Click here to go to Main Page
If you like this book and are capable of buying it, kindly buy it on Amazon and kindly write a review about the book. Your purchase helps us provide more and more free content to needy people and your review helps other people make their decision about the book.
Click here to Visit our Facebook Page
Your emotional plane doesn’t deal with numbers, data or with concepts like profit and loss; and it only deals with feelings and emotions. All it wants is to have more and more of this feeling which is related to the taste of this food item and hence it may keep pushing your body to give it more of this feeling, which means to keep eating more of this food item. As a result, you may keep eating more and suffer discomfort later on.
Let’s now introduce ego and conscience one by one to this equation and let’s see what happens. Suppose you have high ego and accordingly your body, intellect and emotions are controlled by your ego. If such is the case, you may find it difficult to eat more of this food item even if you’re an emotionally dominated person and you really want to eat this food item in significant quantity. This is because your ego doesn’t draw pleasure from things, people or situations on merit; and it gets its pleasure from things, people or situations; based on how worthy it finds them in the short run as well as in the long run.
Since your ego doesn’t have an independent system at its disposal in order to work; and it depends on your body, intellect and emotions to get what it wants; it tries to make sure that all these entities work in a way that they are able to work longer and that too in a better way; until it gets fixed on something or someone, in which case it may abuse any one or more than one of these entities.
You may be surprised to know that ego can also do most of the jobs that your conscience can do but their intentions behind doing these jobs are different and accordingly, the net results may also be different, when the bigger picture is considered. Looking at the present case, your ego may not see any benefit in eating a lot and in fact, it may assign negative value to this act as doing so may disturb your body. If that happens, your ego may not be able to draw as much work from your body as it wants and hence it may try to stop your heart from having this desire.
In order to do so, it may start using your intellect in a way that it may keep giving you more and more reasons to avoid eating this food item in big quantities. The memories and other data stored on your subconscious mind may also be used for this purpose and hence you may be reminded of previous incidents when you did so and suffered later on. However, this is not all and your ego may directly influence your heart also; as ego is the biggest trickster in your entire existence and it has got millions of ways to exploit your body, intellect and emotions; as and when it wants.
For instance, it may use your intellect and it may hit your heart where it matters the most for your heart. It means your ego may bring up a reference how your girlfriend who you may love a lot and love comes from heart; dislikes this habit of yours and hence you must quit it. Since your girlfriend may matter more for your heart than this food item; your heart may feel pressurized not to request this food item in big quantities. If your girlfriend is also attending this party along with you; the pressure may become even bigger as your ego now has the presence of your girlfriend and it can use this presence to its advantage.
Though your girlfriend may be in a good mood today and she may not have any idea of disturbing you when you eat as she may think that she should let you do what you want to do at times; your ego may project so many imaginary fears about how she may get upset if she sees you doing this act again. Pressurized by the situation as well as by the facts, your heart may surrender and you may choose not to eat this item beyond a healthy quantity though a part of your heart may keep crying for more; as doing so is its natural job.
Similarly, it may create many other such reasons and it may finally succeed in keeping you away from this habit. Doesn’t it sound good that your ego can also take care of your body, intellect and heart? If your ego can do most of the things that your conscience can do and it can also help maintain harmony between these three entities; how come your conscience is your best friend and your ego is your worst enemy?
This is due to the reason that your ego does all this at high costs as well as with selfish intentions, which means it doesn’t care about your body or your heart in this case, all it cares for is that your body should not suffer on account of acts which bring no benefit to your ego. As soon as the same act offers some type of benefit to your ego; it may switch sides and when that happens, it may encourage your intellect to support your heart; and your heart as well as your intellect supported by your ego may force your body to engage in this act.
Taking an example, suppose there’s a competition at this party and this competition says that whoever eats the maximum amount of a particular food item in one go, where this food item may be the one you like a lot; will win the competition and will receive a prize. If that happens, the entire equation will change and your ego which looked like your best friend till now; will turn your worst enemy. Your ego knows that you like this item and you can eat it a lot; which means you can bring this prize for it. It should be noted that most of the competitions are created and enjoyed by ego and ego alone.
