Giving up The Ego to become a slave...

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
There are evidential causes of suffering to be observed in any society. It's not about ego but about fighting against the causes of this idiocy, hatred, and bigotry.

Except without individuals having self-knowledge (including knowledge of the ego, which tends to weaken the ego), it's nearly impossible to identify the root causes of the "idiocy, hatred, and bigotry". A cursory glance at the history of political movements would indicate that people just replace one set of "idiocy, hatred, and bigotry" with their own. Because of course their own poo doesn't stink. Most people haven't an inkling of how much of their worldview is based on projection. Even those who do, have an extremely hard time wrestling with their projections despite having become aware of them. Perfection in this would probably require constant conscious vigilance, a virtue that would require extensive meditation practice.

But with regards to dealing with problems like "idiocy, hatred, and bigotry", a good rule of thumb is that a surefire way to fail at making things better is to try and do it through political channels. One uses the iron fist of the state to crush some perceived problem, and then is surprised when another pops up, and in one's own ego-fueled ignorance (too busy patting oneself on the back for crushing the first problem) one thinks the second is unrelated to the first. When really attempting to solve problems through force is like Whac-A-Mole. Lao Tzu realized this 2500 years ago.

double post

reply to post by NewlyAwakened

When really attempting to solve problems through force is like Whac-A-Mole. Lao Tzu realized this 2500 years ago

No one suggested "force" was the best means to stopping idiocy, bigotry and even fascism. I believe the pen is mightier than the sword.

Secular democratic society has given once opressed citizens the equal rights they deserve; the rights of women, homosexuals and racial minorities. I'd rather have this than be governed by a supernatural dictator (a theocracy)


If you think force is the wrong way to stop this (physical or non-physical) how would you have resolved the Nazi campaign and the evident suffering and bigotry it was causing? Just appease?

Indoctrination generally causes harm, i'm not being indoctrinated to think like a hivemind, (Nazism or Religion).

And i certainly will oppose those who aim to indoctrinate our children and censor our critisisms of a rediculous belief system.

Sorry OP thats a lot of bull.

It has been said by many great teachers that the Ego is anything that distracts you from love and connection.

Like gasoline in the water, it contaminates everything with a service to self flavor.

This was fine when we were hunter gatherers - but now the time has come to recognize the voices in your mind and separate what is self from what is ego so that the seed of humanity may burst into bloom.

We're unsure what that even means, but when we sit in the circle holding hands, hoping for a brighter now where ego holds no sway over the minds of men and remains little more then idle chatter within the mind.

Heres a good example, 2 hungry men at the table sharing a pizza, in his mind the man is thinking, lots of internal dialogue.

EGO:
"Im so hungry, if I eat quickly I'll consume more and be full, but then you should feel guilty, because you took more food, but you're better then him and stronger so you 'need' more food, you're faster, hes slower, you paid for the food, he doesnt deserve it as much as you"

SELF:

"Lets share the pizza, half for you, half for me"


Its not a complicated message, its obvious, and when our ego is fully engaged that other voice of reason can be very hard to hear as little more then a whisper from the heart.

reply to post by awake_and_aware

You're making an awful lot of assumptions about me. There's a reason I didn't respond to the "Pascal's Wager" part of your last reply to me: I had no idea how that fit in with anything I said in the post you responded to.

The only thing in this most recent reply that's relevant to anything I said is the following, which I will address briefly:

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
If you think force is the wrong way to stop this (physical or non-physical) how would you have resolved the Nazi campaign and the evident suffering and bigotry it was causing? Just appease?

This is a very good question that I'm not sure I have a good answer to.

As an American of course my answer is easy: let Europe fight it out. If we'd done that in WWI there probably would never have been a WWII (for good reasons but I will not derail the thread with them, and I do fully admit alternate history is always speculative).

But I see you are not an American. Britain was probably already too deep in the rabbit hole. Nevertheless I would have probably waited until the Nazis came ashore on the Isles to fight them off. You might think this ridiculous. People seem to have this notion that once your country is "taken over" it's game over, no matter how much the people hate the occupiers. Actually there is very little in history to support this. History shows repeatedly, and is still showing, that no matter how powerful and advanced a country's military is, it cannot hold hostile territory forever.

I fear I am already derailing the thread though. If you want to take the last word on this subject, that is fine, but I will probably not continue discussing it here.

