A few questions about the ego...

You want to know the ultimate danger of the ego??

Look at this ATS thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The ego wants to live forever and can't accept defeat of any kind with death being the ultimate defeat. So it will seek even genetic manipulation towards its ultimate goal. I'm sure it was Homo Sapiens that killed off the remainder of all the other forms of humans who have existed in the past. The new human may try to kill us off.

The ego is also the one that seeks enhancements and whatever else it can use to get a leg up.

reply to post by TheMatrixusesYou


Thanks I think i'm kinda gettin it now. It's good to learn.

deoxy.org...
Ego - The False Center
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho

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.

First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.

The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.

The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.

Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.

They are not concerned with you.

They are concerned with the society.

Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.

They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society

I always thought of it as just our self awareness- meaning if I speak or write or express physically anything, it is my ego doing so. It is neither good nor bad.

But listening to how others describe it I have come to the conclusion that it is often used to refer to any part of ourself (our ego) that we don't like or judge as undesireable.
What the other non-ego part is which proclaims this, I have not figured out yet what they refer to that as.

i look for my soul and did not find he - i look for God but he eluded me - I looked for my brother and found all three

Get three feet behind your head -

you notice your thoughts - imagine them comeing out of a sink hole -
you notice what notices?
the back ground - the one who takes the reins and tames the anima horse

We are the reflector not the reflection - thats Narsisis
Bacome the reflector and notice the reflections

Left hand and right hand meet as one and the true self controls them and is conscious but the ego shuts down one side often - the middle brings them together thrice great

reply to post by Bluesma


I need to stop you right there. The ego is not only what we think is bad, but it is also what we think is good. As I mentioned in another post, the ego places judgement on everything. The ego takes something that is inherently mundane and places some value to it. This is judgement.

It's why the Bible says judge not lest ye be judged.

You can't get too many people to agree, and I'm not saying it's real or allegory, but it really is why Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because that is the beginning of suffering: when you apply what you think is good and evil.

When you see things as a child, you don't cast judgement on anything. Everyone else pushes their judgements on you. And this is why Jesus said to come to him as little children.

When you see something as good, you try to eliminate all bad associated with that. One example out of trillions is War. You are good and the other is bad. As viewed from both sides, this is the case.

So you see? The ego tries to establish some precedent on what it thinks is good and bad. This is suffering.

You can take it a step further. Of course a story even older than the Adam and Eve one is how Lucifer is cast out of heaven and it was because of his pride. What they are trying to tell you is that pride in things comes even before judgement. This is not just a bible issue, so you don't have to be Christian to see it (Not that many do). Pride is attachment to things and starts very early in life. When something is taken away from you, you are hurt and this is fundamentally because you sort of feel like it's a part of you. Then when it's taken away, you feel slighted. The same with giving. You feel higher when you give to someone. Unfortunately the ego makes it seem like you are better than the other person.

The ego is a value judger and you'd be better for examining yours.

reply to post by Lichter daraus

Well i'm not worried about me

Saying that is basically the ego saying that about itself. To say "my ego is in check" comes from the ego.

i feel my ego is in check and i'm a pretty selfless person. The whole ego thing is just confusing to me at times. why is it talked about as if its something that wants to take you over. If the ego isn't separate from ourselves then why would it be afraid of annihilation and, how or would it fight to the death to preserve itself? I don't know, maybe I'm asking the wrong questions...

Your asking the right questions. The ego is basically the mind and all of its thoughts, likes/dislikes, reactions, programming, and the thought 'I'. all of these things make up the complex of the ego and yet all of it is just thoughts.

The thought of a tree, is not the same as an actual tree. An actual tree I can show others, feel, touch, see. But the thought of that tree is imaginary. In the same vein, who you think you are is not who you are. Or just like the thought of a tree is not the same as an actual tree, so who do you think you are.

On a primary level, what you really are is awareness which is aware of the mind and its thoughts. To realize this, is to wake up from the slumber of being zombified in the mind/ego. Yes the ego will fight all of this and make up excuses ans is tricky. All that has to be done is to reject or see all thoughts as not you and not coming from you.

Also, the mind and its thoughts is like a stream and has a starting point that comes deep from within. If as awreness, you remain of the mind and all of its thoughts and when they begin and end, eventually it becomes so subtle you can see the starting point of thoughts like a tiny bubble starting to form deep under water.

The thought 'I' as in "i am a man, I like ATS, I am in check of my ego" ...is the root cause of the ego. But this I is just an imaginary thought.

the ego is designed to protect your self conscious.

Always keep the Ego in check,
You cannot rule with your Ego, because that means that you yourself is not actually ruling.


Wish we had separation of Church-State-Ego

And by the way, it's only your ego that wants to find out about the ego. Interesting.
second line.

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


Sorry to disagree, but 'ego' just means 'I'.

The original meaning of the Latin word ego is I.

So whatever you say about ego, me just means me.

All other meanings are derived.

The poster above me is correct in saying that ego is simply the Latin word for ‘I’. Freud used the word to refer to that part of ourselves which we think of as ourselves – the part in which our sense of self reposes. According to Freud, the ego is the person we think/feel/know we are.