Let’s try to analyze this situation and try to find out what is happening within you. Starting with your heart; it likes this food item and all it cares for is to have it more and more. Hence it may cast its vote in favor of this act; not for the prize but for the feeling of joy it gets while eating this food item. Your ego on the other hand has got nothing to do with this food item and all it wants is to win this prize. This is because winning this prize will ensure that among all the people present at the party; you’re the one who can do this job.
It means you have something special that the others don’t have and hence this special ability may bring you prize as well as appreciation from a number of people present at the party as most people appreciate the winners in any types of competition. Attention, appreciation, recognition, distinction, control or authority of some type; are the things your ego loves the most and hence it may at once cast its vote in favor of this act. This is the time it won’t care for your body because it’ll do so only when there’s no benefit for it in an act and it can compromise the well being of any of these entities; if it sees benefit for it.
Looking at your intellect, it is neither interested in the feeling of joy as it can’t feel anything to start with; nor is it interested in authority or appreciation because your intellect in its natural state doesn’t feed on these things and they’re dealt with by your ego. However, it may care for the value of the prize as numbers, material values and relative comparisons between values to find profit and loss fall under its domain.
Suppose the value of the prize is decent in a way which influences your intellect. It means your intellect may start calculating as to how much discomfort your body may suffer later on if you eat a lot versus the material value of the prize. As your ego is also influencing your intellect, it may reach a conclusion that the value of the prize is worth giving this competition a try. Hence your intellect my also vote in favor of this competition and as you can see, all three of these entities may agree to this act though their reasons may be different.
This leaves your body which is the poor one in this case and which is going to suffer later on. However, as your intellect, emotions and ego lie on the second level; they’re in commanding position and hence they can force your body to do things which it may not feel comfortable with, as we’ll find later in this example.
An interesting thing to note here is that if your girlfriend is also attending this party and she also has significant amount of ego; the chances of which are high; even her ego may exploit her. It means that though in general, she may be against this overeating habit of yours; she may surprisingly support your decision to eat a lot through this competition and in fact, she may even encourage you to do so; before you’ve yourself decided to do it.
All this happens because of her ego. In the past, if she disliked this habit of yours and she tried to stop you from engaging in it through any possible means she had; she did so on account of ego and not on account of love. This is because pure love will never try to control the lover, unless it is corrupted by the ego which enjoys controlling each and everyone around you. If she was controlled more by love and less by ego, she may have told you that this is a bad habit and she may even have tried to convince you to quit it; and that’s all.
It means she might not have tried to forcibly stop you from engaging in this habit by supplying intellectual logics, through emotional pressure or even through mental torture when she found you experiencing physical discomfort after eating a lot. It means she might tell you again and again in a complaining way that she tried to keep you away from eating a lot but you didn’t listen to her and look what discomfort you’re going through now.
Kindly pay attention that the primary focus is not on your discomfort and this focus is on what she told you, what you didn’t listen to and how you suffered by not listening to her. It means the primary focus is on her as well as on her advice and your physical discomfort is just being used as a tool by her ego. Next time when you tried to eat a lot in her presence, she might have used this reference to control you that last time you didn’t listen to her and you suffered. Therefore, you should listen to her this time. Similar things may have happened related to many other situations or habits of yours; and she may have advised you against them; primarily because she didn’t like them and not because they’re bad for you.
However, the situation has changed now and accordingly her definition of good and bad has changed. She knows you can eat a lot and she knows you can win this competition, though doing so may once again result in physical discomfort later on. As her ego may get focused on the appreciation you may receive if you win this competition and on the pride she may have by virtue of choosing you as her lover; your physical discomfort may be ignored altogether. In fact, she may not think about it even once as all she wants is for you to win this competition.
This is how your ego can control you, this is how it can corrupt even the most beautiful emotions like love and this is how it can twist the definition of fair in the opposite direction; as and when it sees benefits. Kindly pay attention that I’ve used the phrase ‘choosing you as her lover’ instead of using the phrase ‘being your lover’; and I’ve done it on purpose.
