The ego

Originally posted by MrVertigo
I am not saying that the ego is necessarily bad, because it's not. It's essential for our survival

I don't agree with that at all.

The whole reason people think "ego is bad" to begin with is because there IS truth to the idea. It is not necessary for your survival. To the contrary, it directly causes your own death.

If we were completely stripped of all of our ego, our behavior would change drastically and would appear insane to those still trapped by their own egos.

I am posting this right now because my own ego is telling me "you have to tell these people that the voice in your head called 'ego' is complete delusion." But once again the ego is delusional, because I don't really have to post anything or tell anyone anything, have no reason to.

reply to post by MrVertigo
for the most part, our civilization offers us safety we didn't have before...the ego was crucial in surviving. It was always on the alert for danger. Now, it is still usefull but only as a tool that should be put away when not needed, like a gun.

I haven't watched it yet but I'll get around to it.

Simple question: Who are you?

Not "what are you?" but WHO are you, and I don't mean your attributes either, no WHO?

There is no ego - it's just a projection, a social construct. We do not know who we really are. We are a mystery, just like our creator. An unfathomable mystery, and if anyone at all, we are the one who just is.

It is good to get to the end of ego, and then re-choose to be an ordinary human being, and then it's fun.

Best to be a nothing, and only play roles like an actor on a stage, without identifying our real and authentic self with the role we are playing, because it's a tragedy, and the actor dies, whereas the role the real and authentic self is in, is a comedy.

I don't like to approach the ego as an enemy or as something bad.
I had some serious trouble on my spiritual path in trying to extinguish the ego.
In the end I figured it was nonsense to try such thing. Nothing can be extinguished, everything is there for a reason.
What really matters is the perspective you have of things.
And since we grow up without being aware of this thing called ego, the perspective that we have of it is the perspective that someone inputted on us.

We transcend the ego when we are aware of it.
That doesn't mean the ego ceases to exist, it just means that it takes a new role on the play, one which is not counter-productive.

And the show must go on..

And the show must go on..

Here's what Meher Baba says about overcoming the ego:

The best and also the easiest process of overcoming the ego and attaining the divine consciousness is to develop love and render selfless service to humanity in whatever circumstances we are placed. All ethics and religious practices ultimately lead to this. The more we live for others and less for ourselves, the more the low desires are eliminated and this in turn reacts upon the ego, suppressing and transforming it proportionately.

... are you up to the challenge?



[edit on 31-7-2009 by corusso]

reply to post by corusso


Yeah. I think it's totally worth it.

And to really be there for others, more than anything, unless they are starving, is to simply give them our full presence and our time. There is nothing more transformative, I've just discovered, that the SPACE, of absolute, unconditional acceptance of another. Thus, to be of service to others, is to accept them, listen to them, and love them fully. This involves by neccessity, the dissolution of the ego, and the simultaneous inflation of God-consciousness.

Originally posted by reject
the ego was crucial in surviving. It was always on the alert for danger.

Responses in emergency situations are "automatic" in many instances and ego doesn't even need to be involved. For example a lot of trained martial arts fighters actually process what they are doing with their arms and legs in gray matter within the spinal column, not in the brain, where the sense of "I" seems to develop intellectually.

In general, I can't think of a single situation in which ego would save someone, but that higher awareness would not have accomplished at least the same. All martial arts are good examples. They all teach to be clear-minded and unattached even to the idea of your own death, because otherwise your fear and worry about what's about to happen to you in the immediate future (fear that arises from your desires, and your ego) will prevent you from thinking rationally.

sorry about the small text in my quote above, I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

The hard part is to love & respect those that you don't like or agree with. It's easy to be there for your kids, but to show love & compassion for the ones that hurt you or look down upon you is truely letting go of the ego.

How many times do I remind myself that I'm no better than a bum or scholar? Do I give the pan handler the dollar for ME or him?

It's a fine line between doing good & stroking your own ego.

Ego, not money & power, rules the world.

reply to post by corusso


Just being a little troublesome to increase the range of discussion, I have to say that I disagree with her. I mean, its a beautiful message with good intention but its deceiving.

Starting by how she states that it is the BEST way. There is no such thing. Each one has its own way. No best ways, the deceiving starts with that. Altruism is not for everyone. In the end altruism and egoism are the same thing anyways. There is no "other".

Okay, so she clearly has a really good intention but I think she is lying. Maybe not consciously. But whoever speaks of helping others seem to be abnormally attached to social bonds and that tells me that the ego was not yet transcended.

I believe that she is saying that not for the individual but for society. If everybody becomes a servant the system works perfectly. You give away your personal power, you repress your desires so when you have finally transcended the ego you will have no motivations anymore, no drives, no ambitions, no productivity. That way things can be as they are in the realm of ego. That may well bring you eternal bliss, but then everything you cultivated for kind of backfires. You were working so hard for other people and in the end the other people dissipated, only you left, nothing else. On the other hand you could work very hard for yourself, detach from other people and in the end there would only be the other people left. Whatever your intention is in the end it backfires. The trick is to think of the best journey for yourself, the one which you will most enjoy. That way all that will backfire is joy and gratefulness no matter what way you chose to follow.

