Humanity allows the ego to be in control. In control of everyday decisions. In control of how each human life pans out. In control of lives, relationships, towns, countries, human society and the planet. The ego is in charge. The ego is the dictator of human life. Or so it thinks.

The ego is the sense of 'me', the separate identity. 'Me' as an individual separate from others. There is also the collective ego, a group identity separate from others, where we identify as 'we' or 'us' and different to 'them'. This sense of separation forms into an identity, a strong held belief that I or we are separate and different from others. The stronger this identity develops, the more distant its sense of separation is from 'others'. The stronger the sense of ego is, the more it will be at odds with 'others' and the world. The stronger the ego, the more difficult life becomes.

The strong ego isn't just the boasting self-conceited ego. It's also the self-deprecating ego, the one that feels it is less than others. Either way, it's a distancing from others. The sense of separation. The ego boosts its idea of separation and difference in order to maintain its sense of self and identity. It can do this by putting others down or inflating its own sense of superiority. It can also criticise itself and dwell in a sense of inferiority. It all amounts to the same thing: the ego distances itself from others in order to increase its sense of identity. It's in these ways that the ego becomes controlling.

The ego seeks to control, to maintain and improve its individual identity. Life must be the way it wants it. People must act the way it wants them to. This will usually fail and cause all sorts of problems, but the ego criticises and blames either itself or others for this. So it still boosts its sense of identity separate from others.

Not only does this happen on a personal level, in our human lives and relationships. It happens in work life, where strong egos make their way up the ranks to strengthen their sense of identity, power and control. It happens in family life, community life and political life, where strong egos can get themselves into positions of power. The ego can then control and dictate over many 'others'.

With collective egos groups will clash with each other. For example, gangs fight other gangs to maintain the boundaries of their territory, fans of sports teams can develop a strong dislike of others, companies sometimes compete ruthlessly against similar companies, countries seek to battle other countries or take them over. This is all the play of the ego.

But the ego isn't real. The sense of identity is flawed. It's a false identity. There are no true boundaries to any identity. The countries have no true boundaries. The companies, sports teams and gangs are only divided in the human mind. These seeming divisions are not natural and take effort to maintain. Similarly with our human forms. The human body isn't separate from the planet, or indeed the universe as a whole. The limits of the human body can't really be found. This division of the world is purely intellectual, not factual.

So the point here is to recognise that the ego wants to rule the world. It wants to rule human life, from daily activities and decisions to worldly affairs. What can 'we' do about it? Well, this apparent dictator is never really in control. It just thinks it is. Really it is for the dictator itself to turn itself in. The ego will bring about the end of the ego. This is the path of Self Realisation. The ego goes out into the world seeking something, maybe happiness. But it will only find it when it recognises its mistake of assuming it's someone separate from the world.

The end of the ego is in the dissolving of its sense of separate identity. Ultimately the ego needs to give itself up, stop trying to control, stop blaming others, stop thinking it's separate. Love and kindness to others, putting others first, is a step in that direction. But ultimately there must be no sense of 'me and others'. That is Self Realisation: that there is only an Infinite Indivisible One.