The reason behind this phrase is that a person with high ego will almost always think he’s chosen you as his lover and your wish to choose him becomes passive. A person with significant but not high ego will think that he’s chosen you and you’ve also chosen him. A person with significant conscience will think that you’ve chosen him and he’s grateful to you for doing so. However, a person with high conscience will think that love has chosen both of you in order to happen and none of you have chosen the other. It should be noted that your ego can only take pride in something your lover has or achieves; if it is convinced that you’ve chosen him and not otherwise.
This is because the major percentage of pride through one such act of your lover doesn’t come due to his act and it rather comes through your ability to know in advance that your lover is capable of achieving or doing something special. Hence when he achieves something; your ego feeds on this feeling that it knew well in advance that the investment made by it in this person would pay off and look it has paid off. Hence it may reach the conclusion that it was smart enough to invest in a person who has something special about him. A perfect trader of love with all the focus on more and more profits; is what your ego can make you into.
Hence your girlfriend may also encourage you to enter this competition as that gives her ego a reason to grow because she can take pride in the fact that she chose you as her lover or even in the fact that it was she who knew that you’d win this competition and hence she encouraged you to enter it. Another interesting fact related to this event is that the reason she supports you for entering this competition is the pride that your victory may bring for her ego; and the reason why she encourages you to enter this competition even before you make up your mind; is to have yet another type of satisfaction for her ego.
If you win this competition, she may start telling people that she knew in advance that you’d win and that is why she encouraged you to enter this competition, even before you were able to decide on this by yourself. It means she knows you better than you, she knows what’s good for you in any situation and whenever you act on her advice; you end up benefitting. You see, though the physical prize has been won by you in case you win; her ego has won her even bigger prizes as she’s the one responsible for your victory and you may not have made it without her. Don’t we as humans have personalities much more complex than anyone of us can even imagine : )
The game is not over and a lot may still happen as you engage in this competition. During the competition, a stage may be reached when you may start realizing that you’re closer to reach your physical limit of eating and this feeling may start reflecting through your body language, whether you know it or not. At this stage, two egos may work against your body; one of which is yours and the second one belongs to your lover.
When it comes to your ego; it hates nothing more than losing or apologizing and hence it may keep pushing your body to eat more, even if it feels discomfort. Looking at your lover, she may also realize through your body language that you’re closer to reaching your limit. This is because she’s spent a significant amount of time with you and the people who spend a lot of time with you may almost always be able to predict the true meaning of a subconscious physical expression given by you in any situation; through their experiences of the similar types in past.
This is why your family members or your lover may interpret your subtle or subconscious expressions; even when other people may not even notice them in the first place. For example, whenever you reach your physical eating limit, you start changing your seating postures in order to make more space available, you start tapping the table with your hands in order to encourage yourself or you start smiling in order to convey to other people that everything is fine when it is not. Though a stranger may not know the reason you’re tapping the table in one such situation; people close to you know it through experiences as you’ve done it many times and the result has always been your inability to eat more.
Hence your lover may also realize from your body language that you’re reaching your eating limit and this is when her ego may also start pushing you to eat more as her ego also doesn’t want you to lose. This is because if you lose this competition, you’re not the only loser and she may also become a loser, at least according to her ego as it may then feel bad and it may even start suggesting her that the decision to chose you as lover was probably not the best decision she made.
However, it is just a suggestion of small quantum and it alone is not capable of producing significant results as the decision to continue or discontinue a relationship depends on the resultant of a large number of positive as well as negative opinions or ratings in favor of the lover as well as against him. As the resultant starts shifting towards negativity, which means your ego feels like losing more than gaining, it may encourage you to get out of this relationship and find a profitable one. If the gains at any time are greater than the losses, such losses may not break your relationship though they may certainly cause arguments and resentments.
