Consciousness and Ego

What is Consciousness?

I’ve been wondering this for a while. Today I meditated about it for half an hour, and came to the conclusion that consciousness is nothing more than a combination of imagination and memories. I hear my voice internally as a creative jumble of memories of me talking, as my self-expression, and I take that to mean that I have an internal voice, evidence that I have a soul. But that voice is no different from an imaginary argument I have with my dad.

Why take it so personally? Why take this jumbled memory of my external voice as “me”? Ego is the answer. But what is ego?

Ego is the self-preservation mechanism of making the body important. Without ego, I might not care if I get hurt. But when I get wounded, I personally feel it, letting me know that this body is important, that I should protect it. Thus I extended it to the mind.