The Ego derives from our animal instinct. The majority of humans neglect to invest time into personal development. This lack of self exploration induces the ignorant animal instinct (EGO) to act by protecting self. The Enlightened individual has trained his/her mind to silence the ego. When the ego is irrelevant the human mind, the most powerful tool on Earth, evolves to an infinite intelligence.

You seem to have a good awareness of it Nikki. The ego will in fact assume many different guises, but the one common thread among these guises is that the underlying aspect is fear driven and consistently keeps us stuck.

The ego is indeed attachment because our authentic or higher self needs nothing, so it realizes that attachment is totally unnecessary.

When we endeavour to step into a new way of being, the ego will indeed manifest as resistance because it is now panicked and afraid of it's own demise. The key is to witness it rather than trying to get rid of it. The more you can practice doing this,the more you will expand your own awareness of it in action. It will then begin to loosen it's hold - eventually you will begin to use it, as the tool it's supposed to be, rather than it using you.

With only a limited knowledge of this i would say the ego operates very much from the conscious mind.

It seems to deal mainly with the physical needs ( or supposed) of the individual.

From what i can tell its not at all in touch with the higher part of ourselves,it has little faith in anything outside itself.

But before we knock it we must realise that it is very much part of us in this current manifestation.Its part of what we were made to be,it cant be inherantly evil ( although it can manifest as such ) and im assuming it serves a purpose otherwise our Creator wouldnt have factored it in.

I was slightly baffled with some of the Hicks stuff at first, but this to me is even more complex. I think i will take quite a while to get my head around this concept.

Before reading Tolle i had no inkling whatsoever about any of this.He certainly broke new ground with me.

Graham