Our Self-Created Image

At times we hear people speaking about another person as having a "big ego" or being "self-centered." As Eckhart Tolle teaches, the ego

consists of thought and emotion, of a bundle of memories you identify with as "me and my story," of habitual roles you play without knowing it, of collective identifications such as nationality, religion, race, social class, or political allegiance. It also contains personal identifications, not only with possessions, but also with opinions, external appearance, long-standing resentments, or concepts of yourself as better than or not as good as others, as a success or failure.¹

According to Beatrice Bruteau, our ego consciousness is

that which judges everything in our experience according to whether it is good or bad for me as a private, separate individual, rather than according to whether it is good or bad in itself, or within the context of some greater whole, or from God's point of view. It is the consciousness that identifies us with our description, with all the things that can be said about us in comparison with others.²

Our ego is our derived, subjective self-created image of ourselves, especially in comparison with others. The ego is conditioned over time through our thoughts, emotions, experiences, who or what we identify ourself with, our perceptions of what others think about us, especially those significant others in our lives such as our parents, peers, or teachers, and our construction of what we perceive is reality.

What image have you created of your self? Does your image comport with reality?


¹ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (New York: Plume, 2005), 60.

² Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World (Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2002), 22.