Obliteration of the ego

by logansrun 59 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  trevor

  Thanks James, Terry and all who have added to this interesting thread.

  Terry a lot of your comments show that functioning smoothly the physical world is important and requires the function of an ego. An ego that stops us being at one with all the undesirable elements on planet earth.

  You quote Freuds definition of ego and talk of hubris( Freud also talked of a super ego) I think all your comments are of value.

  To me idea of moving aside the ego is to allow ourselves to think on a more spiritual plane outside of our conditioned responses. To look from a much bigger and different perspective.

  As the bumper sticker says: LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.

  Your driving analogy is very apt. People drive in a certain way depending on their outlook and state of mind. An ego driven person in heavy traffic, will be tense and angry determined to be in front and in a hurry, absorbed in being in front or faster. Often concerned that the car they drive indicates power and status. Then there are those who are oblivious to others and crawl along with a lack of awareness and are equally as dangerous.

  A person that has stepped back and is looking at the bigger picture will see that all the drivers share a common goal, he will realize that he is part of a vast concept called driving. and allow people to pull out and be gracious to others. He will watch other people and be fully aware of their expressions. Driving becomes a pleasurable opportunity to observe and increase awareness. This does not diminish the drivers ability or prevent him from functioning on a physical plane. It simply allows him or her to see the reality of the situation and not allow a personal agenda to diminish competence or awareness.

  This state of mind can be achieved through meditation and the development of awareness. It involves stepping beyond the narrow confines of the mechanical mind and realizing that we are part of something so vast that our personal identity is not our true reality. Application of this calm detached state of mind to the world we live in then follows.

  It is not a matter or surrendering ourselves to fate or lifes dangers or hidding away but rather to approach life in full awareness and without the baggage of ego that can sabotage our ability to function at our best.
• 

  Terry

  This state of mind can be achieved through meditation and the development of awareness. It involves stepping beyond the narrow confines of the mechanical mind and realizing that we are part of something so vast that our personal identity is not our true reality. Application of this calm detached state of mind to the world we live in then follows.

  And I think it is because of the vastness we must take bites. We must chew. We must swallow. We must digest. These are the activities of the mind and not just the digestive system. Man's progress did not accelerate by leaps and bounds until he was able to measure. He ordered his discoveries. He learned to make his assumptions testable as theories. He learned that knowledge does not come from AUTHORITY. Knowledge comes from discovery which proceeds from inquiry.

  When religion makes an admission of change it damages its foundation of AUTHORITY. When Science makes an admission of change it reaffirms the necessity of inquiry and the testable nature of theory.

  Consequently, Authority shuns change and silences critics. Science creates advancement because it is all about necesary change stemming from testable inquiry.

  The EGO is the part of us that will not allow AUTHORITY to dictate. The EGO demands proof. That is the chief reason our institutions of Authority have made Egotism a bad thing. They seek to silence the critic always.

  Our ego keeps us free to be you and me. Without it we are the servant class to an elite tribunal of mystics.

  Terry
• 

  frankiespeakin

  The Ego is not anything you can point to as a concrete solid thing. It is a concept,, a construct of the mind. You can not define it with pin point accuracy.

  The ego is part of the development of the evolution of our species it has helped us to survive as a species until now. But just like all species that are evolveing, it needs to change and adapt if not we may not survive. That's the way I see the ego,,it has been useful even thought there are unpleasent side effects. As the mind and our consciousness grows and eventually even rewire itself the ego may be disguarded just like the back legs of a whale as it adapted to its mainly water enviroment.

  The ego is also a cloak that uses pain to control, this has both its good and bad effects. Will our evolution as a species finally be freed of the ego? I think so, and I think it is happening now and has been happening for thousands of years. Maybe that is the solution to the mess we our in because we are so exploitive, or perhaps we could say the ego needs to be shrunk as to its control and not abliterated. What ever,, time will tell and evolution doesn't move in a straight line upwards and always better sometimes it moves in a direction that causes harm to a species and it becomes extinct,,which could possibly be the out come of our species no spieces is immuned from extinction.
• 

  JamesThomas

  Terry, I would like to comment on some of what you said. Your statements are in quotes, my comments follow.
  