ETA: I also don't wish to give the impression that we should think principally in terms of collectives (America, Britain, Germany, etc... such terms are essentially "useful fictions"). As an individual my reaction to a war situation going on around me and involving my country would depend on all kinds of factors at that moment.

reply to post by Gradius Maximus


You can still have an ego whilst appearing to be service to others. You may do it to impress someone or for social integration, that's still ego, and it's service to self disguised as service to others.

Although i do i agree with what you say, i think the ego is integral to what makes us human. Despite this, i agree with and endorse your Bhuddism like sense of "non-ego" The ego really is a form of self-gratification, maybe thee ego is really an illuision, in many cases people may interpret an "ego" that is not even there.

Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant atheist speaker, watch some of his debates and listen to his points; not all Atheists are smug, self-gratifying "know-it-alls".

Peace

reply to post by awake_and_aware


Well of course EGO is an illusion of what you think you are.
What you THINK.
EGO is a prison for one's soul.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened

As an American of course my answer is easy: let Europe fight it out.

Fair enough. Personally, as a Brit, i am proud that my country stood up, to fight against this merciless regime. If i was an American i would feel equally as proud that my country was civilised enough to take assertive action to end this madness. (And i don't particular consider blind patriotism a virtue)

With much extremism in the middle east, not to mention acts of Jihad and Matyrdom, i'm glad my country has stepped up to this idiocy. So the people of it's country can be free from the tyranny of divinely inspired cults.... I respect assertive "force" in certain circumstances.

reply to post by NewAgeMan


I'm a person who believes in the notion that an intelligent and conscious personality is ultimately responsible for the initiation of what has become the reality that we all know and love. I am a theist, but even I have a really tough time hanging my hat on anything that anyone - especially the folks who make their living off of selling published paper and books - suggests or claims to be true or undeniable. If you only knew just how terrible a debate point this gathering of clippings is, you'd never lean on them again.

No one has to believe or disbelieve. No one gets punished for either. Only in the twisted mind of the authoritarian religionist is anyone going to hell, and in the end, it'll be that poor idiot that'll be screaming for deliverance from what they so eagerly crafted as their own future.

The human brain, and the mind that it is designed to create, is creative and inquisitive because - specifically because - its purpose is to create and inquire. What on Earth is so difficult to understand about that?

If you buy a Corvette, you buy it with the obvious intention of driving it as a pleasure vehicle. There's not other reason to own a Corvette than to drive it for the sheer fun of driving it. The car itself was designed and built for that sole purpose. You wouldn't buy a Corvette with the intention of having it serve as your primary family vehicle. Okay, so maybe you would, but if you did, you would be a fool to expect it to adequately serve as a fully functioning family-centric primary vehicle. And you'd be an even bigger fool to modify it to serve as a fully functioning family-centric primary vehicle - whatever that modification might involve. The Corvette is wonderfully appropriate for what it is designed to be and to do. If primary transportation for a family is what is needed, the best idea is to simply not buy a Corvette in the first place.

The human brain - and the human mind that is the immediate result of that brain - is not an evil or rebellious denier of God's perfect plan for it. It's not the hopelessly flawed collateral damage in a war between ultimate good and ultimate evil. In most instances on this planet, it's a cherry-red Corvette that some idiot is trying to force three kids and a wife into, along with a week's worth of groceries, as he fails again and again to realize that application is supposed to make sense with design. Mainly because design existed long before application ever showed up to start ordering everything around.

I feel sorry for people who hate the fact that their wonderful brains will streak across the length and breadth of possibility if they ever release them for a second. I feel terrible for those brains, but eventually those brains will cease to exist. It'd be worse if they had to live on forever. Sadly, the people who tied those brains down so aggressively, and reached over to ensure that each brain they could influence was tied down just as tight - those people, when all of this corporeal development is finally completed, and they have won the race they set out to win - will have crippled their own capacity to be what they could have become if they'd only used the corporeal self-development tool they were given in the way that it was obviously meant to be used.

In the entire natural world, what exists in a way that is counter to how it is supposed to naturally function - other than the human brain and the human mind? The answer is 'nothing exists in a way that is counter to how it is supposed to naturally function'. I'm sorry, but the precedence is clear, and the claims of religionists and spiritualists and the enlightened ego/mindless-ists carry no weight in the balance.

