The Question of Happiness – Ego & Consciousness by Atman Nityanada
The two fundamental factors or life elements of the human being are Ego and Consciousness.
The ego is the centre of the mind. All activity, functions and formations of the mind and ourselves as body-mind-personality are centred in the ego. Everything revolves around our egoic Identity identified principally with the body and the mind.
Ego is conditioned by the qualities of life, (gunas in Sanskrit, -sattva, rajas, tamas), and because of it, impermanent, limited, and dependent. The ego is essentially desiring and the factor of identifications, projections, imaginations, illusions, separation and dualities.
The ego moves between like-dislike, attraction-repulsion or aversion, pleasure-pain, joy-grief, love-hatred, satisfaction-dissatisfaction, etc. and its lower aspect is the creator of all kinds of misery, pain and suffering, as well as perversions, destructive and self-destructive impulses and tendencies.
Separation, fear, insecurity, dissatisfaction, lack, incompleteness, insufficiency, self-doubt, low self-worth, distress, unhappiness, depression, and uneasiness, all are expressions of the lowest ego itself.
However, the core of our mind and our existence is Consciousness, not the ego.
Consciousness is the source and the foundation from which the body, mind and ego arise, appear, live and dissolve.
Consciousness is the eternal existence from which all forms borrow their existence and upon which all forms exist.
And it is the light that illumines the mind and makes all experiences (sensory and psychological) possible. Without consciousness, there is no experience.
Finally, Consciousness is indestructible, immortal and, by nature, eternally free, whole, peaceful and blissful. Consequently, the only inexhaustible source or foundation of eternal peace and happiness.
Thus, the only way to find and establish ourselves in freedom, peace, bliss and plenitude is to realize that Consciousness is our true and essential Identity and abide firmly in Consciousness through incessant meditation and Self-enquiry and finally through the complete dissolution of the ego.
Our true nature, Consciousness, is indestructible, immortal and, by nature, eternally free, whole, peaceful and blissful. , Thus, the only inexhaustible source or foundation of eternal peace and happiness.
Peace, Love, Harmony