All uses of the word in popular culture, including every use of it on this thread, derive ultimately from Freud’s usage. Freud’s theory of psychology contrasted ego with two other components of personality, id and superego. He saw the id as the repository of animal desire and instinct, the part of us that wants, the wellspring from which raw emotion originates. You can think of the id as an infant that hasn’t learnt to suppress desire or defer gratification, that wants the world and wants it now. The superego, on the other hand, is like a parent or conscience; it is the socialized part of us, the part that discipline, self-criticism, self-denial, etc., come from.

Most of you on this thread are misusing the word ego. What you mean by ego is something more like id. That is how the word has come to be used in the world of pop psychology and philosophy, the world of woo-woo and mumbo-jumbo. In this world, meanings are never precise or related to anything as boring and trivial as fact. That is why the OP is having trouble understanding what ego means; he or she has read or heard too many different, contradictory usages and defintions of the word.

Freud’s ideas are now largely discredited, but in psychology and among educated people in general, the word ego still means what he defined it to mean. Don’t that worry you, though; use it however you wish. Outside the charmed circle of the intelligentsia, it can mean pretty much anything nowadays.

Originally posted by Bluesma
I always thought of it as just our self awareness- meaning if I speak or write or express physically anything, it is my ego doing so. It is neither good nor bad.

But listening to how others describe it I have come to the conclusion that it is often used to refer to any part of ourself (our ego) that we don't like or judge as undesireable.

Originally posted by Bluesma
What the other non-ego part is which proclaims this, I have not figured out yet what they refer to that as.

our alter-ego?

reply to post by Astyanax


This is another example of what the ego tries to do...

The OP can find the definition of ego from wikipedia. That's not why he's asking. At least I don't think so. It seems more likely that he's trying to get a clearer picture of how philosophy is portraying it. Please don't make this thread confusing by telling him that you're right and everyone else is wrong. Psychologists in academia would like to say they are helping society when in fact they've done not much less than hurt it. In fact much of the help they've lent to society, they'd gotten from studying the way mystics work with the mind. This stuff is ancient. It goes back to Jesus and even way beyond him.

I didn't intend on getting defensive here, I just have issues with the rise of the supposed value of academia if left unchecked. And you have to use what works with people. Telling them that they have 3 divisions of the mind doesn't help. They can continue to have trouble, only now they know which subdivision is responsible. A mystical definition, tried and true, helps to lead people out of the wilderness.

Multiple personalities were actually created by Freudians.

"What part of you wants this in your life?"
"I want to speak to the part of you that is...."

You know what I mean?

reply to post by Lichter daraus


The ego is similar to taking one grain of sand to define who one is when the truth is that he is the entire beach. It creates the illusion that who we are is something that is very specific when the truth is that we are everything and everything is us.

Not only does this very specific view of the self limit the view that we have of ourselves it limits our ability to create experience, which is simply a reflection of the self. The ego (or the limited/ specific view of the self) is therefore the root of all limitation, all suffering and all separation. It (we, with ideas..) takes the vast and expansive I AM and breaks it into pieces so that instead of being able to see and create from the perspective of our true nature we see and create from only a piece of our true nature.

reply to post by nicolet


Yes. You said it perfectly. And you can boil it all down to language. This is what language does. A word is a symbol and a sentence will string together a few symbols to create another symbol. That's all it is. And there could be infinite symbols to exist.

Folks really don't realize just how finite a world they live in...at least in the world as they know it. Until someone shows it to them, they will go on believing that they live in that super small world. And as people age, they start to see things wrong with the world they live in, but because they don't know the finiteness, they get depressed. Just my view.

reply to post by TheMatrixusesYou

This is another example of what the ego tries to do...

According to which definition of the word?

The OP can find the definition of ego from wikipedia. That's not why he's asking.

He is asking because he has been confused by a plethora of contradictory usages.

It seems more likely that he's trying to get a clearer picture of how philosophy is portraying it.

The word ‘ego’ entered modern languages with Freud. Any legitimate philosopher, of any nationality, would use it in the Freudian sense. New Age space cadets who think their stoned ramblings are ‘philosophy’ will use the word as they please. Since there is no consensual definition of their usage, or indeed of any other usage apart from the Freudian, multiple usages have resulted in confusion and meaninglessness.

Please don't make this thread confusing by telling him that you're right and everyone else is wrong.

I am correct. If you disagree, provide an argument why I am wrong, together with some evidence to support it.

And you have to use what works with people.

What works, with anybody, is a clear definition, as unambiguous as possible, of what a word means.

Telling them that they have 3 divisions of the mind doesn't help.

It clearly marks out the functions of the ego (as defined by Freud), showing how it differs from non-egoistic mental function. Obviously that clarifies the definition of ego.

Psychologists in academia would like to say they are helping society when in fact they've done not much less than hurt it. In fact much of the help they've lent to society, they'd gotten from studying the way mystics work with the mind. This stuff is ancient. It goes back to Jesus and even way beyond him.