As I said, every way works, all the trails lead to the top of the mountain. But there is no BEST way, its a matter of predilection, preference and taste.

[edit on 31-7-2009 by Geladinhu]

reply to post by corusso


Love is crucial.
But I believe love doesn't need to be directed at people.
You may well love a frog, a rock, a piece of paper and not give a f*ck about people. All you really need is the focused attention on something.

Gotta be careful about distinguishing love and attachment though.

Meher Baba was a man, according to some, the avatar of our age. Took a vow and silence at one point and never spoke again, only using letters like scrabble to make his word.

In his dictated book "God Speaks" he said

"God cannot be explained, He cannot be argued about, He cannot be theorized, nor can He be discussed and understood. God can only be lived..

To understand the infinite, eternal Reality is not the GOAL of individualized beings in the Illusion of Creation, because the Reality can never be understood; it is to be realized by conscious experience.

Therefore, the GOAL is to realize the Reality and attain the "I am God" state in human form."

~ Meher Baba

I'm feeling the urge to say something before I go to sleep.
Since I know all my posts were ego-based all I want to say is:
DO NOT BELIEVE IN ME. DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANYONE.
REACH FOR BEHIND THE WORDS AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE INTONATIONS.

I'm starting to lose my coherence...time to go!

Ok, so what Im gathering from all of this, is that the ego is like Yin & Yan, without the Yin, there can be no Yan..

I guess this makes sense, looking at myself,( I have an extremely short temper, and get anoyed very easily) I find that my ego is always forcing me to tolerate things and people around me that I dislike or the things they do that anoy me. Basicly, making me keep my mouth shut and letting them get away with it. ie- Stay calm, breathe, count to ten.

At the same time, my ego is making my blood boil for shutting up and not standing for myself? Making me feel disrespected by others when its accually me, My choice to keep quiet about things that bother me?

WTF? Guess I'll have to work on myself a bit!

How do you differentiate?

Is the ego a back seat driver or a fat controller? I really want to know, but I suspect the ego of being wilfully slippery, and I can't help thinking of Carlos Castaneda's explanation of a "foreign installation". Or was that just a fairy-tale way of describing what we are?

A few years ago I came fairly close to death (don't try to be vegan unless you really know what you're doing and can really afford it!), and I went through a mental/emotional hell. No exaggeration. For a couple of weeks I actually thought I'd snuffed it in my sleep and was in a hell. Anyway, there came a horrible crescendo, and if my life had a soundtrack it would have been something busy by Mussorgsky that night. The hell I was experiencing was not about fire and brimstone, but about 'self'. It was total isolation, judgement and doom. It was cold and it was nasty beyond words, but it did, in retrospect, show 'me' something valuable. The guy suffering it was a curiously distilled version of who I might generally consider myself.

Oddly, the next year was one of the best of my life, and felt like healing, but was that just my ego recovering? Since then, and generally still quite unhappy (boo-hoo, poor me), I've found myself able to sometimes access a 'stillpoint' of self. Taoism is the friendliest idea I have stumbled upon. I am no acolyte or devotee of anything, but that one seems not to need followers in that sense, and I am deeply allergic to religion.

Is the ego a misused tool or a misunderstood friend? I can't help feeling that we could 'wake up' to something monumentally wondrous for all of us. Perhaps some of us have, and perhaps it's the slippery ego that scoffs at them and refuses to acknowledge their way of describing it. Hundredth monkey, anyone?

One more thing, and I would love to know if anyone else gets this. When meditating, attempting to lucid dream, etc., I very often encounter a persistent mental image of an eye with a vertical slitted pupil, like a snake, as though it's something constantly watching me in the background. Yeah, I'm off my meds, in Americanese, but I've wondered if this is to do with the ancient part of our brains, the R-Complex. Or is it Castaneda's 'foreign installation'?

Is the ego something we might evolve beyond?

I think what you may be referring to is in fact the ego id. Our personality is broken down into three parts; the ego, the ego id, and the super ego.

The ego id is inherent it could be described as the "pleasure factor". The main concern of the ego id is: what feels good, what I want, what makes me happy...etc. This is the first part of the personality to develop, you can see this quite clearly watching a young child develop.

The ego is the part of our personality that feels empathy for others and helps us understand that others have needs, desires, and wants also. This develops a few years after the ego id. Another very important role of the ego is mediator between the ego id and the super ego. It always tries to maintain balance between the two and this is what makes us psychologically healthy. This is accomplished through the use of ego defense mechanisms in cases where there is conflict between the ego id and the super ego. There are other tools that the ego uses; however this is the most common one used and is employed in about 90% of the conflicts between the ego id and the super ego.