  
  "The EGO is the part of us that will not allow AUTHORITY to dictate."
  The actual "AUTHORITY", is the unbound Reality of your being, Terry; so, yes, it is true that the ego often will not allow authority to dictate or be seen, and instead binds consciousness within a make-believe identity that can see only what the mind can encapsulate.... and this, is a good thing?
  
  
  "The EGO demands proof".
  Can what is false, incorporate Truth? Can the finite-ego even begin to comprehend what is infinite and unbound? This does not mean that Reality can not be realized; it just means that the ego can not realize, but rather the far larger intelligence which you actually are will see Itself. Of course the ego doesn't believe there is any intelligence beyond ego.
  
  
  "That is the chief reason our institutions of Authority have made Egotism a bad thing. They seek to silence the critic always."
  The "Institutions of Authority" and religions, are none other than products of the ego, which it fights and battles to acquire a semblance of support and proof that it exists and is king. It's really just masturbating as the conceptual ego wrestles with it's own creations of conceptual religious and philosophical beliefs. It's a comical play.
  
  
  "Our ego keeps us free to be you and me. Without it we are the servant class to an elite tribunal of mystics."
  The ego does not at all keep us free, but rather imprisons consciousness within a superficial conceptual level of perceived reality. Bound to it, we are not servants, but slaves. The battle with some "tribunal of mystics" is again, a battle with the ego, by the ego.
  
  The ego is not the enemy, it's not much of anything really, other than thought. We are free to stay entombed in our familiar and warm separate and individual egoic identity, and spend are last remaining days fearing a dangerous and threatening universe out there; or, we can awaken to a boundless freedom, and use the ego when practical and step out of it's walls when not. The doorway is sincere and earnest questioning of who/what am I, really? So, yes, Terry, you are correct when you say "Knowledge comes from discovery which proceeds from inquiry."
  
  Inquire! Delve! Investigate! Pursue! Look deep within, and deeper still, and see. None of this means a damn thing unless realized first hand. Can the very same consciousness which is reading this now, move beyond the ego? What is true???
  
  
  j
• 

  Terry

  Can what is false, incorporate Truth? Can the finite-ego even begin to comprehend what is infinite and unbound? This does not mean that Reality can not be realized; it just means that the ego can not realize, but rather the far larger intelligence which you actually are will see Itself. Of course the ego doesn't believe there is any intelligence beyond ego.

  Ummmmm.

  Truth is that which corresponds to the way things actually are whether we are there to disagree/agree/ or ignore it.

  A "false" thing can be as little as a wrong decimal place or an unproved assertion parading as a universal fact. Context is important.

  What is a finite-ego? What standard of measurement do we employ to measure a conceptual concoction such as ego?

  And comprehending the infinite and the unbound is largely a matter defining the infinite in meaningful terms. Being unbound cannot apply to anything infinite anyway.

  By calling "what we are" this or that and asserting what we are not is "this and that" we've pretty much assured our conclusions in advance. Of such is circular reasoning built if we aren't cautious about our premises.

  I'm not sure what "larger intelligence" would be. What is this magnitude composed of and in what terms?

  If it is with our ego we "believe" this and that it sounds as if the ego is our central processor. As such, if it is unplugged, are you asserting the existence of something in its place?

  What are the components, then, of a person?

  A fake self and a real self? Perhaps this is more simply a matter of our conceptualization skills and our lexicon of choice than any supra-reality undetected by the rational mind.

  What brings on the "sniff test" in me is the switch from a standardized set of terms and definitions and the substitution of mushy neologisms or mere floating concepts that serve any purpose one wishes.

  This is not directed at any person per se. It is me "speaking out loud" as to the process I go through when I encounter a different language of thought or a rhetoric that won't be pinned down as to specifics. My bad.

  I'll keep hacking away at it with my rational mind (ego) either because I don't yet understand it or, because I'm being betrayed by that selfsame ego who has me captive in a Matrix like conspiracy of servitude.

