Avoid Ego-Boosting
Behaviour And practices

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By
The Man Who Saw God Face To Face
Raphael Okechukwu Nweze

The Meaning Of Ego
         Ego is the sense of self, the natural tendency to count oneself as separate and different from others. It is the desire to be selfish.

Ego Is An Illusion
         Ego is an illusion, that which seems to be but does not exist. A very good example is mirage experienced on the high way. On a bright day, you look ahead on the main road, and see a pool of water spread over the main road ahead of you. But, by the time you come close to the location, you find out that there is no water on the main road.
         Another good example is the horizon. When you look forward, the sky seems to be like a hemisphere, with the sky touching the ground somewhere in the far distance. After you have moved further, you discover that the sky is high up in the space and does not touch the ground.
         Likewise, ego makes people feel that they are separate and different from others. This is deception and the beginning of falsehood. Creation is one, an undivided whole, but diverse in expressions and manifestations, just as the body of a man is one, and yet having different parts and organs. In other words, whoever fights against another person s actually fighting against himself without knowing it. God is one, but not solitary.

The Path To Victory In Life
         In this world, majority cherish money and wealth, and many are ready to do anything fair or foul in order to make money and acquire wealth. The result is that humanity have chosen the broad and easy way to hell fire. That way is materialism, even to the neglect of spirituality.
         The major purpose of life on earth is not money and wealth, just as the purpose of sending a child to school is not for him to play with the sands, for what the world call money and wealth is the waste product of heaven, used to test the children of men.
         The real purpose of sending humanity to the world is for them to gain knowledge and experience. Whoever is not rich in both is truly deficient, and still better than the rich and wealthy men of the world.
         Therefore, the path that leads to victory in life is the path of self-knowledge. That is why Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Self-knowledge means that man must recognize himself as spirit, as indestructible life, as Son of God, as God and one with God, even as a lamb does not have to become a sheep, because it is already a sheep.
         With self-knowledge comes expression of the qualities of God in your everyday life and personality. As Jesus said, you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Therefore, you must avoid ego-boosting behaviors and practices, for you to grow in spirit and in truth. Ego-boosting behavior and practices make people to backslide and diminish in spirit, and as well encounter failures in life.

Ego-Boosting Behaviors And Practices
         The following are the broad and easy ways to hell fire becasue they are selfish:
  1. Always thinking of your self, without benefiting others.

  2. Attending to yourself first, before attending to the needs of others.

  3. Always paying attention to one self.

  4. Always checking oneself each time you pass by a glass, window screen or mirror.

  5. Spending so much time before the mirror in making-up. This alone is a sign of being dead in spirit. This is true whether you are beautiful or handsome, religious or secular, educated or not.

  6. Inability to tolerate or accommodate others. And here is a warning to the women folk, any woman who cannot live peacefully with another woman in the same room, is not ready for the kingdom of heaven, and cannot enter it.

  7. Always trying to be the first.

  8. Always intent on by-passing others in the queue.

  9. By-passing the poor and needy ones without showing compassion, love, mercy and grace.

  10. Loving ones children, to the neglect of the children of other people.

    A-l-a-s-!
    Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross , and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25 Instead of doing what Jesus said, people everyday build up their ego and thereby, deny their crosses. Therefore, they make themselves hypocrites.

  11. Taking the good portions and giving the bad portion to others.

  12. Assigning the easy task to oneself and assigning the hard tasks to others.

  13. Defending one’s religion and church, instead of seeking for the Truth.

  14. Refusing to accept corrections, by thinking that one’s opinion is best and final.

    Ego is a deceptive path,
    which leads to hell fire.

  15. Always complaining that others do not ask of you.

  16. Stinginess, the persistent refusal to be generous.

  17. Being easily offended or irritated.

  18. Being talkative. Beware of the talkative, for they hinder spiritual progress and encourage people unto hell fire.

  19. Being excessively passionate about something examples are:

  20. Being highly temperamental (prone to mood swing).

  21. Insisting on what one said or want.

  22. Avoiding opportunities to help the poor ones, to serve others or to attend to those in need.

  23. Over reacting whenever one is offended.

  24. spending hours and days, complaining or regretting what has gone wrong.

  25. Mourning for the dead ones, and wishing that they come back to you.

  26. Keeping mental records of people who benefit you, with the hope of paying others in their own coins.

  27. Keeping mental records of people who do not attend your ceremonies and events, with the hope of not attending theirs.

  28. Giving only to those people who can pay you back, without giving to those who cannot reward you.

It is regrettable that majority of the humnaity are busy doing the wrong things that lead them into the hell fire.

The end point of egosim is self-destruction.
Be warned!