind of way in that he wants to say that ego is bad, while at the same time recognizing self is good.

[bushido_man96]

I think we all have ego, to an extent. Otherwise, we wouldn't add the adjective "big" to describe those with "big egos," or what we would refer to as an "ego problem." We all have a view of ourselves, and we strive to make ourselves better as we go along in life. Those with the big egos like to show others how they have bettered themselves, put it on display, and show how they are better than us by doing this.

I believe that the best way to go is to let others speak for you. That is the greatest illustration of the quality of your work. No one wants to hear you say you are great. I've been managing online communities for 12 years, but I never refer to myself as an "expert" because it is unseemly, makes me uncomfortable and makes it sound like I am praising myself. I think that is for other people to say. I'll call myself a veteran, I'll say I have a lot of experience. But, that's it.

That said, I also believe that there are times you have to look out for yourself because if you don't, no one else will. A veteran Sensei might find the need to remind a student that they've been around the block a few times. Call that self confidence or call it ego. Either way, I guess you're right.

Good call here, Patrick. You post was spot on, overall.

[sensei8]

Misplaced ego's within the MA destroy the betterment across the board, imho.

[bushido_man96]

Misplaced ego's within the MA destroy the betterment across the board, imho.

I agree, Bob.

Displaced egos anywhere cause the same elsewhere. We Martial Artists aren't the only ones who deal with them, that is for sure. But, such is life, and it goes on.

[evergrey]

Thank you all for participating! Heh, really I just put up the dojo cleaning part as a little story illustrating humility.

What I really worry about is when people at the top do or teach something that is seriously dangerous and harmful, or do something that is a real disservice to their students, but they cannot accept any criticism and cannot accept the fact that what they are doing is bad news!

[bushido_man96]

I agree that is the worst scenario, Ev. Hopefully, most of our instructors are willing to swallow pride and avoid such pitfalls. We can only hope.

[inventor]

You have been taught that a martial artist should leave their ego at the dojo door. I have been taught that a martial artist should be free of ego everywhere. Thus the saying, "Any where can be a dojo.".