The human brain/mind is designed to think. Designed to think and to inquire. It's a Corvette with the racing package, and no trunk space whatsoever. I can believe in God and also believe that God knows exactly who and what the human being is as it sits on the showroom floor and exactly how best to get the most from it on the open road.

There are people on this board who lecture others to stop being who and what they are. They have tagged the visceral humanness within each of us as "the ego", and have painted it black and blamed the negative half of natural circumstance on the fact that it exists. In my view, this is incredibly destructive, and hurts the development potential of wonderfully promising minds at exactly the point when they're searching for new and transcendent ways of exploring their true humanity. It's as close to evil as I can imagine anything coming without violating clear social mores.

I'm probably never going to believe that our brains and minds are the only parts of existential reality that are supposed to be 180 degrees in reverse of what constitutes their natural and unfettered design, function and natural inclination. I'm much more likely to believe that authoritarian human beings simply feel the need to impose this requirement on other human beings, and often without even having a larger motive for doing so.

reply to post by NorEaster


Whilst i appreciate your thoughts and commments and i have no real concern with your position and theories, i have a question for you, perhaps philosophical.

I'm a person who believes in the notion that an intelligent and conscious personality is ultimately responsible for the initiation of what has become the reality that we all know and love.

With much destruction and chaos throughout the universe; collisions of gallaxies, supernovas, colliding planets or comets destroying moons; do you really think this being is caring and "intelligent" as we know it?

On our very own earth 99.8% of all life that ever existed has become extinct. What kind of just "GOD" is this? We live on a climatic knife-edge whereby certain places are either too hot or too cold to support life.

I don't negate beauty of reality and by no means am i a nihilist, i just ask why personify something that inherently has no care, the intelligent "design" theory in regards to evolution has long since been debunked.

Is your stance "Pantheism"?

The first thing to be understood is what ego is.

A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.

That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.

This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.

This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.

Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.

A center is born.

But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
...

Ego - The False Center

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Whilst i appreciate your thoughts and commments and i have no real concern with your position and theories, i have a question for you, perhaps philosophical.

I'm a person who believes in the notion that an intelligent and conscious personality is ultimately responsible for the initiation of what has become the reality that we all know and love.

With much destruction and chaos throughout the universe; collisions of gallaxies, supernovas, colliding planets or comets destroying moons; do you really think this being is caring and "intelligent" as we know it?

On our very own earth 99.8% of all life that ever existed has become extinct. What kind of just "GOD" is this? We live on a climatic knife-edge whereby certain places are either too hot or too cold to support life.

I don't negate beauty of reality and by no means am i a nihilist, i just ask why personify something that inherently has no care, the intelligent "design" theory in regards to evolution has long since been debunked.

Is your stance "Pantheism"?

If you're asking me my own view, then I can easily explain all that you've presented within the context of a creator being with its own agenda.

The short answer is - humanity assumes that it has been presented with that being's agenda, and as you so effectively illustrated, the evidence clearly doesn't support that assumption. There is a logical explanation that allows for all of what you've listed without vacating the notion of a conscious and determinable personality having initiated it all with a specific intent. Not to shill my little book, but to properly detail the entire premise and reveal where it relentlessly exposes itself within every bit and how it contributes to the proper functionality of bits like it, requires a hell of a lot more than what I can provide here. I did work it out, and I am very confident that it stands up to close examination. Maybe this is why I get so offended by the notions that humans "can't know" and that humans "aren't supposed to know".

We can know, and there's no sin in working to figure this sort of thing out.

What religionists point to as God is either imaginary or (possibly) worse than even that. The author of this reality that hosts our own very real existence is nothing like this character that has been invented. It is aware and it has a specific and surpringly recognizeable reason for having initiated the natural development that has progressed to this level of sophistication within this contextual environment. No drama, no battle between good and evil, no hands-on management by a omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent deity.

So, in one sense you're right, but on the other hand, there is a real reason why we exist as we do, and even why all the crap is allowed to exist and persist. The choice shouldn't be between an irrational cartoon God and atheism. That's like only allowing reality to be either 000000 black or ffffff white. Neither is true.

Originally posted by NorEaster
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

I'm a person who believes in the notion that an intelligent and conscious personality is ultimately responsible for the initiation of what has become the reality that we all know and love. I am a theist

That's what the ancient "supreme science" of India called Bramavidya also concluded, that "it" isn't an "it" or a "thing" but a person, which is, while innerent, also transcendant, and a first/last cause, or an "alpha and omega" of existence.

