What is the Ego Mind?

Ego-mind is the emotional mind or the self-image we have about ourselves and
others. We all have an image of ourselves. Its basic approach is emotional
either relating to the past or future. Its basic nature is pain, separateness, and
a sense of lack. It always drives thoughts, feelings and behaviour
corresponding to our image, perception and belief and will be attached with
some sorts of pain, conflict, and sense of lack in different degrees. It always
relates to past and future as realities and reacts emotionally i.e., having
worries related to the past or anxiety of the future. The Ego-mind is always in
conflict mode and its attention is not in the present moment or now. This ego-
mind is our driving force almost all the time and hence we are not able to
think, feel, and behave rationally and independently with ’free-will’. It has two
parts, conscious mind (not consciousness which we address later) and the sub-
conscious mind.

Conscious Mind
It refers to that part of our emotional mind or image which we are aware of.
We have many roles and corresponding images in the society and family and
we are identified by these roles and images. We believe that ‘’I’’ means the
totality of these roles and images and related thoughts, feeling, behaviour, and
desires. We are or can be conscious/aware of it. The Conscious mind wants to
fulfil a lot of its unlimited desires like happiness, mental peace, health, wealth,
positions, good relationships etc. through these roles but the fact is that we
never really fulfil these desires completely at any point of time and the end-
result will be the opposite – we are never fully happy, contended healthy,
peaceful, stress-free etc. Though many people have achieved a lot in life in
terms of comforts, wealth, position etc., the end result is always the same.
Most of the time they are in some sort of pain, fear, conflict, sufferings, stress
or sense of lack- never fully content or happy. We are spending lot of time,
energy, and money to achieve the above desires or goals of our conscious
mind but we fail miserably. Some sort of mental pain is the basic nature and
part of our lives and as everybody always has it in differing degrees, it is taken
as natural or common. But this part of the mind which we think we are and aware of, is only about 5% of our mind. That is why we are not able to control
the negative patterns of thought, emotions or behaviour though we are aware
of it and want to change. For example, a person who gets angry frequently is
aware of his behaviour, but despite his best efforts he is not able to control or
change this behaviour. Let us see the reasons.

Sub-Conscious Mind
Sub-Conscious Mind refers to that part of the ego-mind of which we are not
aware of. We are not aware of how it originated, operates, generates
thoughts, emotions, drive our behavioural patterns, manifest and drive our
personality. This awareness will give answers to many of our questions, why
are not able to stop our negative thoughts, emotions, and behavioural
patterns, and who we are. It is estimated by scientists that about 95% of our
thoughts, feelings and behaviours are driven by the sub-conscious mind.
The Sub-conscious mind is the foundation of our personality. It includes our
belief system, perception pattern, basic self-image and perception about self
and others. Up to the age of about seven, children perceive experiences
without analytical capacity, meaning all experiences are recorded as felt or
experienced without being aware of the intention behind or rationale behind
various experiences or happenings. For example, a child being scolded by
parents may believe that something is wrong with him or her and think ‘I am
inferior to others’ which is why I am scolded. He/she is not able to analytically
understand the good intention of parents. By the age of 7, a child experiences
different types of emotions from various experiences, draw conclusions and
forms self images from these experiences which become the basis of his
personality. These experiences of emotions are deposited like an energy
storage in the mind and becomes foundation of the ego-mind. The
experiences happening thereafter which have similar resonance of the
emotional experience already stored will trigger the stored emotions and will
add to earlier deposits of experiences and emotions and get it strengthened.
With the same earlier example, we can say that a child scolded even after 7
years or later will have the same emotional experience and add to the
emotional storage. As it is the major portion of our mind, it becomes the
dominant driving force of our patterns of thought, emotions and behaviour in
future. It operates like a default computer program which functions
automatically and drives the system as programmed. That is why it is not
practically possible to control or change the thoughts, emotions and

behavioural pattern in the normal course as per the desires of our conscious
mind. For example, a short-tempered person wants to change his behaviour
but in spite of their best desires and efforts he is not able to change it.
More insights available from counselling sessions, training programmes and
book on MIND ENGINEERING.