A Quote by Thomas Leonard

Ego is good. — © Thomas Leonard
Ego is good.
Part of ego is displaying the ego. I've got ego, and I think I'm really good. But maybe I fall down in trying to sell it to people.
"Understand the process of the ego. How does the ego live? The ego lives in the tension between what you are and what you want to be. A wants to be B - the ego is created out of this very tension. How does the ego die? The ego dies by you accepting what you are. That you say, "I am fine as I am, where I am is good. I will remain just as existence keeps me. Its will is my will."
If you have a strong ego [and] something good happens to an acquaintance of yours, [it] makes you feel bad. It's called envy. ... The ego thinks something has been taken away from you because somebody else has received something good. It's a complete illusion, but that's the madness of the ego.
Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don't go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.
The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.
To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do - bad or good.
It's good that I put my personal ego aside. My basketball ego was, 'Why we negotiating?' But my personal ego didn't take it personal. I put my personal ego aside a little bit.
The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious. When you observe the ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.
The ego is your enemy, not your friend. It is the ego that gives you wounds and hurts you. It is the ego that makes you violent, angry, jealous, competitive. It is the ego that is continuously comparing and feeling miserable.
Ego is the greatest hurdle for your ascent. You see that ego is at a place where you have to just cross to go to Sahasrara, and to break Sahasrara is very easy otherwise. But if there is ego, you are already lost in that ego.
To test a man's ego, simply ask him a complicated question. A good person will never be afraid to admit they don't know the answer to something. And only when a man has fully dismantled his ego, can he begin to be truly good.
"The ego is created by the rift. When you are fighting, the ego comes in; when you are not fighting, the ego cannot come in. Ego is a tension. If you want the ego, then divide yourself as fully as possible - become two persons. That is what is happening to many people, that is what has happened to whole of humanity. Everybody has become two persons: one voice says "Do this," the other voice says "Don't do that" - then the ego arises. Out of friction ego arises, and ego is very intoxicating; it makes you unconscious. This is the whole mechanism."
The ego's form of happiness can't exist without unhappiness. The ego will be happy when something good happens but unhappy when it ends.
We human beings are born in ego, live in ego, are brought up in ego and will die in ego. We need a certain degree 0f vision when we live in this world for achieving and attaining our goals in life.
Happiness is threatening and misery is safe - safe for the ego. Ego can exist only in misery and through misery. Ego is an island surrounded by hell; happiness is threatening to the ego, to the very existence of the ego. Happiness rises like a sun and the ego disappears, evaporates like a dewdrop on the grass leaf.
Remember: ego can create misery, ego can create anguish, ego can create hate, ego can create jealousy. Ego can never become a vehicle for the divine, it can never become the passage for the beyond.
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