The creation of the Ego

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There was a time when the Ego did not exist.

Then came the time when the Ego was created.

After this there will come a new time,

where the Ego will cease to be

Most people know that when we experience an emotion, there is more to it than what we immediately experience. We may feel sad, but by exploring this feeling, we encounter our subconscious, our repressions, our traumas, and so on. So, there was an extra layer to the feeling, a layer that is made up of our personal subconscious and our personal history.

This additional layer has long been acknowledged. It is so widely accepted that we believe that comprehending our emotions necessitates delving beyond the feelings themselves to uncover the underlying factors that have given rise to them.

By understanding the deeper layers of an emotion, our insight into it increases.

However, what lies behind an emotion does not stop at the subconscious layer. There are additional, deeper, layers that will increase your insight into the emotion.

In the following chapters you will learn more about this.

A Journey to your past

In this chapter, you will learn about when the Ego, the Ego’s worldview and Life experience, were created. Let me start by taking you on a journey back in history, your own history. It may seem unnecessary (in relation to where you are right now in your life) to go back to a time when the Ego was first created, but as always, it is the past that puts the present into perspective.

So, sit back and enjoy the ride, back to when the first tentative signs of your Ego appeared and changed your whole world.

1. When the Ego Life experience first appeared

Humanity is evolving, and right now the focus is on the Ego and the self-awareness that it stands for. The Period we are currently in is referred to as the ‘Ego development period’, given the significant role the Ego plays during this period.

The first half of the Ego development period is centred around the growth of the Ego and your self-awareness, achieved through a separation from the ‘group’ (i.e., the world/community/humanity). This enables you to differentiate yourself from the group/world.

The latter half of the period focuses on the development of the Ego/self-awareness through integration with the group/world, culminating in a new identity and a new understanding of yourself.

At present, you are halfway through the Ego development period, where the task at hand is to define yourself through both separation and integration. This presents unique challenges, particularly because it involves both the Ego and the Heart.

The Ego came to be due to a desire within us to perceive ourselves and the world in the exact manner that the Ego facilitates. If we consider more primitive beings, such as monkeys, they do not possess an Ego or self-awareness to the same degree as us. However, we do see certain indications of self-awareness in these animals, as evidenced by their ability to assume different roles within a group. Experiments have also demonstrated that they recognize their reflection in a mirror as their own, and that they are capable of experiencing emotions such as sadness or joy. Thus, the Ego is not restricted to humans. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that it underwent a significant development in Homo sapiens, as we became prepared for a new Life experience and a new self-understanding.

The Ego represents a very distinct and specific way of experiencing life, and we must question how this Life experience came into existence and what exactly characterizes it.

The Ego is associated with the third major development period (Figure 17). The Ego did not exist prior to this period. Thus, in earlier periods, our ‘self-awareness’ was of an entirely different nature. Today, we wouldn’t even refer to it as ‘self-awareness’ or self-consciousness, but rather ‘self-unconsciousness’.

We are accustomed to perceiving self-consciousness as defined by the Ego Life experience, a Life experience that is characterized, among other things, by an ability to distinguish ourselves from the external world and everything in it.

Before the Ego Life experience began to shape our existence, there was the Pre-Ego Life experience. During the time when this Life experience was dominant, we did not perceive ourselves as individual beings with unique needs and objectives. We also lacked a dualistic perspective on life, and the concept of ‘emotions’ as we understand it today was absent.

However, as the Pre-Ego Life experience evolved, we gradually reached a stage in our development where these experiences accumulated to a ‘critical mass’. This accumulation triggered an initiation, paving the way for the next Life experience.

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Figure 17.  Our present place in the evolution

Each of the two evolutions can be divided into 7 development periods, where the superconscious evolution is half a development period 'further ahead' compared to the conscious evolution. Right now, consciousness is predominantly affected by Pre-Ego/Ego energies, and the superconsciousness of Ego/Heart energies. However, the Heart energies have also started to enter the consciousness. A crucial event at the beginning of the Ego period is the influx of superconscious Ego and Heart energies, which initiate the creation of the inner structures of the Ego-personality.

The ‘Ego initiation’ marks the beginning of the Ego period, creating the first spark of Ego consciousness. It’s the first realization that you are not identical to the group you belong to.

This realization gives birth to the first ‘Ego desire’ - a desire to understand yourself in relation to the outside world and to be acknowledged by it. This desire continues to play a crucial role in your life.

Each Life experience has its unique ‘language’. For instance, the language of the Pre-Ego was the ‘joy’ of being part of a group. Now, the Pre-Ego is gradually fading away from our Life experience, just as the Ego and its language (i.e., emotions) will one day vanish from our lives, to be replaced by the ‘language of the Heart’.

It might seem strange to think that the way you feel right now will eventually cease, but it is a natural part of our evolution.

Everything started with an initiation

The Ego, or Ego consciousness/Life experience, is not merely an extension of Pre-Ego consciousness, just as Heart consciousness is not merely an extension of Ego consciousness. Instead, it represents something fundamentally different. It’s a new Life experience. It’s akin to relocating to a new country. It’s like learning a new language!

