How was the ego created?

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP):

Ego was not really created.

Ego is being created all the time.

Would silence ever ask this question? So, ego has been given a fresh breath of Life, when one professes ‘ignorance’ or ‘knowledge.’ If you ask something about go, if you say “what is ego?” The answer would be this; the one who is asking. The question itself is ego. How was the question created? By asking. How was the ego created? You tell me, you asked.

How did you come to believe? How do you continuously keep believing that firstly, you do not know and secondly, the knowledge is important? In this moment, from where did this thought arise in you that you do not know? And this beautiful moment of Silence, what makes you think that something additional in the form of knowledge needs to be added?

If two people are sitting together in intimacy. Is the moment not already complete? Do they further need to beautify the moment by adding questions to it? Ego is this that which feels that knowledge is needed, that which feels that the world is incomplete, that which feels that it needs support. A beefing up, a furtherance, that is ego. If you are silent there is no ego because you will not be asking about the genesis of ego. And remember that any question you ever ask is ultimately a question about the Self.

You may ask a question about nuclear technology but if you go deeper into it, you will discover that it was the question about the ‘Self.’ Ego is that which feels that the Self is not yet fully revealed. So, knowledge must be further used to know it, explore it, to reveal it.

Ego is a belief in ignorance and hence knowledge.

If it is not there, it is just not there. Then even the question that from where did it come is just not there. Moment this question, springs up in the mind, that is the moment the ego is born. The moment when that question recedes goes off to sleep, is the moment when the ego is put to sleep.

Listener(L): Is it conscious? Can we regenerate thoughts consciously?

AP: What do you mean by ‘regenerating thoughts consciously’? We are already so…