The ultra conservative fundies, although prevalent in the USA, isn't what's happening any more, there's another game in town, taking various forms, although the fundamental tenets and precepts, when you delve to the core of it, are the same, from East to West, it's largely the same, and yeah the "my God is better than your God" nonsense, has got to go.

Also the clash of civilizations, between Christianity, Islam and Judaism, MUST be reconciled. Surely those three systems for approaching the Godhead, have a shared common demonimator? It's craziness.

And I think that the true Christian simply HAS to be the first to give up his "religion" in favor of the love of God through Christ, willing to bracket it, setting aside this need to "win over converts" something Jesus was himself apparently in opposition to, being truth based or non-religious HIMSELF of all things, oh the irony.

But you said it in the quoted text, you acknowledge it! You've "seen the light" - how wonderful for you!

Something's moving, of this I am absolutely convinced, and I'm determined to do my part, however small, to help move it.

Thanks also to you, for your open mindedness, and efforts to have more "grokking".

"I'll meet you in the middle."
~ Braveheart

Originally posted by askey
The first thing to be understood is what ego is.

A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.

That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.

This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.

This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.

Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.

A center is born.

But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
...

Ego - The False Center

I sometime hate the English language. You seem to have taken the term "egotistical" and created a noun that suggests that the motivation for egotistical behavior is not simple DNA survival programming that we all deal with.

Fascinating.

When Freud gave the term "ego" a definition, he saw it as a very different aspect of the human mind. Whatever. Gay used to mean lively and cheerful.

To be honest, I don't see caring about yourself, or realizing that you are unique and inimitable, as being a negative thing. Imbalance in either direction is what I'd be concerned about.

reply to post by awake_and_aware

And yet here we are, intact, and what is, is, and it's still "all good", what a marvel, what wonder and awe!

reply to post by NewAgeMan




I agree with you that there is something shifting. Hopefully a broadening of perspective and a freeing of the human mind. Not in chaos or irresponsible magical thinking, but in what is allowed to be responsible inquiry. The basis that we both serve will be ultimately revealed as woven within all that we've ever known about ourselves and our slice of reality. It will be immediately seen as a rejection of the drama-centric narrative that's ruled the world for the last 6,000 years, and it'll be like popping a boil on the skin of humanity itself. All that pressure and pain, suddenly released as reality is revealed to make absolute sense to everyone.

I think you're going to really appreciate the effect when it does begin to reveal. I know that I'm going to enjoy it.

Really quick.

You stand alone in front of the mirror making funny faces and who knows? maybe dancing. That is your Self.

You suddenly realize someone is standing behind you watching you then you feel embarrassment and compose yourself. That is Ego.

reply to post by NorEaster


I appreciate your words and i'm sure we agree on most things.

Again i'm humble enough to admit i'm an agnostic atheist, i don't think there is an "intelligent" creator, I'm not going to assume a creator because we exist in a reality where we search for causes of things.

We are pattern seeking mammals, that's what separates us from other species here on earth. I don't feel there is any "meaning" to reality but the meaning you attribute to it.

Argument for causation. But this begs the question, who created or caused the creator? An infinite regression is the only answer to this unless we consider infinity as God itself.

Evolution already shows that "GOD" or at least "REALITY" has no forsight, it can't go back to the drawing board, that's why 99.8% of all species have died out, i ask you, what is the meaning to THEIR lives? Do they believe in a God?

I think it's arrogant and unwise to suggest there is a "REASON" to reality. I'm certainly not calling you arrogant but it seems to be a closed minded view. What about "there could be a reason or there could not be a reason?" i.e. "we don't know"

You seem to be an Agnostic Theist in a way, but i ask again, is your position Pantheism?

Again, i don't buy the conscioussness is "God" because science can't explain it yet.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I appreciate your words and i'm sure we agree on most things.

Again i'm humble enough to admit i'm an agnostic atheist, i don't think there is an "intelligent" creator, I'm not going to assume a creator because we exist in a reality where we search for causes of things.

We are pattern seeking mammals, that's what separates us from other species here on earth. I don't feel there is any "meaning" to reality but the meaning you attribute to it.

