I get angry when my opinions and my choices are questioned and rejected! Atman Nityananda

 I get angry when my opinions and my choices are questioned and rejected! 

One of the patterns of behaviour caused by the ego is to react with irritation, annoyance, resentment or anger when others do not approve or accept, ignore, reject, question or dislike our opinions and choices. This is because our ego causes us to perceive it as a threat, a rejection or a diminishment of ourselves and our worth, rather than simply our opinions and choices, and this, in turn, occurs because we identify with our opinions, beliefs and choices and identify them as our self.

Whether we react or not and with what intensity depends on how strong our self-confidence and self-worth are, how significant the subject is to us and how identified and attached we are to it, how valuable that person is to us and our energetic and psychological state at that moment.

It is one thing, for example, to have our religion questioned or not accepted, and another to have a fruit that we like. It is one thing to be challenged and have our opinion devalued or rejected by someone we do not know or do not valye them as important, and it is another thing to be challenged by someone we value and want them to have a good opinion of us or approve our opinions or choices. How we react also depends on how the other person challenges or rejects our opinion or choice.

Don't tell me what to do

It also happens that we get irritated, upset or angry when someone advises us or tells us the consequences of our choices and actions because our ego perceives it as a threat, a rejection, a devaluation and an oppression. 

That is, instead of listening with an open mind to assess whether what we are being told is true and can help us correct our mistakes and avoid painful consequences, our ego feels threatened and reacts irrationally as if it is the words of others that harm us and not our own choices and actions. 

In reality, calmly listening to something (even if it seems false to us at the time) cannot harm us in any way and we can later examine it in detail to see if it has any value to us. 

The ego does not exist. It is nothing but a mere idea! - Atman Nityananda

 

The ego does not exist. It is nothing but a mere idea!

The ego is unreal or illusory, whereas the concepts that the ego is a thought or an idea and does not exist are false. However, the ego is unreal, to the same extent that the body, thoughts, emotions, all animals, plants and in general everything in the universe, as well as the universe itself, are unreal.

As the word or thought 'sea' is an idea but not the sea itself, so the word 'ego' is an idea but not the ego itself. The ego exists just as the sea, the earth, the mountains and also more subtle things like electromagnetic fields, thoughts and emotions exist.

The entire universe and everything that exists in it (including everything invisible to the senses and, of course, the ego) is constructed by the three gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas), which are the fumdemtal powers that create everything. The human being and everything that constitutes the human being (body, mind, intellect and ego) is created by the three gunas. So if we accept that the ego does not exist, then we would have to accept that all beings, planets, stars, animals, plants and the whole universe do not exist. 

The ego is psychic energy and, therefore, is not perceptible by the five senses, but we can perceive it (feel, be aware of it) directly through self-observation, just as we can perceive (feel, be aware of) anger, envy, gluttony, etc.

The essential nature of the ego is desiring and creating the feeling of identity by identifying with the body. That is, the feeling "the body is me" is generated by the ego. The ego is also the factor that creates all kinds of identifications. It makes us identify ourselves, with the characteristics and functions of the body, the mind and the intellect (thoughts, imaginations, fantasies, ideas, concepts, beliefs, emotions, feelings, etc.), with objects, people, situations, organizations, religions, political parties, sports teams, dogmas, etc.

It is true that there is no effect without cause. Just as there is no light or heat without the sun, so there is no desire, identification, attachment, pride, anger, rage, fear, greed, jealousy, etc. without ego. Therefore, if there were no ego, there would be neither identifications nor egoistic tendencies.

The tendencies that we call defects are all forms of expression of the ego. The ego is that which expresses itself as anger, lust, lasciviousness, liking, disliking, greed, pride, and so on. There cannot be pride, for example, without ego, and conversely, ego without pride, because they are the same thing. Just as water under certain conditions assumes the form of ice, clouds, steam, hail or snow, so the ego according to the circumstances expresses itself as pride, desire, lasciviousness, jealousy, anger, fear, etc. Ego and egoistic tendencies or defects are the same thing. Therefore, if we accept, for example, that anger exists, we cannot deny the existence of the ego. 

That is why in Greek mythology they symbolize the plural nature of the ego as a monster (called the Hydra of Lerna) that had many heads. Each head is one of the tendencies or defects of the ego.