First level is governed by fear. We constantly worry about our safety, these days more in a material sense. The level above this world of anxiety is realm of needs. One might say that the first level of consciousness is linked to our needs as well and that would be very much the truth, however, the needs on the lower level are triggered by fear and the needs in the second level are triggered by ego. It is not only about survival here, it is about recognition, power and money - feeling better about oneself, thank you external things.

The concept of ego, I, mine... starts in early childhood, when we start to test its boundaries through communication with people around us. Competition, striving for attention, stealing toys from our siblings and tantrums in the supermarkets are just a few examples of developing this concept of ego. We are told what we can have and what we can’t by others and this is creating our own personality based on our experiences.

The trap here is that later on in life we become prisoners of our own egos, created by our minds, instead of using it as a tool of expressing ourselves. Ego starts to dictate, what to do, how to behave, how to think, what to strive for in life. We stop thinking for ourselves and we accept the fact that our ego is the real us. Think about it for a moment....

Have you ever noticed how often we change our minds regarding things we want in life? Why is that? Our ego listens to everything from the outside world and as soon as it sees or hears anything that it does not have it is going to tell us that we have to have it. It does not matter if we have a house or a car already; our ego is going to tell us we need a bigger house and a better car so we feel better about ourselves.

Ego lives on our beliefs, if we change our beliefs, our ego needs change with it. For example, a child might think that if she just had fair skin and straight blonde hair, she would be accepted among other kids. She grows up with this belief. Later on in life she spends money and time straightening her hair, colouring it blonde until she finds someone who tells her that her real dark colour is amazingly beautiful, emphasizing the fact that a lot of people want hair like this. This might start to dissolve the old belief replacing it with a new one, once integrated through asking other people what they think and they tell her to keep her curly dark hair. Her ego stops being “scared” of looking ridiculous and actually encourages her to look after her natural hair, making her feel very good about herself.

Through our lives we find ourselves wanting many things. We want to look different, we want to marry someone very special, want to have beautiful, healthy and smart children, we want a big house or more, we want cars, electrical equipment and other gadgets to put in the house, furniture that it better than what our neighbour has. We want to be recognized, we want..., we want... fill in the blank, the list just goes on and on. We think that as soon as we get all the things we desire, we will achieve inner peace. We expect these things to make us feel happy. The problem here is that in many cases we just find ourselves disappointed. As having everything we ever wanted will never satisfy our ego. What majority of people don’t realize is that we can change and control what our ego wants. We can choose to want less things or even nothing. We can live happily without all the latest technology and give our focus to the things that really matter; and that of course will be different for everyone. 

Most people do not even ask the question why we want all that. We just follow the flock. Our neighbour buys a new car, we have to have one as soon as possible. We do not even ask where these needs come from. Every time I want something I ask myself, WHY, why do I want this thing, do I need it? Is it going to make me happier? Is it going to improve my life? It does not have to be only material things, some people want to be famous, change their personality or look like a model... again: WHY?

Today’s world works on ignorance, when we buy latest technology, latest products, latest fashion, we give our money away, while having to work more to replace it. By doing this we lose the most important thing in life – freedom and free will. We just give it away and become slaves of all those magazines, manufactures, TV and so on. Our ego just works as devices that translate all that pressure from outside and tell us what to do. Buy this, buy that, you can’t? Well get a better job, work more so you can!  Even the so called successful people are victims of this phenomenon, trapped into illusion of doing what they love, having enough money to buy anything they want. What if I tell you that their schedules are booked years in advance, they are trapped by their success. They might love what they do but are they free?

Why do we need to look like models on magazine covers, why do we need to wear same clothes as them? For who? Ourselves? Hardly, usually it is just because we are told by our egos, that we will look better, we will be accepted, we will be loved, treated better and again list just does not end.

We are on a treadmill and we just cannot jump off. If anybody ever realises how ridiculous this is and tries to change it, other people put him quickly back in line. It is very hard to have your own mind these days, we are so used to being told what to do, we simply panic when the structure goes away. I remember once when I was buying something in a small store where the power went off, the staff were not able to add up the items on the paper and give me the change; the whole process just took ages. People behind cash registers rely on a bar code system and automatically calculated change and they are not able to do anything if this system fails.

Have we just stopped using our intelligence? Are our brains running on autopilot? It certainly feels that way. There is nothing wrong with having some processes automated, we do not have to think about walking or driving a car, our brains just do those tasks for us, but in certain situations we should definitely turn this autopilot off.

Sometime it takes years to break out of this level and let go of your ego’s desires. To make our experience more enjoyable without unnecessary disappointments and outburst of negative emotions we can learn to do the following.

Every time our needs are not met and our emotions take over we feel anger. We can be angry with ourselves, someone else or certain situation. If we do not do anything about this anger it shows as sadness or depression and this sends our life on a downward spiral. 

When we feel anger we have a choice what are we going to do with it. Anger can be seen as an indicator of imbalance in our lives; we should use it and get our lives in order to achieve greater balance. As was mentioned already we usually become sad and fall into depression. What we should do is to have a closer look on our life and determine which of our needs are not met? What is it that we want and are not getting? Is it our financial situation that bothers us or is it our job, boss, friends, partner...? What ever it is we have to resolve these problems instead of being passive about it. Now the only constructive way of getting rid of anger is to be assertive. If we want more money, we have to get a better paid job, if we are not happy with our boss, we have to find job with a better one, if we do not like the people we hang around, we have to get to know new ones whose presence will enrich our lives.

For many of us, when we feel anger, we become aggressive instead of assertive, which does not serve anyone. Being aggressive certainly gives us a short term resolution of a problem, what it does not do is increase quality of life and that is what we want at the end. When we use aggression as a mean of getting our needs met, in the long run, doing this on the other people’s expense will make us feel miserable and angry in the end. Win/loose deals are not the way to go, only win/win – assertive way will improve our life in the end.

As we already mentioned what we have to be careful about is running in circles. If we buy a bigger house and a new car we might find out that we need a better job to be able to keep these new things. A lot of people will find a better job to meet their needs and with more income they go and buy even bigger house and another car, which in return increases the need for a better paid job. Everyone who wishes to seriously improve their life should let go of needs as most of them are just created by our egos anyway. Think about what you really need, what will improve quality of your life and what will make it worse.

In case you want to end up in this endless race, change your beliefs, change your ego’s desires and change your needs.

There is no easy way out of this level. The next one is level of turning inward and looking inside ourselves as everything we ever needed is there, within us. As you turn your attention inside and learn to internalise your needs, see them as part of your life not as something that controls your life, only then you will be freer. Many of us usually realize that after we have spent most of our lives striving to be the best and have move than anyone else. Then we look back and see how ridiculous this was and that all we needed, we already had within.

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