Hence your lover may also push you to eat more and the problem with her ego may become even bigger if she encouraged you to participate in this competition before you made up your mind. If that is the case, her ego is much more attached to the result of this competition because it is she who pushed you into this competition and accordingly, it is she who’ll win or lose; in her own mind. Therefore, she may start encouraging you to eat more due to which, you have two egos working against your body; and both these egos are very important for you.
In fact, when your girlfriend starts encouraging you after realizing that you’re physical capacity is reaching, her body language may also reflect the subconscious expressions which say that she or you as a team are about to lose and she doesn’t want it to happen. No one else may read those expressions but you do read them through your experience because you witness the same expressions when you see her in situations when she’s likely to lose and she hates losing.
Therefore, you may understand her expressions and this is what may put even more pressure on you because if you stop eating more, you’ll not only lose this competition; you’ll also upset your lover and the amount of confidence she has in you may decrease, which may cause problems for your relationship in future. You see, how much is at stake when you’re engaging in a simple competition like this one?
Have you ever noticed that whatever job you may be doing, like a physical activity; you may tend to do it with more energy as your lover approaches or as someone you want to impress approaches? You do so because on subconscious level; your ego knows that her ego will assign more points to more energy and hence your equation with this person may become more favorable for you; whatever it may be at that stage. It means if it is your lover, she may start attaching more value to you and if it is a girl you want to impress, she may also attach value to you and she may start taking interest in you because you have something special which can serve as a tool to satisfy her ego; from time to time.
Pressurized by these two egos, you may keep eating beyond your physical limits and though you may feel strong physical discomfort after eating more; suppose you finally win this competition. As soon as that happens, your ego as well as her ego may divert the focus from physical discomfort and it may start enjoying the fruits of this victory. Your ego may satisfy it through the prize as well as through the attention and her ego may satisfy it through the choice it made when attaching to you as well as to this competition.
Your body may be suffering like hell but the two egos under consideration are joyful like anything. You’re busy receiving appreciations and she’s busy telling other people that she’s the one who knew you’d win before you knew. Even if your condition worsens and you have to take medicines as well as rest for a couple of days after this competition, these egos are strong enough to console you that this much discomfort is not a high price to pay for the victory. Even your girlfriend may tell you that you did a great job and she may take good care of you, while you’re not well.
She’s the same person who advised you against eating a lot and whenever you suffered by eating a lot despite her advice; she added insult to injury by saying so many negative things to you. Why is it so that your sufferings are the same or even more but her behavior has reversed? The reason is that during all those times, you acted against her advice and that is why she took pleasure in taunting you when you suffered, so that you might know the value of her advice.
In the present case, you’ve acted on her advice and that is why she’s comforting you. Kindly note that if she sees you in discomfort the next day; her ego has left her with no other choice but to say it is fine. This is because if she says this is bad and you shouldn’t have entered that competition; her advice also becomes wrong. If that happens, the amount of value you attach to her advice in future may reduce as she has a tendency to go wrong also. As you devalue her advice or opinion, the amount of control she may have over you also reduces.
This is due to the reason that most people in this day and age try to control the ones they love or they think they love; through hidden methods like intellectual or emotional tricks and they don’t use direct methods. For example, most people won’t tell their lovers that they want to control them and the only way their lovers can keep having a relationship with them is to do what they say. This doesn’t happen often as people are smart enough to realize that no one may agree to have a relationship on this condition.
Accordingly, indirect methods are used where you convey to the other person that whatever you’re advising them to do or not do is because he’ll benefit from it and there is no other intention. Since you love him, his benefit is primary for you and that is why you’re taking all this pain to make sure that he benefits. If he listens to you and acts upon your advice; your purpose is served as you’ve controlled him in the name of love.
On the other hand, if he doesn’t listen to you, an argument may start and your statements may still convey that you want the best for him, that is why you advise him and whenever he goes against one such advice and faces problems; it hurts you a lot. Hence you may try to convey that you want his well being more than he wants and that is why he should listen to you, more than he listens to himself even. You’ve learnt a better way to control your lover, in the name of working or advising for his welfare. Many of us do this and then we call it love : )
In reality, all you’re trying to do is to control your lover so that he may do what you want him to do and he may stay away from doing what you don’t want him to do. Going back to the example, you may suffer from even more physical discomfort in this case than you usually do as you ate a lot more this time; your own ego as well as your lover or so to say, her ego is justifying this act.
