The Ego

"The ego is the root of ignorance and pain."
- The Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology,  Samael Aun Weor,

The ego is a multiplicity of contradictory psychological elements that we have inside, and are in their sum the "ego." Each one is also called "an ego" or an "I." Every ego is a psychological defect that produces suffering. The ego is often symbolized as:

Three: such as in the three Furies, or the three traitors of Jesus, Chiram Abiff, Job, etc. The three traitors relate to our Three Brains or three centers of psychological processing
Seven: as in the seven capital sins: laziness (sloth), lust, pride, anger (hate), envy, greed (avarice), gluttony
Legion: in their infinite combinations, such as the serpents on Medusa's head, the many heads of the Hydra killed by Heracles, or the "legion" that afflicted the suffering man in the wilderness of the Christian Gospels


THE STATES OF THE EGO

The states of the ego are classified in the following manner:

STEREOPSYCHIC: Are the identifying states which are intimately related with the exterior perceptions which are received through the five senses and which are connected with the world of impressions.

NEOPSYCHIC: Are the data processing states, in other words, those which properly interpret or misinterpret all the multiple situations which the intellectual animal lives. Our bad secretary, the personality, works in these states.

ARCHEOPSYCHIC: Are the regressive states —memory of the ego— which are found in the 49 levels of the subconscious. They are the memories of the past which are filed in a photographic and phonographic manner.

-The Revolution Of The Dialectic, Samael Aun Weor

The 5 Senses and Desire

Whosoever wants to annihilate desire must discover its causes. The causes of desire are found in Sensations. We live in a world of sensations and we need to comprehend them.
There are five types of sensations:
1. Visual sensations
2. Auditory sensations
3. Olfactory sensations
4. Taste sensations
5. Touch sensations

The five special types of sensations transform themselves into desire. Therefore, the causes of desire are found within the sensations.
We must not condemn the sensations, nor may we justify them. We need to profoundly comprehend them. A pornographic image strikes the senses and then passes to the Mind. The outcome of this perception is a sexual sensation that is soon transformed into animal desire.After passing through the sense of hearing and through the cerebral center of sensations, a vulgar morbid type of song is converted into Sexual Desire. We see a luxurious car, we sense it and thereafter we desire it. We taste a delicious cup of liquor, we perceive its odor with our sense of smell and feel its delicious sensations and thereafter we desire to drink more and more until we become inebriated. Thus, smell and taste turn us into gluttons and drunkards. The sense of touch places itself under the service of all of our desires; thus, this is how the “I” receives pleasure from amidst the vices and wanders like the Fool of the Tarot from life to life with his bag (within which he carries all of his vices and absurdities) on his shoulders.
-Esoteric Course of Kabbalah, Samael Aun Weor

Some say, isn't the urge to know God a desire? Or the "desire" to be a good person? Gnosis tells us NO: because one thing is the desire of the mind and another thing is the natural needs of the Consciousness.
-Gnostic Teachings

When the “I” is dissolved, we are filled with plenitude and happiness. When the “I” is dissolved, the Being, the spirit, love expresses itself through us. Remember that God, the spirit, the Internal Being of each man, of each woman, and of each creature is never the “I.” The Being is divine, eternal and perfect. The “I” is Satan of the Biblical legend. The “I” is not the body, it is energetic and diabolic. In the “I” is the root of misery, poverty failures, disillusions, unsatisfied desires, violent desires, hatred, envy,
jealousy, etc.
Change your life now. It is urgent that you understand the need to do away with all your defects, to dissolve the “I,” Satan, the cause of all failures. When the “I” is dissolved, only the Being, God, happiness, remains in us. God is peace, abundance, happiness and perfection.

The word of the Divine Master is found in the four Gospels.
There you will see the virtues that you need, there you will discover the virtues that you lack.
 Wherever a virtue is lacking, a defect exists.
-Introduction to Gnosis, Samael Aun Weor

“Comprehending each of these "I"s, each of these factors, involves in fact profound reflection, concentration, meditation.”
- The Great Rebellion, Samael Aun Weor

In Gnosis, we understand that we have about three percent awareness of ourselves, because the human being at this stage of life has three percent free Consciousness. Ninety-seven percent of our Consciousness is trapped in the mind. That trapped energy - we all experience it. It is what we call ego, it is what we call desire, it is what we call anger, pride, lust, envy, fear, gluttony, all those characteristics that we all have, our karma. They are all desire, and they all have trapped Consciousness inside of them. By beginning to apply our awareness we begin to observe how this functions in ourselves. We feel our anger rise up and we feel the will to (1) act from anger, (2) the thoughts of anger, (3) the emotion of anger. We want to hurt somebody, or make them suffer, to make them pay. That is desire. That is ego. That is a problem. Most of us go right along with those behaviors and think it is okay. "If nobody saw me, it must be all right." We are not realizing the karma it is producing, or the way it is destroying us, spiritually, psychologically and physically.

The illnesses that people suffer today have their root in psychological problems. Everything is psychological. Nothing escapes that. People have ulcers because they have anger. People have aids because they have lust. People have cancer because they have lust. People have heart disease because they have emotional problems. The list is endless. All the diseases that humanity suffers from have their root in psychological problems. But if we have the courage to begin to change then we can start to change that karma, to change our selves, to change the course of our mechanical life and make it conscious.

To establish concentration is to control our attention through willpower, and in turn control our actions, to consciously and willfully control our behavior in all three brains.
Concentration is the conscious control and focus of willpower.

But who among us can consciously control our thoughts? Who can consciously control feelings?
Can you decide how to feel when someone curses at you, ridicules you, hates you? Can you choose to feel serene at that moment? Probably not - like most of us, you mechanically react with pain, with hate, with some form of suffering. Whether you react externally or not - there is a reaction in your mind.
In Gnosis we understand that it is feelings and thoughts that drive all physical action: so if we cannot control our thoughts and feelings, then we cannot guarantee the control of our actions.

To change this requires willpower, concentration, sincerity, courage and sacrifice.
-Gnostic teachings

"The Being and the ego are incompatible. The Being and the ego are like water and oil. They can never be mixed... The annihilation of the psychic aggregates (egos) can be made possible only by radically comprehending our errors through Meditation and by the evident Self-reflection of the Being."
-The Pistis Sophia Unveiled , Samael Aun Weor


Learn more read:

    -The Great Rebellion by Samael Aun Weor
    -The Revolution of the Dialectic by Samael Aun Weor
    -Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology by Samael Aun Weor