The super ego is the part of our personality where our morals and ethical self controls. This is the last part of the personality to develop.

Of the three the ego is the strongest, mainly because it is mediator as well as a part of the overall personality. In most cases the ego can satisfy the needs of the ego id without "upsetting" the super ego. I kind of view this as sort of an "Everything is ok in moderation, so long as it doesn't hurt others." type of mentality.

Each part of the ego has the potential to become dominant in a person's life. For example, if the ego id becomes dominant, the individual will be driven by self indulgence. This happens to a lot of wealthy people and people, especially those whom have had a desire to be wealthy. If the Super ego becomes dominant, the individual will be driven by a very rigid set of morals and become very judgmental towards others, often times displaying the complete opposite qualities of someone with a healthy personality, ie. empathy, compassion...etc.

For these reasons, the ego is by design the dominant part of the personality. This is obvious in people with healthy personalities and is rather evident in those without.

Anyhow, I apologize for the lengthy explanation; I just thought it would be necessary to iterate the roles that different parts of the personality play.

I think what you are talking about is the ego id and not the ego itself. I admit that I have not watched the video. This is because I prefer to get my information through education and I often reference the vast library I have on this subject which was acquired throughout my education instead of looking to you tube for quick answers which are usually an opinion of an individual as compared to something that was subject to years of peer review and scrutiny.

Originally posted by Odessy
I would highly recommended getting your hands on Eckhart Tolle's book or audiobook "The Power of Now."
imo, it a great source of information about dealing with the ego.
He's also featured in these videos the OP posted, but doesn't go into nearly as much detail as he does in his audiobook.
Check it out.

You can download The power of now from here :

www.4shared.com...

Hope it helps

Originally posted by coodeytar
I don't think it is the ego that is the problem, without ego where would humans be, we are where we are because of the brilliance of the individual and the ego of those individuals. The problem with ego is the failure to realise that we are individuals and that we should not impose our egos on others. We are what we are, and they, you, are what you are. The sum of all our parts. When we all stop trying to impose our reality, or ego, on others, is when we will all move beyond this point in our collective existence.

I read a book that I found very interesting, It is called Games People Play.

In this book, the authors describe the ego as consisting of 3 distinct parts, each identifiable as a physical location in the brain. And each controlling behaviors and emotions during different situations.

One part is the "parent" ego, the other the "child" ego and finally the "Adult" ego. The names correspond to the behaviors and emotions, and all people of all ages have all 3 forms of ego within themselves.

Broadly speaking, the parent ego is the part that deals with judgement, condescension, and in some cases even compassion. It is the group of behaviors and emotions associated with a vertical relationship where the individual is "higher" like a parent to a child.

The child ego is the part that deals with seeking approval, fear of judgement or ridicule, and in general "needy validation seeking behaviors".

The third part is the "Adult" ego, which deals with a supposedly "objective" way of feeling and behaving based on all available data to the brain. The adult ego may not be fully objective, but it is objective in the sense that it lacks the elements of the child and parent ego, it neither requires validation, nor seeks control.

Of course, in the literal sense we cannot get "rid of the ego", because these are brain parts in a very real sense.

What one can do is become aware of behaviors and emotions that correspond with the parent and child ego's. Those areas are typically involved in most human conflict and self destructive behavior. So, in a way, what you describe makes a lot of sense, we don't get rid of the ego, but we choose to employ the adult ego as often as possible.

-rrr

Originally posted by Jonro

Originally posted by coodeytar
I don't think it is the ego that is the problem, without ego where would humans be, we are where we are because of the brilliance of the individual and the ego of those individuals. The problem with ego is the failure to realise that we are individuals and that we should not impose our egos on others. We are what we are, and they, you, are what you are. The sum of all our parts. When we all stop trying to impose our reality, or ego, on others, is when we will all move beyond this point in our collective existence.

Where are humans exactly? massacring, starving, warring, loving, raping?

Now where are animals? In perfect balance, that's where. Why? because they have control over their ego. Look at the average household cat or dog, does it come up to you and show off, massacre you or ignore you? no 99% of them show 100% unconditional love towards you. even if you scorn them or yell and shout.

The lions of Africa are at the top of the wild animal food chain are they massacring, starving, warring, or raping? no. They only take what they absolutely need, and look after the pride.

We have allot to learn from the animals they are far superior to us.

I have to disagree with you there. You don't acknowledge that animals kill and rape? Rape is the only form of sexual intercourse in the animal kingdom.

We are animals too. It is kind of a miracle we don't commit crimes as often as animals would, if there were laws for them.

My cats are very loving and caring, except for when they vandalize my property or eat my food in spite of getting fed in exchange for nothing at all.

It is also a bit of a miracle that people keep pets.

Animals don't take people into their caves and feed them and pet them. If they had that kind of power, they would at best ignore people, and at worse eat them.

-rrr

[edit on 31-7-2009 by rickyrrr]