Destroying the ego

Originally posted by Angle
reply to post by Bluesma

 

The thoughts about yourself of ego is what awareness is to the observer.

Ego took place of awareness. Or one experiences ego, or one experiences awareness. Both cannot be active and experienced at the same time.

Ego is self awareness. It is an individual point of awareness.



Apparently, there is some confusion on what "ego" is, and I find it humorous in such discussions, where even the people that appear to be in agreement, they actually aren't!

While some are saying it is the physical appetites and drives that need to be oppressed,
Others are saying it is the intellect and it's concepts about self and other that need to be oppressed!

I comprehend the argument people put forth, that you cannot have the two active and acknowledged simultaneously- that is sometimes the case. Sometimes they contradict each other, they are in conflict.

It is the I, the ego, the self, which acts as the mediator. It has no drives, it has no preferences, no values, except one- experience existance. It is the pole around which these turn and it is the weaver.

It is possible for the body and intellect (and all they bring to experience) to be coordinated, cooperative and creative together!

Originally posted by Bluesma


You might need to be more precise on what you mean by "egolessness". I am having trouble understanding it.

It sounds to me like you are refering to the self choosing to repress the body awareness, and focus only the experience of the intellect, and it's values, principles, morals, and framework of reality. You will have to help me see what I have misunderstood there.

Yes, it had also occured to me that I have failed to make myself clear on the subject. I am not too keen on using a lot of words, so I tend to avoid elaborating on the ideas I share.

When I speak of ego-lessness, I refer more to the state of being detached from one's ego, rather than having zero ego. If someone has cast off their identification and attachment to ego, then that ego becomes like a garment that can be worn or removed at will.

Originally posted by mysticnoon

Yes, it had also occured to me that I have failed to make myself clear on the subject. I am not too keen on using a lot of words, so I tend to avoid elaborating on the ideas I share.

When I speak of ego-lessness, I refer more to the state of being detached from one's ego, rather than having zero ego. If someone has cast off their identification and attachment to ego, then that ego becomes like a garment that can be worn or removed at will.

Oh I don't know if you haven't been clear, we just may be coming from very different angles, and it isn't simple to share the vision.

Your description is actually quite close to ones I have heard others say, so you are not alone in this perspective.
But my continual question to them, as I try to step into it is-

What is the "someone" that has "cast of their identification and attachment to ego" ?

Originally posted by Bluesma

Originally posted by Angle
reply to post by Bluesma

 

The thoughts about yourself of ego is what awareness is to the observer.

Ego took place of awareness. Or one experiences ego, or one experiences awareness. Both cannot be active and experienced at the same time.

Ego is self awareness.

As it is ignorance about ones self as well but this side of itself noone wants to acknowledge, or noone has been aware of. Ego is dualistic in nature.

All aspects of ego have an opposite.

Can you agree with that.

I'm not claiming this to be good or bad. But when ego is what is keeping you alive, it is also what kills you.

Ego keeps in mind what you thought about yourself that makes you worthy of doing wrong things. Lose ego and you will be able to do right.


7 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

You are not ego, you never ever were, you just suffer because of its existence often.

Originally posted by Bluesma

It is the I, the ego, the self, which acts as the mediator. It has no drives, it has no preferences, no values, except one- experience existance. It is the pole around which these turn and it is the weaver.

I wonder what you mean by the word I...



Maybe your ego will appear to you in a dream someday. Would it look like you?

To draw on a mythological image that you are probably familiar with- when Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star, he had to follow Obi-Wans mystical advice and 'let go'. Wu Wei.

To perform a selfless act one must let go of one's ego and pass into an enlightened state of consciousness. This is called wu wei – the state of doing without doing. Here every act is selfless for the ego has ceased to exist. There is no making decisions and the outcome is always perfect.

Who is it that lets go of the ego?

The punishment one receives because of the pact he made with the devil is having an ego. Choose wise.

reply to post by Bluesma


Would you consider it safe to say that you are nothing in particular?

Originally posted by Angle


As it is ignorance about ones self as well but this side of itself noone wants to acknowledge, or noone has been aware of. Ego is dualistic in nature.

All aspects of ego have an opposite.

Can you agree with that.

I'm not claiming this to be good or bad. But when ego is what is keeping you alive, it is also what kills you.

I am beginning to see that discussion on the topic of ego is impossible because when we use that word, none of us are talking about the same thing. But just for the sake of continued contact and exchange-

"Aspects" of ego, is not ego.

To use the visual aid another used earlier, of ego being a circle,
The aspects you refer to are what is inside the circle
(those things you put after "I Am....) the characteristics, states of being, images, whatever......)

The "opposite aspects" can be put on the outside if you wish, if ambivalence is uncomfortable for you
(if you don't like to feel sad and happy at the same time, for example).

Or you can go ahead and put opposites inside the circle at the same time
Or put the same ones inside AND outside, at the same time.

But these experiences you put inside or outside the circle,
attribute to "self", or "not self" in any moment,
Are not the self awareness/ego- take all that away, leave the circle empty, leave the exterior empty, you still have the circle, the line!

There is still a bit of consciousness, which is of the all and yet also aware of a state of individuation.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by Bluesma

 

Would you consider it safe to say that you are nothing in particular?

Yes... and no. That is the most essential truth.

On the other hand, here, in this manifestation in time and space,
I am always something, or somehow, or somewhere.

These things change, some of them I choose to hold stable for long periods of time, and others I let change from moment to moment.

Originally posted by Bluesma

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by Bluesma

 

Would you consider it safe to say that you are nothing in particular?

Yes... and no. That is the most essential truth.

On the other hand, here, in this manifestation in time and space,
I am always something, or somehow, or somewhere.