What a load on tripe. Your views concerning both philosophy and psychology seem to be informed purely by slanderous hearsay – tendentious, third-hand accounts found on New Age web sites and parroted by people who think they’re being, Heaven help them, ‘wise’. The sort of people who say things like ‘Jung was the psychologist of the Seventh Chakra’. Psychology is about mysticism, eh? Goes back to Jesus, does it? Could you provide some arguments, and evidence, to support these extraordinary claims?

I just have issues with the rise of the supposed value of academia if left unchecked.

And this, you feel, is relevant to the thread topic? How?

"What part of you wants this in your life?"
"I want to speak to the part of you that is...."

You know what I mean?

No I don’t, and I couldn’t care less. I would rather pay attention to people who know how to use words sensibly and meaningfully.

reply to post by Astyanax


Oh here we go...I knew this was coming.

This page shows the definition you want him to read. You also had to send an attack toward this thread pronouncing your disdain for other uses of the word "ego" outside of the Freudian use which you swear by apparently. I love how some academics love to hold the license on knowledge and by the way, I'm an academic, so don't go there.

As I stated before, if he wanted your definition, he could have found it from Wikipedia.

This definition is more of the aim the posters on this thread were going for and it's A definition that at least some of us have struggled to understand for sometimes years until we got it. So I guess your post was pretty useful, because if the poster wanted an understanding of the word or concept of ego, it really helps to see all definitions and descriptions, then make his assessment inside the realm of the known within its boundaries.

"He is asking because he has been confused by a plethora of contradictory usages." --This sounds like you're putting words in his mouth because he said no such thing. I guess you have no idea why he asked.

"I am correct. If you disagree, provide an argument why I am wrong, together with some evidence to support it."--You are correct....only by the Freudian definition. We gave him our definition and he responded positively without once mentioning how it differs from Freud. Since I tend to study the woo-woo stuff you referenced, I picked up immediately to what he was curious about. And when you come in and say we are wrong and you are right, that inserts confusion into his mind that he'll have to deal with....but it's hard to argue against someone who still sees everything in black and white.

Have you actually sought out the help of a psychologist to assist with your life? Probably not. I have. And I have a couple of friends who do that sort of thing. They like to think they provide service to people based on their knowledge that they're so proud of, when maybe all the person needed was someone to talk to. Anyone can do that. Hell, a good friend can provide more help in one night than many psychos can in 36 visits. A good diet and exercise can cure many depression problems that psychologists tend to take on--often with drugs. Something else they love to do is tell someone that what they're doing is normal. Yea normal with everyone else because everyone else is all f'd up. Look I really didn't want to get nasty here at the end, but you pushed me here with this:

"What a load on tripe. Your views concerning both philosophy and psychology seem to be informed purely by slanderous hearsay – tendentious, third-hand accounts found on New Age web sites and parroted by people who think they’re being, Heaven help them, ‘wise’. The sort of people who say things like ‘Jung was the psychologist of the Seventh Chakra’. Psychology is about mysticism, eh? Goes back to Jesus, does it? Could you provide some arguments, and evidence, to support these extraordinary claims? "
--That's pretty offensive.

We all struggle to find our own meanings when the world is full of bs definitions from any 'camp'. I'll give you this: A person has to wade through a large amount of bs to get to something real, but I promise you. You do find real gems when you look long enough. But you have to have an open mind in order to find real meaning. Otherwise you will never grow while your mind remains closed. And right now you are in a phase where you are closed because you can't function unless you have exact definitions and you have preconceived notions about pseudo-whatever new age mumbo jumbo. This should indicate to you things about vanity, courage and tolerance. Sorry for sounding harsh and I guess this is valid for this thread because precedence has to be set about meaning of concepts.

The Ego is that part of us that makes us think we are all separate individuals. It causes us to think this is mine that is mine etc. All duality is Ego based, the false God.

reply to post by TheMatrixusesYou

This definition is more of the aim the posters on this thread were going for...

Can you show me where, on that page, ego is defined? Because I cannot see a definition anywhere. Only – guess what? – a plethora of contradictory usages.

I think you have proved my point rather splendidly. Thank you.

reply to post by Astyanax

Hindu and Vedanta traditions refer to Ego as Ahamkara (अहंकार), a Sanskrit term that originated in Vedic philosophy over 3,000 years ago, and was later incorporated into Hindu philosophy. It is one of the tattvas, or principles of existence.

Buddhist traditions view Ego not as a single principle, but rather aggregates of conscious energy which create each individual's consciousness. These aggregates, or "heaps," are referred to in Sanskrit as skandhas.

The mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, as well as the self-described neo Gnostic writer and teacher of occultism Samael Aun Weor, posits that the ego is inherently constituted by many "I's

The spiritual teacher Meher Baba stated that the ego is a expression of separateness that hinders spiritual growth

I had to go in there and actually separate out the descriptions. Eckhart Tolle didn't have a definition and that may be because he didn't want to clash with Freud's ego definition, but who knows. That page is meant to be read by a person and then allow the words to settle in while they aggregate a definition for themselves.

The base for many complaints lies in a person's underdeveloped ability for discernment. And you really need that these days to get a clear view of anything.