Are some people born without an ego?
If you have a conscious and have a heartbeart you will have an ego. The ego is the part of your mind which gives you self importance and self esteem. You utilize ego for whats known as "reality testing".. you are born with it. Some people might have an inflated ego and some people might have a damaged ego but we all have one.... given to us from birth!
Is it possible to have no ego at all.?
Yes. Ego is defined differently by everyone
How do you be a leader without ego?
Well, you can't really be a great founder-CEO without having a fairly high degree of self-confidence (as well as self-doubt). After all, you're most likely doing something others see as impossible, stupid, unlikely, way too niche, or impractical. Otherwise, it'd already be done.What tends to happen as leaders mature, especially from their first start-up to their second ... is the ego becomes around the team, the product, and the company. And not/ much less about themselves. And then ego sort of turns into pride, once it's not about you.The beauty of being a founder is that you get leverage on your equity from am amazing team. Hire the best possible VPs in the world, once you hit Initial Traction ... and your equity can quadruple in value almost overnight.So you can maximize your own returns most effectively by inspiring great people to join you. The only way to do that is to be on a journey together. There are different ways to take this journey -- benign despotism vs. collaboration. But over time, often, ego gives way, especially in B2B, to pride.Nothing wrong with being proud of your team, your customers, your product, your position in the market, and your journey.
Is it possible to live without the ego structure?
It's hard to imagine, isn't it? How could I survive without knowing who I am, what I want, what I am capable of? Ego seems helpful in this regard, allowing us to separate truth from fiction. It protects us from danger.Yet, what I just said is a complete falsehood. Ego creates fiction more often than it acknowledges truth. Ego puts us in danger in order to protect. Ego tries to define us, and always comes up short.Ego limits our potential to be what we really are. It is a figment of imagination, derived from fear, fueled by fear, perpetuating fear.I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in fear. I'd rather transcend the carnal needs of this meat suit and experience true freedom. It's not easy. Or, it's the easiest thing ever.I don't need to know who I am, only that I Am. I don't need to know what I want, because want isn't a thing, it is the absence of something. I don't need to know what I'm capable of, because I will do what I can do regardless of knowing. When I allow ego to blind me to these facts, life gets complicated.There are two ways to live without ego. One is perpetual seeking for definition of self, where you are yanked back and forth, from one idea to another, helpless to control what happens. The other is to stop seeking definition, and allow yourself to be what you are. In the first case we seek control and become powerless; in the second we relinquish control and become all powerful.Take a look around you right now. Do you see an ego? Does the ego serve any purpose at all in this moment? Is it even telling you the truth about what you see?Yes, it is possible to live without ego, because ego is just an imaginary friend who lies to you constantly. We think it puts us in control, when really it controls us. It limits who we are by defining who we are.Living without ego is not easy. Or, it's the easiest thing ever.
Were we born without an ego? Do we develop ego based on memories...and?
Ego is the self, so I think we were born with ego because we even have a personality in the womb. I think we do develop ego based on memories and other things, such as our relationships with others, and other stimuli we gather from our senses. I think there is a difference between being egotistical or selfish than having an identity which is like personality. The first is a trait or conduct that a person may present at a a given time, the second is a conglomerate of traits a person may have.
Are humans born with an ego?
Of course not.“Ego” is a word, and no human is born with words. Also, the use of the word “ego” in the way I assume you are using it was a construct (invention) of Sigmund Freud a little more than 100 years ago.To further complicate things, whatever you mean by “ego” might be different than what another person means by “ego”. A similar problem occurs with the words “beauty”, “goodness”, “value” and “delicious”.It is interesting to note that many people spend vast amounts of time, money, and energy trying to rid themselves of this thing called “ego”, only to discover in the end, with a laugh, that it never existed in the first place.Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.— The Diamond SutraWe each have a very essential choice in this life we are given:Will we be victims of a world that occurs “out there” that we can only at best describe in words? Or are we creators of the world “out there” with our words?Here’s a story Sir Ken Robinson once told:A young child was drawing a picture in class and a teacher came up and asked them what they were drawing.“God,” said the child.“But no one has ever seen God!” said the teacher.“Well, in a minute they will!” replied the child.This is a difficult truth to accept, but try it on and see how it fits.If it works for you, you’ve saved yourself a helluva lot on monastery visits, psychotherapy sessions, and/or head-shaving.
Is the ego, the new original sin?
Nice understanding of the common denominator of Eastern and Western religions. Selfishness, selflessness; ego, no ego. In Christianity, the concept of sin is essentially that which inhibits our ability to love others, i.e. obsession with the self. Similar or identical thoughts exist in other religions. It is, however, very Western to say that we can benefit from "harnessing" the power of the ego. So long as desires exist, there is disappointment, there is judgment, there is suffering... Buddhism focuses on how to escape the path of suffering. Other religions have this as well, I think, but they bring in a lot of unnecessary baggage. I believe your approach of harnessing power is more effective in advancing our technology, lifestyles, etc. We already use these "powers" to achieve success in many cases. The problem is that there is an increasing trend in depression, and it seems like humanity is nearing something of a mental twilight age. We are beginning to lose meaning - not necessarily a bad thing, but we don't know how to handle it. We can learn from the Eastern perspective, however, so that we might overcome this darkness. Western society (of which I, too, am a part) has placed great emphasis on success over peace. That is the problem.
Enlightenment (spiritual): Is it really possible for humans to be without ego for prolonged periods of time?
Nope. Human egos don’t go away or get destroyed. They simply recede way into the background.Imagine your ego takes up most of your foreground. You think you are your ego and the body-mind that contains it. This is the condition of most people on the planet.Now imagine you somehow become absorbed in the deepest Silence, Awareness and Pure Being. Everything just Is, and it’s all perfect. Your sense of an individual “you” gives way to the direct knowing of your Pure Beingness, Pure Consciousness, with no subject or object present, This is the “experience” of enlightenment. (“Experience” here, is said with poetic license because in full enlightenment there is no “experiencer” left to experience it:-)If that “enlightenment experience” recurs many times, or is simply strong enough the first time, what happens is you begin to recognize, and get used to, your True Identity as that Pure Being Consciousness, and stop believing your identity is this temporary, illusory ego.The ego doesn’t disappear or die, it just recedes way into the background of your Awareness, like random notes of music coming from a house three doors down the street, or barely noticeable ripples on a vast calm ocean. You can call the ego to the foreground whenever it is needed, to perform “normal” daily functions like being social at a dinner party, balancing your checkbook, driving down a busy highway, etc.Once it is no longer needed, once again it recedes into the background.In this way, you could say, enlightenment is nothing other than which “identity” floods your foreground, and which is still there but way in the background. It’s really quite simple.Truly enlightened, you abide in Being constantly, it becomes your constant foreground Awareness, not just for a “prolonged period of time,” but permanently. But you keep your ego, at least until that ego-body’s allotted time is up.And even if we live to 100, that allotted time is very brief indeed, just a blip,, and it’s gone. Bye-bye ego…you were just an illusion.Teja