The Ego as the Sum Total of the Conditions We Have Placed on Our Happiness

What you are after, what I am after, is the FEELING of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. That is an energetic experience. It is also the essence of who you are. You feel it as a child. Why do you no longer feel it? Because you have unconsciously identified with things about you and from the outside world that you feel are necessary to define you and to give you that happiness. These are now your “conditions for happiness.” Essentially, your Ego is the sum total of all of the conditions you have placed on yourself, on others and on the world that are necessary for you to be happy, or to feel like “you.” It is for this reason that Jesus, Gandhi and others tell us that we must “die to the self” in order to re-awaken to happiness, which is uncaused and which is the essence of ourselves, our True Self. We need to drop the Ego, which means we need to drop the conditions. 

In order to drop the conditions, we first need to be aware that we have them and we need to feel that dropping them is actually desirable. Michael Singer’s advice to "relax and release" the instant we feel a shift in our internal energy, followed (once we are at a better place) by Anthony DeMello’s 4-Step program (Get in touch with the negative feeling; understand that the feeling is in you, not in external reality; never, ever identify your "I" with that feeling; when you change, everything changes) show us how we are able to drop these conditions. 

Seeing this as desirable and then making the effort to apply the Singer and DeMello steps (which is a 24/7/365 effort for the rest of your life) must come from within.

Your State of Being is More Important Than the Unfolding of Life Right Now

Remember: your state of Being (being in a place of “I” or untethered consciousness) is far more important – indeed, “all that matters,” as Jesus told Martha – than what is happening in front of you in the moment.

The Conditions We Place on Our Happiness

Whenever you are unhappy, ask: “What conditions or demands am I placing on my happiness and peace in this moment?” See how silly that is to do to yourself (note that YOU are the one who placed the condition or demand on the situation - no one else made that a condition in order for YOU to be happy). Hopefully, seeing how silly it is to do this to yourself will allow you to drop that condition or demand, which will enable you to return to happiness - your natural state.