I was speaking about the ego as a wall that is built over time, and it is maintained over time either by fear and suspicion, hostility, or prejudice, or it can be developed healthily as a means of communication, as a way of service, as a way of finding the optimum distance, initially between ourselves and other people. So the ego has a positive role to play. It becomes egotistical or egocentric when it collapses under the weight of its own negativity, or it takes the idea or the need to be separate too compulsively and becomes very self-protective and self-assertive in the wrong way. Either way, the ego has a purpose. It is not an end in itself, it’s a means. The Sanskrit word ahamkara, which is often translated as ‘ego’ means: aham (‘I am’) and kara (the Sanskrit root means ‘carriage, means of transportation’). So we could think of the ego as a way of carrying the self, of communicating, conveying the self. What goes wrong is when we get too obsessed about the car, and forget about the passenger.
( Breakthrough by Laurence Freeman OSB )