Argument for causation. But this begs the question, who created or caused the creator? An infinite regression is the only answer to this unless we consider infinity as God itself.

Evolution already shows that "GOD" or at least "REALITY" has no forsight, it can't go back to the drawing board, that's why 99.8% of all species have died out, i ask you, what is the meaning to THEIR lives? Do they believe in a God?

I think it's arrogant and unwise to suggest there is a "REASON" to reality. I'm certainly not calling you arrogant but it seems to be a closed minded view. What about "there could be a reason or there could not be a reason?" i.e. "we don't know"

You seem to be an Agnostic Theist in a way, but i ask again, is your position Pantheism?

Again, i don't buy the conscioussness is "God" because science can't explain it yet.

edit on 13/1/11 by awake_and_aware because: (no reason given)

Okay, this may seem like I'm skirting out on the question, but the truth is that our version of reality isn't the only version of reality. This means that the contextual environment that hosts our physical existence (that would include this universe, other universes that may exist, other dimensions that may exist, and what many believe is the "spirit realm" that awaits the human being after death) is a specific confine within the larger confine of the original contextual environment. To be honest, there's no way to know (impossible from our perspective, or by way of direct communication with any source capable of communication with us) if the larger confine that hosts our contextual environment is THE original contextual environment, or just another in a long line of others.

The direct ramification of this is that we exist within a contextual environment that was brought into existence, and was brought into existence for a specific purpose. Now, once brought into existence, this environment has been allowed to develop in the same manner as all contextual environments develop. Sporadic and random activity in symbiotic association with the increasingly sophisticated information collective that builds in direct reaction to that activity, with advancing degrees of organization and redundancy establishing order and stabilization. The imperative Survival compelling all that comes into existence to maintain existence if at all possible for as long as possible, and the genius of trial and error combined with the endless threat of existential oblivion running that information/causation partnership ragged.

All of it occurring on its own and through natural reaction to the logical aspects of physical existence, and yet, this contextual environment was initiated. And initiated with an intent.

Of course, this does not mean that the author of this contextual environment escaped the requirement of having had its own naturally occurring genesis. It didn't. In fact, it's genesis was definite, and likely intentionally initiated as well.

The absolute genesis of physical reality can also be chased down, but the contextual environment that hosts the original players in that event is not this environment, and there is no possible interaction between contextual environments once they have become full and naturally isolated.

So, to sum this very bare-bones description, our creator did not "create" us. It initiated the contextual environment that hosts the natural progressive development that ultimately brought our universe into physical existence, and after a half-dozen billion years, allowing our corporeal existence to become possible. This creator initiated this process for a very specific reason, and I hestitate to discuss that reason here - mainly because it sounds a bit too commonplace, and therefore ridiculous, without the reams of information that is required to place the entire premise within the proper context - both logically and historically.

I guess I just wanted to explain that I am not naive in my assertion that this creator does exist. The indications - once combined with the logical infrastructure that fully explains the rigid nature of physical reality - bring together a very clear picture of what this being is and what the human being's role involves within the overall intention of this being. It also goes a long way toward explaining why we imagine this being to be what we insist it is.

I explain it all in great detail in the book I published. If you're actually curious as to what I found out, the link is in my signature. I'd give them away, but if 20 bucks is too much considering the information, then giving them away wouldn't cause anyone to read it either. I guess this is the one thing I've learned in this whole adventure. People claim to be starving for the truth about who and what we are, and why we exist. And yet, if you offer them a new idea that they haven't already seen on a video clip or on Discovery Channel, then they dismiss it without even bothering to see what it is that they dismissed. And then they cry out that no one has the information they desperately need.

I've begun to suspect that they don't really have that desire to learn anything except that what they've already decided to believe is in-fact true. I guess it doesn't matter one way or the other. You don't have to accomplish anything in order to be successful as an integral part of this process. That's what's impressive about it. It can't possibly fail no matter what happens.

I agree with this to a degree. Yes you DON'T want to get rid of your ego, ego is the WILL. without it you are a slave as you said. Ego is you power when helps you push forward. Like my signatures explains you don't want the extreme of anything. Too much egotism just makes you a selfish person and you will lack compassion.

This applies to all factors of the human consciousness/spirit. Even positivity and negitivity. Too much negitive and you become blind. Too much positive and you learn nothing like a brat with a silver spoon in her mouth.