Ego: origin of voices in your head which can result in "shizophrenia".

Originally posted by NotAConsumer
reply to post by Bluesma

 

the last thing you said is what i did after college, now im a mess! but i did learn alot about pure peacefulness.

Sometimes we need a change of ego- we need new examples to pull from, a new idea of self.
But simply trying to destroy the self and leave an empty space won't work.
You exist in this reality, even if you were to get rid of all conceptions of self, you'd still be a physical body....
With needs, urges, drives, reflexes......

There is a certain amount of peace in avoiding all that
(like the teacher or mother who goes to hide in the closet and lets the kids do whatever they want)
But that is a temporary relief- just as it is when you crack a whip and scare them all into silence and fear.

The only long term fulfillment can come from beign willing to get in there and learn how to manage all this "stuff", effectively, with humor, affection, firmness, and consistancy.
Sometimes you have to go looking for examples, for people to observe and be around that have this sort of relationship inside them. If you are one of those people that learns best through mimick and empathy, just hang around them a lot.
If you are someone that learns more through being consciously taught and ordered, get yourself in an acknowledged position of submissive to them (take a class from someone who is a teacher, or be an employee of theirs).

This ego demonizing talk is mostly sourced in the need for a new ego- not "no ego".

Anyway, here's my contribution:
www.wired.com - Schizophrenic Brains Not Fooled by Optical Illusion...
www.newscientist.com - Schizophrenics see through hollow-mask illusion...

This demonstrates it good i think:

Originally posted by tridentblue

There's truth to what you're saying, but it depends on a different definition of ego. You're definition seems to be tied to self love, and self esteem, things which are clearly positive and healthy. My idea, and perhaps the OPs, is that ego is the idea which defines what are ARE and what we ARE NOT. So I think the OP is saying that when our idea of what we ARE NOT cuts us off from certain parts of our selves, we get really broken as people. Its better to just have self love for our own minds, and patience.

No, I have the same definition. If you are distinguishing voices in your head from your self, (as if they are not you) then that is a problem of not recognizing portions of the self. It means your ego is not including parts fof your self.

You can have self esteem and have an ego that is too small and weak- that is often what narcissism and arrogance is. Denying large portions of ones urges, drives, instincts and characteristics to create a self image that is "good" or desireable. You can have less self esteem and a bigger, more strong ego.

I don't necessarily think the ego is necessarily where schizophrenia "resides", however I am 100% sure that it may indeed cause it.

Any psych or gp can tell you that if one endures certain circumstances for long enough it can foster the conditions for mental illness, I know someone who lived such an unhealthy life they ended up bi polar, and had been warned by a psych it was happening.

A logical deduction would be that the circumstances triggered a change in the ego, imposing a view of the self which was unhealthy, thusly causing or at least fostering mental illness. (There are also circumstances in where a person expects to see "bad" in their life and thus, focus shifts to all the problems one endures. Positive changes and events are largely ignored.)

So the ego certainly plays a part in mental illness, I personally witnessed depression vanish overnight with the ego in a friend of mine, I can also say that I am a whole lot happier having shed my preconceptions of life.

The opposite of happiness is sadness, however in a non dualistic sense, the absence of sadness also equals happiness. Given sadness is often the product of ego, shedding the ego = happiness.

reply to post by tridentblue


That's right tridentblue, I shared another definition of ego. But there's a right word for all things, it is to name things as they are. Ego can seem right and beautifull and righteouss to be but it is a disguise. It will take you down, it will.

Can we focus on ourselves, or is it to focus ego away that leads us to ourselves.

reply to post by Angle


Nicely put, I wonder how many people have medicated themselves thinking that it will fix the problem.
There is no remedy for this battle, it really only matters whose side you take.

PLPL

reply to post by NotAConsumer


We are all a little "crazy".



PLPL

Originally posted by Angle
What is it when you hear voices in your head?

It is ego 'fighting' itself. It is something it can do. Did anyone identify the voices in ones head before? Ego is such a pain, such a [snip]. You'll see these voices are not yourself, but you might have figured this out already.

It's just ego turning on itself.

To lose ego is to lose shizophrenia with it. Such a diffusion of the soul. I am sorry for your suffering.

One should love it when ego is fighting itself. Now you know how you should feel when these voices occur. The problem most people have is that they don't know how to feel about it, and they often think themselves is the problem, but that is when ego still has a part of you. You identify yourself with it and that way it seems it is you who causes these voices.

On clearing confusion!

edit on 22-4-2013 by Kandinsky because: removed f-bomb

Hi Angie,

Not really sure I agree you are clearing confusion. You may, in fact, be increasing it, or at the least stirring a pot of confusion, for ego can definitely be seen as part of self. It is, in fact, what distinguishes self, from someone else. I know, I know there's a lot of this stuff that ego is the problem, but I think this is partly codespeak, especially the kind of codespeak that there is a lot of around here, because there's just a whole lot that can't just come out and be said, isn't there, partly bc of those T&C's, especially when you just can't say what you really want to a specific member.

This is a very positive thread, in the sense that you state this, as thought it is an "obvious" truth, the truth and nothing else but the truth. But as "new age" seeming as your point of view is, it actually represents quite a bit that is antithetical to new age anything. Because part of new ageism is supposed to be about the truth being relative, as in you have one and I have one, isn't it? Just like you have your own ego, which also, by the way is part of asserting truth, and I, and anyone else (for that matter) has their's. Science has its own approach, religion its own approach, and psychiatry its own approach. And, at least I thought (but obviously must be mistaken here, at least) that part of the new age philosophy was that these things really reaffirm each other, and that the old paradigm, shall we say, only served to divide and conquer all of them......