The Ego initiation transported you to a ‘new land’, the realm of Ego consciousness, where you had to learn to speak and comprehend a new language. This language is dominated by emotions, by ‘me and you’ instead of ‘we’, a language rooted in the fear of losing ‘me’, and on a quest to discover more of ‘me’.

It all began with you being overwhelmed by the urge to explore this new land.

An Initiation is not a ‘mysterious’ event, but it refers to an event that signifies a fundamentally new way of experiencing the world and yourself. It is not intended as an ‘explosion of consciousness’, where you suddenly 'know everything’, but rather as a process that can take time.

However, it is a quantum leap in the sense that you catch a glimpse of a world that you did not know existed.

I use the term ‘initiation’ to underscore that I’m not referring to an evolutionary process that merely represent another step on the staircase that we are already standing on. Instead, it’s a completely new staircase, offering a fundamentally new perspective on life.

During the ‘Ego Initiation’, you consciously experience a new world for the first time, a world where you discover yourself as a unique individual. Once you recognize your individuality, your destiny is sealed, and you now have a new life objective. You must discover yourself. There’s no alternative. There’s no turning back. You are forever transformed!

First, you’re going to lose — and then you’re going to gain – yourself

Imagine that you are traveling back in time and that you are standing on the threshold of this new ‘Ego world’. The first thing that happens is that you lose something, and the reason is that before something new can manifest itself, you must let go of the old. This is what we can call an initiation-rule. First, you need to lose, and then you will find – not what you lost, but something else.

Losing something that you’re comfortable with is not pleasant, so why is it required? It’s not to inflict pain on you. Rather, it is because it creates a prerequisite in you to receive the new energy in an irreversible way, that is, in a way where it fully integrates into your being. Thus, the phase where you have lost the old, but not yet gained the new, is a difficult period, but something is created out of it, the prerequisite to receive new energies.

When you enter the Ego period, it is your Pre-Ego identity that you must let go of before you can embrace the Ego identity.

In doing so, you lose something that is extremely familiar and safe to you. You lose your home. It happened when the Ego entered your life scene, and it will happen continuously throughout your development. However, at the beginning of a new period of development, it is particularly pronounced.

The void creates EL, a driving force for the Ego

At the threshold to the Ego period, Ego consciousness does not exist yet, but you have acquired the first taste for the Ego and your individuality, which has sparked a strong desire for it. You have seen the first sign of your individual self, and you miss it more than anything. You feel lonely without it. This is the first sign of EL.

I have termed this mother complex ‘Existential Loneliness’ (EL), and because EL at the onset of the Ego period pertains to Ego-consciousness, I sometimes call it ‘Ego-EL’ to distinguish it from ‘Heart-EL’, which will emerge later. This mother complex is vital for the evolution of the Ego, which is why its creation is so crucial. The formation of EL (‘Ego-EL’) jumpstarts the development of the Ego, and as long as the Ego is still evolving, EL remains a part of our being.

A key motivation for the Ego’s motivation to move is to reduce the impact of EL on your life (i.e., the Ego acts to compensate for the inner loneliness that EL represents).

The Ego is something that is created by the development forces. A conflict with these forces results in pain and meaninglessness, while living in harmony with them leads to happiness and a sense of purpose.

Particularly in the first half of the Ego period, the development forces encourage you to build your Ego, and when you live your life in a manner that facilitates this, your life appears meaningful.

In the void between the old (Pre-Ego) and the new (Ego) identity/Life experience, you are made ready to irreversibly receive the new Ego Life experience. You are being readied for the initiation, that is, to perceive the world in a fundamentally new way, a way you were previously unaware of. It’s as if, equipped with a new sensory apparatus, you are sensing a new world.

An initiation introduces you to a new and ‘higher’ way of experiencing life. It begins by first removing your old Life experience, your old foundation (and the security it provides). The new foundation you are about to experience should not be built on top of your old one.

It’s akin to demolishing an old building and constructing a new one. This means, however, that for a while there are no buildings at all!

The new building represents a new Life experience and a new development structure (or development structure).

A new development structure

If you look at Figure 17, you can see that at the beginning of the Ego period, the superconscious Ego energies are peaking. Furthermore, at this time, the Ego energies had existed in the superconscious for half a development period. This means that the individuality, which you now catch the first glimpse of in your consciousness at the beginning of the Ego period, has already existed for a considerable time in your superconscious.

The Void

When you go from one Life experience to a fundamentally different Life experience, the first thing you are subjected to is a ‘void’. I call it ‘a void’ because it is like a ‘no-where land’ where you belong to neither the old nor the new Life experience. This creates strong reactions, and much of what is going on right now in the world is a reaction to the void that has appeared at the beginning of the new development period (the Heart period). Our reaction to this void is insecurity, a longing after the previous Life experience (to feel safe), and a frustration that this previous Life experience can no longer give you security and fulfillment. All this is normal and can been seen as the contractions before a birth to a new Life experience.

