Pathological ego

Someone under the control of the ego can't recognize pain as just pain, but will see it as the only fitting reaction to every situation. In its blindness the ego is unable to see the pain inflicted to the self and to others.

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The negative states like anger, anxiety, resentment, dissatisfaction, envy, jealousy, etc..., aren't recognized as negative but like utterly justified. Moreover it is wrongly perceived as coming not from oneself, but as caused by others or by any other external factors.
"You are responsible for my suffering." It's what the ego says implicitly.
The ego can't make the difference between a situation and the interpretation that we make about it or the reaction triggered in us. So you will say : "What an awful day." without realizing that the cold, the wind, the rain, the heat, or snow, to which your are reacting, aren't awful. It is what it is. What is awful, it's your reaction, your inner resistance to it and the emotion born from that resistance.

Shakespear wrote : "There is nothing good or bad as such. It's the mind who makes it good or bad."

Also, suffering and negativity are often wrongly perceived as pleasure by the ego because, to a certain level, the ego gets strenght out of it.
For example, anger and resentment hugely reinforce the ego by intensifying a sentiment of division, putting emphasis on the difference and by creating a mental position of rectitude as colossal as a fortress that no one can attack (any irrational fear, negative thought, creates a mental protection like this, when we irrationally feel attacked). If you could observe the physiological changes happening in your body when you are possessed by such negative states, if you could see how much those states affect the functioning of your heart, your digestive system, your immune system, and many body functions, it will be clear for you that such states are pathological, that it is suffering, and not pleasure.

Each time that you are in a negative state, something in you asks for negativity, something in you perceives it as pleasant or thinks that it will allow you to get what you want. Or else, why holding on negativity, make yourself unhappy, make others unhappy and create illness in your body. So, each time that there is negativity in you and that you succeed at recognizing that something in you takes pleasure out of it or thinks it has a reason to be useful, you directly become conscious of the ego. As soon as this happens, your identity goes from the ego to consciousness. This means that the ego diminishes and that consciousness grows.

If in a negativity crisis, you succeed in realizing that : "In that moment, i am creating my own suffering". this will suffice to rise above state and reactions of the ego. This will bing you to infinite possibilities, to different ways, more intelligent, to deal with any given situation. You will be free to give up your unhappiness as soon as you'll recognize it as non-intelligent. Negativity is non-intelligent and always comes from the ego. The ego may be crafty, but it's not intelligent. Ruse (as trickery) chases its own little goals, while intelligence has a complete view where all is linked. Ruse is motivated by personal interest and is greatly limited. Most of politicians, businessmen, are carfty. Very few are intelligent. All that is accomplished by ruse doesn't last long and always goes, at one point, on the opposite of the wanted goal. Ruse divides, while cleverness unifies.

Eckhart Tolle - New Earth

(translated roughly from my french book in the cold of my room, in two times after my computer crashed,  i had to copy half of it in my note book before reseting, it was tedious, my hands are stung, still satisfied of that great insight over the mysteries of mankind, it's time to eat, Yum!)