THE EGO: The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Category 8
Volume 6, Part 1
Second Segment – July 2025
As we study this category on Ego we begin to understand how complex and subtle this outer aspect of our being is, and that the possibility of becoming our true Self requires continual conscious awareness of how our apparent self obscures and blocks realization of our essential being, Overself.
The ego is always in hiding and often in disguise. It is a cunning creature, never showing its own face, so that even the man who wants to destroy its rule is easily tricked into attacking everything else but the ego! Therefore, the first (as well as the final) essential piece of knowledge needed to track it down to its secret lair is how to recognize and identify it. [8:5.391] [Category 8, Chapter 5, #391]
With one part of himself he honestly seeks truth, but with another part he tries to evade it. [8:4.106]
Although the ego claims to be engaged in a war against itself, we may be certain that it has no intention of allowing a real victory to be achieved but only a pseudo-victory. The simple conscious mind is no match for such cunning. … [8:4.316 partial]
The persona, the mask which he presents to the world, is only one part of his ego. The conscious nature, composed of thoughts and feelings, is the second part. The hidden store of tendencies, impulses, memories, and ideas–formerly expressed and then reburied, or brought over from earlier lives, and all latent–is the third part. [8:3.17]
Inside ourselves there is not one ego but several. We live in a condition of recurring feelings that successively contradict one another, deny each other, or shame each other. The “I” is really torn into pieces, each claiming ascendency but none holding it permanently. The animal, the human, and the angel jostle elbows in our hearts. We are degraded today, elevated tomorrow. The quest seeks to integrate all these different egos. [8:3.18]
It is not so much a matter of destroying the ego as of balancing it with the Overself, for its need of development must be recognized. Such an act will not give it equal power but put it in its proper place, as a child’s individuality needs to be balanced with its parents’. [8:1.179]
The ego is a part of the divine order of existence. It must emerge, grow, enslave, and finally be enslaved. [8:1.165]
What are the practical methods one can use to encourage growth beyond this misidentification with ego?
He must start by admitting with complete frankness that the ego worships not God but itself, and that it carries this idolatry into a Church, if religious, or onto the Quest, if mystical. [8:3.133]
The aspirant must train himself to view his thoughts in the proper perspective, refusing to regard their insistent attractions and repulsions as his own. He must cultivate the habit of being an observer of his own thoughts and activities in the same objective way that he observes strangers in the street. [Instructions for Spiritual Living, pg. 124]
It is not to be expected that anyone can dissociate himself from the false identification with the ego before he has fully become convinced of the ego’s unreality. [8:5.366]
The student who wishes to progress beyond mere parrot-like book memorization will fill his mind with this great truth of the ego’s unreality, permeate it by constant reflections about it at every opportune moment, and regularly bring it into his formal meditation periods. He will approach it from every possible angle and study every possible side of it. [8:5.367]
To trace the ego to its lair is to observe its open and covered manifestations, to analyse, comprehend, and note their everchanging ephemerality. Finally it too turns out to be but a thought structure–empty, and capable of dissolution like all thoughts. [8:5.387]
If the person as ego will not and cannot surrender itself, what is the possibility of realization of the true self – Overself? PB indicates how Life itself teaches us through experience of our limitations. As our longing for the Higher becomes stronger, ego is lessened until our humility and love of Overself coincides with the manifestation of Grace.
The destruction of our egoism must come from the outside if we will not voluntarily bring it about from the inside. But in the former case it will come relentlessly and crushingly. [8.5.127]
When the ego is brought to its knees in the dust, humiliated in its own eyes, however esteemed or feared, envied or respected in other men’s eyes, the way is opened for Grace’s influx. Be assured that this complete humbling of the inner man will happen again and again until he is purified of all pride. [8:5.430]
By thought, the ego was made; by thought, the ego’s power can be unmade. But the thought must be directed toward a higher entity, for the ego’s willingness to attack itself is only a pretense. Direct it constantly to the Overself, be mentally devoted to the Overself, and emotionally love the Overself. Can it then refuse to help you? [18:1.77]
The subjugation of his ego is a Grace to be bestowed on him, not an act which can be done by him. [8:5.413]
This whittling away of the ego may occupy the entire lifetime and not seem very successful even then, yet it is of the highest value as a preparatory process for the full renunciation of the ego when–by Grace–it suddenly rises up in the heart. [8:5.422]
When he can look at his life-experience as something that seems to happen to somebody else, he will have a sure sign of detachment. [8:5.456]
When ego is absent, a precondition for Overself to be present exists. [8:5.472]
When the ego has dwindled away into nothingness, the Overself takes over. [8:5.446]
It is not the person who brings God down to a level with himself or lifts himself up to a level with God. The ego goes when God comes. [8:5.441]
Compiled by Judy S.
For further study of PB notes on Ego see Standing in Your Own Way: Talks on the Nature of Ego by Anthony Damiani, available at: https://www.paulbrunton.org/store/damiani/