The Ego Cult

It seems the concept ego has become to some in the spiritual community, what Satan is to Christianity. There is a common idea that the ego is bad and that it needs to be removed from life or at least try to drown it out through meditation. I'm not discouraging meditation but I don't encourage avoidance or running away. It is impossible to get rid of the ego when we all have different perspectives in life. Ego really is just our perspective, perspective is all we have at the moment here on earth in these bodies. The ego is a result of life exposing itself to us in a unique way that is not seen to anyone else.

In my opinion, the ego is a natural part of our life experience.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts as I know not everyone will agree with me. I would still like to know what you think none-the-less.

narcissism is essentail.

We dont have 'original sin'

And if you are too confident now days they cry 'complex'

the mind serves a purpose. for survival. life would of never evolved into a complex enough organism if there was no ego for subjectivity to attach and identify to. the one who has mastered his mind only uses it as a tool when he needs, when its not needed he places it down.

ego or mind is an accumulation of ideas and impressions. constantly changing, eternally confused. the smaller the ego becomes the less smudges there are on the window. the more rational ones perspective becomes

reply to post by Ralphy


Exactly, I'm with you 100%. Let everyone be an individual, independent, and responsible for their OWN happiness.

reply to post by Ralphy


Even the word "Ego" comes with all sorts of negative connotations to it in normal use, and this I think shows how small-minded we really are in that we will simply accept something and move on without questioning first.

To me, Ego is ONLY the part of us that Recognises Ourself amongst everything else in existence.. in which case it is a very necessary part of Life and Experience.

And so I perceive Ego to be a Spectrum thing, like everything else we could experience Here.

At one end of this spectrum you would place those who have a highly inflated sense of Self Worth and Importance, while at the other end you would place those who "suffer" from Low Self Esteem and related issues of Importance and worth.

In which case, the most effective and thus healthier place to situate yourself would be right in the middle of the spectrum.. to have a Healthy Ego and not unbalanced in any way if possible.

I also think that through our lives we hover around different places on the spectrum depending on or experiences at the time.

And.. I think that the old Concepts of killing the Ego are a load of old twaddle... especially if it is the part of us that recognises ourselves. I do understand that in many older Belief Systems it is thought we should be completely removed from Ego.. removed from being an individual being in THIS experience of Earth in order to more fully become one with the forces around us.

But, we can become one with the forces around us and still recognise our own-ness amongst that existence and allow ourselves to experience what we are here to experience without putting so many blocks in our own path to understanding the simplicity of reality.

the ego is geared towards negativity to promote growth. suffering is most peoples spiritual teacher. but that isnt to imply the ego itself is life enhancing. it is quite the opposite. ego is source of all suffering

Originally posted by biggmoneyme
the ego is geared towards negativity to promote growth. suffering is most peoples spiritual teacher. but that isnt to imply the ego itself is life enhancing. it is quite the opposite. ego is source of all suffering

Do you mean to say that the ego is the cause of physical pain that can cause one to suffer as well? I'm just trying to see where you are coming from.

The ego is an essential component of our wiring. The only issue regarding the ego is in who drives the body-creation machine (think of the body like a car or other vehicle for exploring this planet).

When the thinking mind is in control, the creation machine uses thoughts as a drama to experience life. The misunderstanding of the purpose of our experience has been like using DOS in an open-source Linux environment. The thoughts are categorized into labels and judgments that allow for the survival of the entity.

The problem lies with the identification with the chemical reactions (feelings/emotions) the body indicates. Rather than use emotions as indicators to the current state of the body machine, the mind (ego) gains pleasure and pain from these chemical surges. The more input is converted to emotion, the body creation machine attempts to flesh out (create) based on the inputs.

Now take a body that runs from awareness. Even in the learning phase, awareness is the tool to gain control back from the ego mind. When the body elicits an emotional response, we normally have programmed labels & judgments that spark the response. In the aware, this process is noticed and awareness recognizes this as an ego ploy. Things settle down and we go on, noting the event. The next time it happens, it becomes less of an event and over time, the ego is relegated to its proper place as a controlled aspect rather than the pilot of the ship.

The ego is not to be destroyed but rather understood. Once humans can transcend ego attachment and learn to quiet the chatter mind, they can operate through awareness and choose the lenses to look through. The body becomes a creation machine and via intent, thought is attached to emotion which ignites the process that creation results from.