At the onset of the Ego period, we didn’t possess the development structure we have today, and as a result, our Life experience was quite different. We didn’t possess the consciousness and the subconscious that we have today. This implies that the Ego Life experience, which ‘poured down’ from your superconscious at the beginning of the Ego development period, didn’t align with the Pre-Ego development structure that you possessed at that time.

Therefore, before the new Ego Life experience could start showing you ‘a new world’, your development structure had to undergo a significant transformation.

Thus, at the beginning of the Ego development period, a new consciousness was created, with an Ego at its core. A subconscious was formed, and a solid boundary was established between the consciousness and the subconscious, so that anything that could threaten your consciousness could be concealed in the subconscious. Without this boundary, neither the conscious nor the subconscious part of you could be sustained – and this still holds true.

Under the pressure of the new ‘Ego energies’ from the superconscious, the Ego-development structure began to evolve into the structure we are familiar with today, the structure that we take for granted and refer to as our psyche or personality.

A new Life experience

At the onset of the Ego period, the new superconscious Ego energies influence the Life themes. As I’ve mentioned, it’s the superconscious energies that activate the Life themes and determine their expression. At this point, the Life themes will assume an expression much similar to the archetypes described by C. G. Jung.

For half a development period, the superconscious energies have activated Life themes with the Ego-energy, mixed with Pre-Ego energies. Now (at the beginning of the Ego period), for the first time in your development, the superconscious Pre-Ego energies cease to exist. This causes the Life themes to change their expression towards what you are experiencing today.

Let me summarize some of the things that occur at the beginning of the Ego period:

1. New Life themes are activated, and a new development force takes over your life, one that stands for dualism and individuality.

2. New structures in your person are created, such as the structure we today call the subconscious.

3. Your new consciousness is being influenced by the powerful superconscious Ego energy, that can finally be received by your consciousness.

4. This ‘explosion’ of consciousness initiates a deep desire to experience your individuality. This first glimpse of your individuality leaves you ‘frustrated’, since you are not yet able to fully comprehend it with your current consciousness.

5. A mother complex is born. You are homeless, in a void, and in conflict with the activated Life themes, because they do not yet find an expression in your life. This homelessness, as well as the conflict with the new Life themes that are very powerful, gives rise to a frustration that, combined with a deep loneliness and lack of individuality, creates the ‘mother complex’ that I call Ego-EL, a complex that will constitute a core element of the Ego Life experience, and help you reach your individuality.

A feeling is a Life experience

We have seen that at the beginning of the Ego period, you do not possess a subconscious that is separate from your consciousness, and consequently you have ability to experience emotions as we know them today.

Therefore, when you are exposed to this Life experience from your superconscious, it is as if a completely alien experience has taken root in you, one that you do not know where to ‘place’.

On the other hand, it is something that you sense exists within yourself and that you feel strongly attracted to. The experience calls to you, and for an entire development period you will make every effort to answer this call. You still do it, every single day of your life!

3. An Initiation – a new conscious and superconscious world

The initiation that initiated the Ego period affected a being who was unaware of the existence of individuality and self-consciousness, a being who did not understand what duality is, and how it feels to be separated from the world/group. This being knew nothing about what we call the Ego.

This being was perfectly content being part of the collective, i.e. the group, and felt complete satisfaction when the group thrived, when the stomach was full, when the body was warm, etc.

However, as we have seen, a latent Life experience in the superconsciousness had formed, pushing to break through to the consciousness.

Something was also taking place in the consciousness, as the development structure was slowly changing, and would soon be capable of handling the first spark of this latent superconscious Life experience.

Another crucial aspect (as you can see in Figure 17) was that although the Pre-Ego Life experience will continue to be part of the overall Life experience for another half period of development, it will no longer evolve in the superconscious, and as a result, it will also start to fade in the consciousness.

This means that the development structure that facilitates the Pre-Ego Life experience will begin to decay and eventually disappear, while something else will take its place.

As soon as the Ego-development structure starts to form, the latent Ego Life experience in the superconscious pours down into it, where it will subject it to resonance activation. This affects the individual at its core, but it also stimulates the development of the Ego-development structure.

Thus, at the beginning of the Ego period, there is a initiation process that fundamentally alters your experience of the world. It initiates a development that focuses on the Ego, and on a world that has the Ego at its centre.

Broadly speaking, one can divide the Ego development period into two halves. The first half is characterized by a simultaneous influence of the Pre-Ego development period, whereas in the second half the individual is also influenced by the Heart development period.

Thus, the first half of the Ego period is characterized by separation from the group, and the last half is characterized by developing a conscious unity with the group (humanity).

You are returning home to the group, but as a wiser being.

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The first half of the Ego period

is characterized by an inner and outer separation,

the separation from the group

and the separation of the subconscious from the consciousness.

The second half of the Ego period

is characterized by the conscious unity with the group

and the merging of your consciousness with your subconscious,

which leads to the end of both the inner and outer dualism