You are an Onion, there, I said it, phew!  So, what does that mean exactly?  Well, I think that we all agree that we have a Soul, almost everyone would agree that we have Consciousness and hopefully many would agree that we have an Ego.  Just there, we have three layers and there are more (eg unconscious, emotions, persona, intuition etc) but not to be covered here, its a deep subject.  The three mentioned should be enough to get us thinking about the interconnection and how we may identify with them. 

As everyone is likely to identify with our Soul, the Spirit within, it should be OK to state that it joined our physical body some time around the Beginning and at the End parts ways with our physical body again.  If we agree that the Soul has been around a while, possibly many lifetimes, then we might agree that it knows a lot.  Yet, we seem to have difficulty to tap into it's knowledge and experiences.  The Soul I would imagine sits at the center of the Onion. 

OK, so lets put down the Soul for a bit and move on to Consciousness which to me is what I call "I" and this is because I relate to it as the "...I think therefore I am...".  Counsciousness I would put near the outer layers but at this stage I don't find it so important to know exactly which.  I suppose I would say that Consciousness is something that gets switched near the Beginning and develops with time but is also a culmination of other aspects/layers of the Onion. 

The last of the three is the Ego is another aspect that starts off somewhere near the Beginning and develops, but this time we have something that has a different agenda!  The Ego wants to be king of the castle, it is devoted to controlling all and sundry.  I'm sure we can exist as pure Ego and perhaps that is what is meant when people are referred to as Soul-less.  I can imagine that the Soul is a bit confused when it comes into this World as it has to deal with this thing, this incapable layer that connects it to reality.  Of course its not all bad, our physical body is going to need attention and the Ego is a great deliverer of attention, it will ensure that the body gets everything it needs from our supporters.  Again, I would put the Ego near the outer layers of the Onion, perhaps the outermost!  The Ego goes forwards in life with us and has great potential to protect us from pain and suffering, it will help us to bring closer the things we like and push away the things we don't like.  The problem is that the Ego is not very moral and will bypass important values to get what it wants.  This is great for survival but its not great for the evolution of the Universe or those around us that might be exposed to it.

You might be wondering why I chose to suggest Consciousness as "I" and not Ego?  Well, that is a good question.  As someone who has let my Ego "pull the wool over my eyes" and generally control me, I might once have said that Ego  was "I" but today I can say that my Ego no longer "runs the show".  No, I'm not saying that I am Ego-less or anything like it, I'm just saying that I've seen how the Ego behaves and I have some Discernment of when it is trying to take control and when it is not.  And rather than renouncing my Ego, I now have a relationship with it.  I'm not saying we are best buddies but I can say that we work together more closely to do a better job of taking the next best step(s).