Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

internal phenomena, the ability to relate to another
person, the ability to relate to others in a group and to
persist in adaptive efforts to accomplish some goal, as
well as the process by which languages and subjects
such as physics and economics are learned?
Does not the word ‘ego’ really point to a huge
collection of behaviors, talents, mental functions and
ways of perceiving the world? This is like the word
‘Chicago’ may point to a colored area on a million
maps, but when we come to the real world, what does
‘Chicago’ point to?
Does it point to five million separate people spread
out over 300 square miles, with maybe two million
structures, a million separate businesses, 15,000 miles
of streets and highways, a unique form of city
government, its library system, its newspapers and
television stations, its police, its universities, etc.?
What is it that the word ‘Chicago’ points to? We use
the word all the time, and it can mean all of the above
entities and functions associated with that city. BUT
CHICAGO IS A CONCEPT. IT DOES NOT POINT TO ANY
THING.
The word ego is the English translation of Freud’s
phrase, “Das Ich,” meaning the ‘I’, or the ‘I-sense’.
However, for him ego was the reality principal, only
part of which was the ‘I-sense.’ It arbitrated between
the primitive demands of the unconscious, the Id, and