The result is the same which means physical discomfort and accordingly, she should have treated you the same like she does when something like this happens, but she’s doing the opposite? As you can understand now; you went against her advice on all those occasions whereas you acted upon her advice on this occasion and this is what makes all the difference. It means what you do is not as important for her as the fact whether you do it by going against her advice or by acting on her advice.
Since her advice which is the control factor generated by her ego; is in favor of eating a lot this time; you receive praise for the same act that usually brings you trouble from her side. This leads us to the conclusion that what she wants is more important than whether it is beneficial for you or not in reality. It further means that the control factor remains dominant over this relationship and this is why it is trade and it is not love. You see, how surprisingly can things behave at the bottom; when they appear so good on the surface?
It should be noted that most of this is happening in the domain of subconscious mind and hence neither you nor your lover may have conscious knowledge that this entire act has been performed to satisfy your egos; at the cost of making your body suffer. It means she may not even know that she’s tried to control you through this act and even you may not feel it because everything is happening in the realm of the hidden; the subconscious mind.
Coming to the second option, let’s consider that you have high conscience instead of having high ego; and see what happens here. Since your conscience is controlling your body, intellect and emotions now; the first thing which is bound to happen is harmony. As a result, it may stop your heart from pushing your body to eat more and more of this food item as doing so may cause discomfort to your body and hence the harmony may be disturbed. Your intellect may also be used by your conscience and the end result may once again be the same, which means you choose not to eat this food item beyond the point where it may cause physical discomfort later on.
Hence both your ego as well as your conscience may deliver the same result in this situation but the cost paid for their service is different and this is where everything changes. Your conscience may not convince you to abstain from eating beyond a point because it wants to accomplish some plans through your body, like your ego does. Your conscience does so because maintaining harmony in your body is its job and there’s nothing else to it. Hence your ego offers its services at high cost whereas your conscience offers its services for free.
Looking at the way your ego and conscience do this job; your ego may pressurize you, blackmail you or even force your heart to stay out of this act as these are the weapons your ego is equipped with. Your ego is exceptionally good at putting you as well as the others under fear or greed in order to get what it wants. Hence it may succeed in accomplishing this job but its ways are negative and the costs are high.
Your conscience on the other hand works on the method of harmony through awareness as well as through mutual agreement. Hence it may guide your body, intellect and heart in a much better way than your ego does; because the conscience ensures that there’s something for each one of these entities, which may satisfy them. On the other hand, your ego doesn’t care about any of these entities and all it cares for is what it wants and in order to get it, your ego can keep abusing any one or even all three of these entities; throughout your life.
For instance, in the present example; your ego finds no benefit in eating this food item a lot and it even doesn’t see any benefit in eating this food item at all. This is because having a particular food item or the other, merely on the basis of liking, is the choice of your heart and all other entities like your body, intellect, ego and even your conscience don’t care for such preferences. It means that for all these entities; any type of food is food and its purpose is to provide energy to your body in a healthy way. As long as that keeps happening, none of them is concerned about one food item or another; and this is what your heart only cares for.
It should be noted that though your intellect, ego and even your conscience may advice in favor of some food items or they may even advice against some food items from time to time; these recommendations are based on facts and benefits; instead of being based on tastes of such food items. For instance, your intellect may tell you that you must have two cups of milk everyday in order to meet your daily protein requirements, if you’re a vegetarian. Your heart may not like the taste of milk much; but you may still keep having it, if you’re an intellect dominated person.
This is the time to look at a meaningful sign that you may use while deciding your liking for a food item. When you look at a food item and you feel like having it; here is how to check whether this liking is coming through intellect, ego or through heart. If the first thought that crosses your mind when you look at this food item or when you think about it is that it is good for your health or it delivers any other kind of benefit, this liking is coming from your intellect and not from your heart.
Himanshu Shangari