The ego is only the gatekeeper to deeper understanding and wisdom, preventing those who haven't learned to understand the self from using the more powerful body tools involving energy centers and deep third-eye meditation.

Peace.

Originally posted by Ralphy

Originally posted by biggmoneyme
the ego is geared towards negativity to promote growth. suffering is most peoples spiritual teacher. but that isnt to imply the ego itself is life enhancing. it is quite the opposite. ego is source of all suffering

Do you mean to say that the ego is the cause of physical pain that can cause one to suffer as well? I'm just trying to see where you are coming from.

i mean psychological suffering, but even physical pain is interfaced through the mind. Which leads me to think there are probably some monks out there that can take some pain without causing a difference in their inner well being

The Ego is vilified and held up as the harbinger of all sorts of evil and dastardly deeds, but often times what is blamed on the Ego has nothing to do with the Ego at all and is actually the result of the Id. It is the Id that compels people to embrace the "pleasure principle". It is the Id that will urge a person to avoid pain or displeasure. Addictions are the product of an Id without a strong Ego. The Id will respond strongly to strong substances, and the stronger the substance that causes a perception of pleasure, the stronger the Id gets at urging a person to repeat the use of this substance. When the addiction happens, and the effort to detoxify begins, this causes pain. Thus, many people who find it difficult to beat addictions, do so because their Id is stronger than their Ego.

It is the Ego that argues that some pain is tolerable when endured in pursuit of a specific target or goal. The effort to remain physically fit is a product of the Ego and not the Id. Indeed, when exercising, the Id is outraged and will point to all sorts of aches and pains caused by exercise in an effort to convince the person to stop exercising. Only the strong Ego will override the Id's insistence of entropy.

We live in a horrifying Orwellian world where words often mean the polar opposites of what they once represented. Perhaps this is a consequence of globalism where various languages come with various translations, and whatever word the Indian Vedics and other Oriental cultures use to describe the I or self-centered portion of humanity seems to have been translated into English as Ego. This, however, is only the innocuous reason offered to explain why the necessity of an Ego would be vilified as being the cause of all evil in our modern Western world. It is arguable that if there are people engaging in social engineering - and it appears there are - undermining the power of the Ego and dismissing its importance helps to make a more controllable populace.

Ego is the gift giver of diversity. Ego is essential for us to be able to have any subjective or relative experiences. All of existence is One, but to be able to experience, ego must cast its illusions of separation. We are here, experiencing as humans, but we contain all that was, all that is, and all that ever will be.

However, we must understand and become aware of Ego. An imbalance or ignorance of Ego leads to war, prejudice, hate, violence, genocide, starvation, oppression, and inequality.

With a proper understanding and use of Ego, we should celebrate diversity, but stay away from superiority complexes or prejudices that may result from Ego.

We are all different, but we are all One.

We must not avoid 'negative' emotions, 'negative' thoughts, nor Ego, but WE MUST TAKE CONSCIOUSNESS OUT OF AUTO DRIVE.

reply to post by Ralphy


I agree, I don't understand the preoccupation with "Destroying Ego".

You are the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego.

What you really need to focus on is finding a good balance between all of these.

Id (base instinct, urges): Learn to live with the joy and wonder of a child.

SuperEgo (morals and ideals): Live by your beliefs, but do not force them on other people.

Ego (mediator of Id and SuperEgo): This is the you that everyone sees. Make it the best you possible. Live your life, enjoy it, do not obsess over "living it wrong" if you are living as well as you can.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

I stopped reading with your post because I thought you spoke so eloquently about this. I find it sad and unfortunate that we seem to live in times where we are told the answer to ending war, violence, agression amongst us is to give up ego, and ascribe to "we are all one." It seems to me not only simplistic, but a symptom of a wider problem of keeping us dumbed down, unaware and erasing all the finer distinctions of complicated issues to make broad, sweeping generalizations and connections and conclusions that only follow after those finer distinctions are gone.
Ego removal is part of that endeavor, I believe. Removing individuality under the guise of everyone being equal, believing the same things is supposed to promote peaceful coexistence. But we are not the same. This should not mean that all life does not share an inherent equal value.
Without ego, (which someone above translated as narcissism, unfortunately), would we have had Bach, Beethoven,
Monet, etc?
And yes, I believe that you are right in that it is simply a way to provide a controllable, maleable, populace.
Thanks for the topic, and hello, Ralphy.

reply to post by tetra50


Ego is only the mechanism that allows the "One" to become the many. It is the mechanism that allows subjective and relative experience. It gives the illusion of separate selves.

