How do you define the ego?

Here I don't agree. For many people, including me who knows what it's like to pass kidney stones (!), this plays a really minor part of our lives, and most of our lives is mental suffering, rather than physical pain.

I've had kidney stones ( pure agony) I've had mental agony too, lots of it (as most of us have had of course). Pure hell, while you are subject to it.

Here I don't agree. For many people, including me who knows what it's like to pass kidney stones (!), this plays a really minor part of our lives, and most of our lives is mental suffering, rather than physical pain.

Unfortunately, chronic pain rules the lives of a lot of people, and the drugs used to control it make the suffering worse in a lot of cases through addiction problems.

I like this Theosophical perspective of the nature of the ego:

1. Spiritual definition of ego

From a spiritual perspective, the meaning of ego is considering oneself to be distinct from others and God due to identification with the physical body and impressions in various centres of the subtle body. In short ego is leading our life as per the thinking that our existence is limited to our 5 senses, mind, and intellect and identifying with them to various degrees.

As per the science of Spirituality, our true state of existence is identification with the Soul or God-principle within us and living our day to day life with this consciousness. As the one and same God-principle exists within all, from a spiritual perspective there is unity in all Creation.

However, depending on the level of our ego, we identify with the God-principle within us, i.e. the Soul to varying degrees. If our ego is high, we identify less with the Soul or the God-principle within us.

2. What is the definition and meaning of ego – psychological perspective

In layman’s terms one can define ego as pride about oneself. Thoughts such as my body and mind, my intellect, my life, my wealth, my wife and children, I should acquire happiness, etc. arise from ego alone. 

Ego, awareness of the self, pride, conceit and ‘i’ness are words related to the word ‘ego or aham’ but on a psychological plane.

There follows a schematic picture of a person with a strong ego, based on subtle knowledge drawn by a seeker with highly advanced ESP. It shows a layer of dark energy covering the entire body. It also shows the ego as surrounding and covering the soul center. These layers are presumably accumulated because this person does not identify with his soul. The drawing shows God's grace being blocked by these barriers.



There may be some truth here. But I think the key is that this is from the perspective of the soul or spirit, not that of human beings, where this pictured condition may be the intended and planned human condition.

I think 99.999...9 % of mankind automatically identify with the ego because it is their basic intended human nature to do so, and because the vast majority of people never have the time and leisure (or desire) to pursue esoteric paths, or just because they happen to be born in a time and place where such wisdom isn't available to them. The vast majority of people are too busy surviving to pay attention to such pursuits. 

This human nature with its ego is the way it is because it is necessary as a practical matter in order to survive and prosper and achieve in physical life. This is living one's life instinctively identifying one's self as the physical body and personality and memories going back to childhood. This is the human self, not the soul or spirit or High Self that presumably made the actual choices of place, time, parents, and the final decision to come into the physical. Choices that the human self often would vehemently oppose. 

Of course the human self is only the tip of the iceberg, but to be that self, deal with physical life as that human self, achieve many different things in the human world, and perhaps even to suffer, seem to be the main purposes of human existence. The ego is an essential part of this. Spiritual paths that attempt to subjugate and even destroy the ego would appear to subvert the very purposes of creating a harsh unforgiving physical world and sending human selves to make their way in it.