But if you check - you will always find yourself 'now' + 'here' - nowhere.
Are you absolutely sure that you are a 'thing'?

These things change, some of them I choose to hold stable for long periods of time, and others I let change from moment to moment.

'Things' are always changing but what they change in/on never changes. If you find that you are the stable presence in/on which all appearances change you will never be unstable again. And then you will not be fooled by any 'thing'.

Originally posted by BlueMule

I wonder what you mean by the word I...

I can't see (or hear) youtube videos, so if your video had a commentary on that, I cannot get it.
Maybe you can try wording it?

Maybe your ego will appear to you in a dream someday. Would it look like you?

My ego cannot "appear" it has no appearence, no form; it is consciousness, it is perception.

Though the image of my physical bodies appearence, as it was at one time, did appear to me once when i was a kid, and may have been a dream! Why do you ask? I don't grasp the significance.

To draw on a mythological image that you are probably familiar with- when Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star, he had to follow Obi-Wans mystical advice and 'let go'. Wu Wei.

To perform a selfless act one must let go of one's ego and pass into an enlightened state of consciousness. This is called wu wei – the state of doing without doing. Here every act is selfless for the ego has ceased to exist. There is no making decisions and the outcome is always perfect.

Who is it that lets go of the ego?

I am familiar with the concept of wu wei- (not so much with Star Wars though- was eastern teachings part of those movies??)
yet have always experienced that to be more of a letting go of desire to control exterior- to do things without attachment to outcome, for example.

The idea that one can act here on earth completely selfless does not make any sense.

Why would you move? You have no intent or motive or desire,
You have no attachments or sentiments to anything or anyone,
nothing can be experienced by you, seen, heard, felt, percieved at all,
because there is no self, there is no being, there is no awareness to percieve or to move from one point to another!

So this "selfless" acting and moving in this world, does not actually mean self less.
Not literally.
It can only mean that state of being in the moment and not attached to outcome.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain

But if you check - you will always find yourself 'now' + 'here' - nowhere.
Are you absolutely sure that you are a 'thing'?

I thought I worded it clearly, I don't think I can get more concise.
As I said- the most essential truth of my being is that I am nothing.
That is, if you will, my true essence.

And yet, I am having experiences in physicality, in time and space, at the same time,
in which I have aspects- forms, colors, textures, states of emotion and thought, I am in one place and not another, In one point of time, and not another.

'Things' are always changing but what they change in/on never changes. If you find that you are the stable presence in/on which all appearances change you will never be unstable again. And then you will not be fooled by any 'thing'.

See the "circle" analogy I wrote above.
In this context, "things" refers to "aspects", as Angie and I were calling them.

Originally posted by Bluesma

As I said- the most essential truth of my being is that I am nothing.
That is, if you will, my true essence.

And yet, I am having experiences in physicality, in time and space, at the same time,
in which I have aspects- forms, colors, textures, states of emotion and thought, I am in one place and not another, In one point of time, and not another.

You are nothing (emptiness) and the appearance (form) is constantly changing.
All is presence - the unchanging constant presence (the stable) and the ever changing appearance - appearing presently.

Emptiness is form.

When you realize that your true nature is 'nothing' - nothing fixed, nothing in particular - you are free.
However, when there is a need to be 'something' or an idea that I have to be 'something' in particular then there will be suffering.

The realization that I am not a thing - that I am no thing - is the end of wanting to be something - it is the end of ego.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain


You are nothing (emptiness) and the appearance (form) is constantly changing.
All is presence - the unchanging constant presence and the ever changing appearance - appearing presently.

Emptiness is form.

Yes. So you agree on that?

Originally posted by Bluesma

Originally posted by Itisnowagain


You are nothing (emptiness) and the appearance (form) is constantly changing.
All is presence - the unchanging constant presence and the ever changing appearance - appearing presently.

Emptiness is form.

Yes. So you agree on that?

I wrote it - I am not in the habit of writing anything I disagree with.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
When you realize that your true nature is 'nothing' - nothing fixed, nothing in particular - you are free.
However, when there is a need to be 'something' or an idea that I have to be 'something' in particular then there will be suffering.

The realization that I am not a thing - that I am no thing - is the end of wanting to be something - it is the end of ego.

edit on 26-4-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

Of course you hve to choose something! To choose not to choose, is to choose!

The fact is, you have projected your self into the physical world, and the plane of time and space.
This vehicle, this form that is typing on your keyboard? It will not cease to exist as soon as you decide to not be it anymore. You can change it's form, appearence, behaviors, you can kill it, but even if you choose not to be the consciousness that animates it, and decide to leave others to move it, control it, wipe it's butt, put food in it's mouth, or whatever they choose to do to/with it, you will experience those experiences.

Your ego doesn't much care whether the experience is painful or pleasurable- it is experience, and self has no preferences in experiences.

But the range of experience will be limited, very limited, until you decide to manipulate your self empowerment and choose what, who, where, and how.

Most selves are fine with experiences in slavery and lower caste vehicles for a few lives, but eventually choose to expand into more experiences.


You do have to choose. Even if you choose to become passive and not choose. But that doesn't mean suffering with be over. Suffering is part of physical existence as much as pleasure is.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by Bluesma

Originally posted by Itisnowagain


You are nothing (emptiness) and the appearance (form) is constantly changing.
All is presence - the unchanging constant presence and the ever changing appearance - appearing presently.

Emptiness is form.

Yes. So you agree on that?

I wrote it - I am not in the habit of writing anything I disagree with.

Back to silly word games again.

I knew it was probably a waste of time to respond to your post.

You are not actually interested in exchange or communication with an other, are you?

To even just acknowledge you agree or disagree with another,
would be acknowledging "others" exist, wouldn't it?