Understanding and transcending Ego has absolutely nothing to do with becoming the same as everyone else.

Interconnected, Co-dependent, Co-arising
Fundamentally, we and all of existence is composed of the same energy. How can it be denied that all is one? Nothing can originate or exist 100% independently on its own. All is connected, and all needs something else to originate, exist, and survive.


The mere existence of Ego tells us that as the One, we are supposed to experience subjectively and relatively. Each one of us is the expression of infinite possibility. We are supposed to be different and we should be celebrating this diversity.

Transcending Ego is not becoming like everyone else! It is removing all issues of superiority complex and prejudice. It is being at Peace with Self. It is the acceptance of others, the acceptance of diversity without judgement. It is the removal of mental and psychological separations based on superficiality. It is joining mankind animals, plants, and existence in mutual loving brotherhood.

reply to post by Sahabi

How does one not make a judgement?

reply to post by Sahabi


egotism, an overactive ego, usually complicated by overactive defense mechanisms to insecurity to provide a feeling of well being, is different than ego, in a strictly psychological def.
Without the ego to help you define yourself, your perceptual experience on an individual basis and level, how would your behavior, choices, intellect be informed to the world around you, your environment and your response to it?

What ego does to a person, in a spiritual sense, is gives them what I call "The God complex".

Yes, we are all spiritual beings.
Some people are able to tap into that spiritual side very well, and if they fall into the god complex, which is an ego trap, they become much more to themselves than what they really are. Their imagination runs wild after they experience some spiritual experience, and instead of continuing on with their "soul" development, they stunt themselves by getting caught up in a delusion of grandeur. Perfect example would be David Koresh and Waco Texas.

It happens, it is a trap of the "ego".

Originally posted by ottobot
reply to post by Ralphy

 

I agree, I don't understand the preoccupation with "Destroying Ego".

You are the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego.

What you really need to focus on is finding a good balance between all of these.

Id (base instinct, urges): Learn to live with the joy and wonder of a child.

SuperEgo (morals and ideals): Live by your beliefs, but do not force them on other people.

Ego (mediator of Id and SuperEgo): This is the you that everyone sees. Make it the best you possible. Live your life, enjoy it, do not obsess over "living it wrong" if you are living as well as you can.

Sigmund Freud's theoretical concepts of the psyche are safe and clean. However, are we merely Ego, Super Ego, and Id? Fundamentally, and at the most basic of conceptualizations, are these 3 concepts the raw core of who we are? I say no.

The attributes you have associated with the Id are characteristics of the R-Complex, or Reptilian Mind.

The attributes you have associated with the Super Ego are characteristics of both the Left and Right hemispheres of the brain.

The attributes you have associated with Ego is actually the observer, the watcher, consciousness, and awareness.

Basically, the Freudian concepts of Ego, Super Ego, and Id only focus on mind. The Freudian model is out-dated in my opinion.

Here's how I understand human existence:

Universal Consciousness (All/One, Highest Self) --->
Ego (Illusionist of Separation) --->
Lower Self (Individual Identity) --->
Instincts (R-Complex) + Emotions (Heart, Feminine, Right-Hemisphere) +'Thoughts (Mind, Masculine, Left-Hemisphere)

Originally posted by Doublemint
reply to post by Sahabi

 

How does one not make a judgement?

It is my understanding that as long as there is no oppression or infringement of free will, we must allow each other complete freedom of life, happiness, and peace. As long as a person is not oppressing or infringing the free will of others, we must fully and unconditionally be accepting of that person. We must learn to forgive ourselves and others. We must remove prejudice and superiority complexes from ourselves. We must live and let live.

This can come through an understanding that all is One. See others as yourself. And understand that each person is different because they are supposed to be different from you; we are each an expression of infinite possibility.

When we know that each human is a different us, then what will arise is love, understanding, acceptance, freedom, peace, and happiness.

reply to post by tetra50


Dig deep to the raw energetic waves and particles that comprise existence. We are all one. We are all connected. How can we have any experiences if we are all the same and made of the same? That's Ego's job; to cast illusions of separation amongst the fundamental wave/particle energy. Ego gives us the gift to be able to have relative and subjective experience... too much Ego and we think that we are so different from Self that we hurt and oppress ourself.