Having put it that way, I find this thread unusual for you having read most of your others, because it really is not all that positive. Equating things that may not belong together at all, (hearing voices, ego and schizophrenia) and then calling it clearing up confusion can really only increase it.

Tetra50

Originally posted by Angle
reply to post by tridentblue

 

That's right tridentblue, I shared another definition of ego. But there's a right word for all things, it is to name things as they are. Ego can seem right and beautifull and righteouss to be but it is a disguise. It will take you down, it will.

Can we focus on ourselves, or is it to focus ego away that leads us to ourselves.

edit on 22-4-2013 by Angle because: (no reason given)

I don't know, can it really take you down. Or is emphasis upon it what takes you down, to the exclusion or improper balance, or even improper labelling, as you invoke here, that there is a right word for all things? Ego, contrary to popular belief, has different definitions, dependent upon the context it is being used. So there is a right word for all things, if we agree to definitions of words, and if used in proper context for real communication, instead of inculcation or again, speaking in code.

Per purely pschological (as a science) circumstance, ego is not a disguise at all, but a part of the whole mind, and only one part, though a distinguishing part, as in it helps with something callled "boundaries," which are, in fact, for psychological health, extremely important.

Did you write this thread or did one of the other posters? Did I write it? Differentiation of that is part of ego. You presenting it as the only real truth is also very much a part of ego.

it posted itself, and then i pushed the reply button. What do you make of that? Time out of mind. What would that mean to ego, I wonder. So then, instead of saying double post, I used the box to say something else rather than leaving the space inside blank.

To have eternal life is to have no ego. Ego kills, ego is the sinfull nature. Dissolve.

thanks. Did you miss the others before it? I don't expect compliments on them, but perhaps an answer.
next line becauses one liners are frowned upon around here.


hmmm, that came across as an interesting timing phenomenon....
not sure what's happening with the computer, or anything else these days, for that matter.

reply to post by Angle


If you hear voices in your head your just remembering what someone told you at some point.

Or do you know of a kind that is not of this variety?

reply to post by tetra50


Nice post Tetra.

reply to post by Vicarious10000


The words that you heard when you were young will always stay..

If you want to know how goes further: (advised)



The ones where one usually finds no origine of is ego fighting itself.

Originally posted by Angle
To have eternal life is to have no ego. Ego kills, ego is the sinfull nature. Dissolve.

I'll give you real concrete examples of how trying to invalidate and destroy your ego is harmful (to self and others).

When you make no distinction between self and others, choosing to focus upon the "we are all one" experience, outside of meditation or isolation,
Then you choose to igore the boundries. Suddenly emotions are neither "yours" nor "mine",
acts are not carried out by you or me,
Things do not belong to you or me,
They just are.

Very poetic. Except that others don't find it very fair to have your emotional reactions, choices or behaviors attributed to them. Others will not appreciate you treating their things as if they are yours. Or taking credit for their hard work or efforts.

Breakdowns in that boundry are when people suddenly are found in a strangers house and bed, and need to be hospitalized. Or having driven off with someone elses kid, or accuse others of having bad thoughts or intentions, when in fact they didn't.

Munchausens syndrome by proxy happens when a mother doesn't recognize the child as "not I" separate entity, therefore with it's own rights.

The ways in which denying boundry of self/other can be source of abuse and harm are endless.

Originally posted by Vicarious10000
reply to post by Angle

 

If you hear voices in your head your just remembering what someone told you at some point.

Or do you know of a kind that is not of this variety?

The funny thing about this would be is if we are all hearing voices, and then they wouldn't be "in our heads," or would they, since we don't hear, say, with our kneecaps or fingers.....

Ego is just such a tricky, misused, misunderstood phenomenon, as well, I think. Just as "hearing," and "in your head," are, as well.....

reply to post by tetra50


I agree and disagree. As signal sent from your fingers and kneecaps go to your brain when stimulated. A signal has to stimulate to make a signal. So all in all maybe hearing and feeling is misconceived?

reply to post by Bluesma


I am liking and agreeing with almost all your posts on this thread, just wanted to say, and pointed out, as well, that ego is necessary for boundaries, which are quite necessary for mental health.

Along those lines about mental health, and someone posting here (can't remember which member or post now, sorry) who had said they worked in the mentally ill: This poster asserted we all manifest some degrees of mental illness. I just felt it important to point out that the common saying is, "everyone has a diagnosis," even diagnoses which would mean, more than one, as well. And serves to point out the difficulty with psychology, period, and the DSM, and then the confuses that arises when terms such as ego, are used either out of context, or as blanket labelling of a whole lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with the actual "thing," that ego really is.

Originally posted by Vicarious10000
reply to post by tetra50

 

I agree and disagree. As signal sent from your fingers and kneecaps go to your brain when stimulated. A signal has to stimulate to make a signal. So all in all maybe hearing and feeling is misconceived?

Well, that's exactly the point of my reply, though I made it subtly. And it was also making a point about what the thread does in its use of language confuses, by making some very complex things, over simplified and then putting them together--which really does the opposite of what the OP claims to be doing: clearing up confusion. Also, there is an irony here in both our posts to one another, that we are both talking about matters of perception, and that this is part of why I say the OP is confusing things that don't really belong together by using words that have many definitions and then combining what really can't be confined to one defition, and so it creates a lot of misconceptions. I feel all the posts in reply, reflect just that, as well.