How do you define the ego?
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(2017-09-17, 07:33 PM)Raimo Wrote: Why would oneness be on a higher level spiritually than duality? According to information gained from mediumship, spiritually evolved souls are more individual than the less evolved souls. This conclusion is also logical. Oneness would only lead to some kind of vegetative state and annihilation. I tend to think that oneness is not something we eventually attain, it is what we are now and always have been. The sense of separation is the illusion which has been created so that we can experience this kind of life without the awareness of the totality. Nevertheless, this life experience adds to the whole. I think that the ego is that which facilitates the filtering so that we assume that which we are consciously aware of is all there is. Psi experiences provide the clues that we are more than the ego, more than the sum of our sensory input and more than the temporary (and temporal) vehicle that we currently inhabit.
I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.
(This post was last modified: 2017-09-18, 09:35 PM by Kamarling.)
Freeman Dyson (2017-09-18, 09:28 PM)Kamarling Wrote: I tend to think that oneness is not something we eventually attain, it is what we are now and always have been. The sense of separation is the illusion which has been created so that we can experience this kind of life without the awareness of the totality. Nevertheless, this life experience adds to the whole. In what we colloquially cal "the beginning", The One existed w/out any self-awareness but a knowledge that by 'dividing' Itself (in a holographic manner), It could experience an infinite set of POV of Itself. All That Is resulted. As you suggest, in order to have a very unique experience, as All That Is' 'ambassador' here in physical reality, we live our lives thinking we are separated from All That Is. This allows us to re-member who we really are, our True Self, a process that cannot be had in timelessness. Or I should say, a few of us re-member who we really are, the rest have a different path to take. The ego is what grounds us in this physical illusion. The physical mind only can tell us what happened, not why or how any event that is spiritually motivating occurs. Nice post, K. (2017-08-22, 11:41 AM)Stan Woolley Wrote: Some people live in that madness. That's why I really think many people are 'insane'.Sorry, guys, for taking like 4 weeks to get back to this thread. Steve, I think you've this stuff down cold! :: I agree with everything you're saying in here at the end - of course I'm also insane 99.99% of the time. (2017-08-22, 04:04 PM)Hurmanetar Wrote: Ego is also a rigid identity centered on the self and involves a near constant process of narrative construction looking forwards and backwards in time. As such, the ego is the lead character in the dramatic story that is one's life. The "ego" is what we've named the experience of being the lead character in one's own drama.Great post, Hurm. Really well articulated. (2017-09-18, 05:14 PM)Brian Wrote: It's hard to describe really. My brain still registered everything else as separate from me in an academic sense and I was still able to function as normal but at the same time there was no distinction as I was just part of everything else. In Swedish, we have two verbs for "to know" Att veta is to know in an academic sense and Att känna is to know in a familiar sense and also means to feel (psychologically) These two forms of knowledge are no longer working in unison. I hope that helps. Tack, det var intressant att läsa om din erfarenhet.
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(2017-08-19, 09:36 PM)Ninshub Wrote: The video then goes into an argument into how pretty much the majority of suffering involves the ego. I found the list of forms of problems and suffering that he sources back to ego so interesting that I wrote it out below. A few comments. Several posters have noted that the inability of most to "rise above" the lowly ego is one of the curses of mankind, and indicates a lack of spiritual development. It seems to me that many of the most important positive qualities and faculties and achievements of mankind are intimately related to and inseparable from this list of the evils of immersion in the ego. Things like for example creative achievement in the art and sciences and the positive results and progress resulting from entrepreneurship in capitalism. These sorts of activities seem to be fueled by the desires of the ego to achieve, also by desires of the ego to accumulate wealth and power, and fears by the ego that nothing might be achieved in life, or just fears of poverty and want. So many great works of art and music seem to have been fueled by suffering of the ego. I think that little progress would have been made out of the Stone Age without the drive to achieve for some times selfish goals furnished by the ego. The ego is an essential part of being human, and being controlled by it is probably the natural human condition. The negative results of immersion in the ego listed above are probably inevitable side effects accompanying the positive necessary essentials of being human, and without them the human becomes an empty "thing" without the exquisite complexity that is an essential part of being human. Much, though I don't think most, human suffering certainly results from the ego. I don't think anybody going through the excruciating pain of trying to pass a kidney stone will avoid the suffering by rising above his ego and realizing that the real he is not his body. The physical pain = suffering mechanism is built into the human animal brain and body. But it is interesting to observe how animals seem to suffer much less from losses of bodily function like blindness, amputation of limbs, etc. They seem to naturally accept their condition and naturally try to continue as much of a happy life as possible, rather than fretting and stewing and getting depressed and angry about their condition. This seems to indicate that animals don't have anything like the overriding ego that is natural to humans. I guess being human has its tradeoffs. (2017-10-01, 08:04 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: The negative results of immersion in the ego listed above are probably inevitable side effects accompanying the positive necessary essentials of being human, and without them the human becomes an empty "thing" without the exquisite complexity that is an essential part of being human. (...) I guess being human has its tradeoffs.Yes I definitely agree. This week I've also been thinking of attachments and relationships, and if you're operating out of a complete-removal-of-ego perspective, you don't get attached in the same way and get to experience profound experiences with people that are distinctly human. Of course doing so opens the door to suffering and destructive behaviors, and possibly the payoff in the end isn't worth it (?), but there you go. That's why I'm not and wouldn't want to be a Buddhist, personally, and why I don't agree with perspectives like Leo's where he describes all criticisms of such "enlightenment as the slaying of ego" views as "the ego creeping in and manipulating" - there is perhaps something spiritual in these very ego yearnings, especially (but not only) in the attachment realm. Possibly living life as your personality, whilst also having a meta view - nurturing and blending both - is ideal (for some, including myself). (2017-10-01, 08:04 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: Much, though I don't think most, human suffering certainly results from the ego. I don't think anybody going through the excruciating pain of trying to pass a kidney stone will avoid the suffering by rising above his ego and realizing that the real he is not his body.Here I don't agree. For many people, including me who knows what it's like to pass kidney stones (!), this plays a really minor part of our lives, and most of our lives is mental suffering, rather than physical pain. |
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