  Can you guess which way I'm leaning at the moment? ;)

  T.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Terry,

  The ego is not some tangable thing you can touch with your hand or see with your eye. It is purely concept and that is all. When some one says: "O that was my ego thats why I acted selfishly" they are not pointing to anything tangable they are just pointing to the exploitive nature they have,,that makes them feel like an "I" or individual separate from everything else. It is just a thought pattern we have evolved makes us feel seperate from everything else,,no duobt due to the way we conceptualize everything through thinking, and judgeing. Our 5 senses are not very accurate in telling us what is outside us or if there is anything really outside us. We just have these mental pictures to go on,,which are not accurate.
• 

  JamesThomas

  "Truth is that which corresponds to the way things actually are whether we are there to disagree/agree/ or ignore it."
  
  EXACTLY!
  
  Can consciousness/awareness/attention see beyond "terms and definitions and the substitution of mushy neologisms or mere floating concepts that serve any purpose one wishes"? Is there a REALITY, an ACTUALITY, a TRUTH here when all thoughts, concepts and beliefs which define "me" and "my life story" are absent?
  
  A question seeking to see beyond concepts can not be answered by the conceptual machinery of the minds vocabulary and imagination. It's like a scientist silently and intently looking into the depths of an uncharted Martian ocean to see if any life exists there; he/she, could theorize about it forever, but until there is an active investigation which allows the Martian ocean to reveal it's secrets, little if anything at all comes of it.
  
  
  j
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Here's part of an essay that talks about knowlege and knowing what we know and sense perception it is a little old over 100 years I think but still good if you ask me:

  http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/TPOF/pofc7.html?PHPSESSID=e9f12abedf908122ff444e8b9fd1acca
• 

  Terry

  Terry,
  

  The ego is not some tangable thing you can touch with your hand or see with your eye. It is purely concept and that is all. When some one says: "O that was my ego thats why I acted selfishly" they are not pointing to anything tangable they are just pointing to the exploitive nature they have,,that makes them feel like an "I" or individual separate from everything else. It is just a thought pattern we have evolved makes us feel seperate from everything else,,no duobt due to the way we conceptualize everything through thinking, and judgeing. Our 5 senses are not very accurate in telling us what is outside us or if there is anything really outside us. We just have these mental pictures to go on,,which are not accurate.

  You have no idea how powerful are the ideas behind your words!

  I'd like to amuse myself (everyone else will run screaming from the room) by parsing the sentences to see if you agree with me.

  Humans are able to think in terms of units. This gives rise to separating ourselves from everything else. If we DO separate ourselves from everything else (as a separate unit) we are an INDIVIDUAL and not merely a component.

  Are you saying we are not INDIVIDUAL? Or, something else? Maybe you are saying, "Yes, we are individuals; but, we get into trouble if we carry that into isolation."?

  That's my first point.

  Now my second one.

  "The ego is not some tangible thing you can touch with your hand or see with your eye. It is purely concept and that is all."

  Are you saying nothing is what it IS because we only conceptualize what things are? That would be asserting an "ISn't" which is the corollary to an existing IS. Further to conceptualize implies the automatic acceptance of a mind and a thing to be conceived.

  Or,

  Are you saying things are what they ARE and we cannot understand them BECAUSE we only sense them? How is mathematics possible then? It isn't sensed by the sensations but, it can be empirically proved using them.

  Or,

  Are you saying there really isn't any THING but an EVERYTHING and our identity is a mere construct of the mind; an Illusion? Because IF you say that it is self refuting. You have to have a mind in the first place in order to use it to construct anything.

  THE EGO is a construct; but, it refers to some phenomenon and that phenomenon is indicated by behavior which is tangible.

  EGO seems to be defined by you (and others here) as a negative and solely self-interested attitude of superiority which I've already spoken to as HUBRIS. I think this is a choice on your point that makes this whole discussion more semantics than discovery of actual matters of behavior. (I can't seem to pin anybody down on EGO definitions other than passing references to it being a bad thing. But, to be a bad thing; it must be a thing first. Things have a nature. The nature of the ego would make it real. But, you've ruled that out as a mere concept. Which then makes it a choice. Who is behind this choice? Is the non-ego choosing the EGO? And what do you call that self? Why the choice?

  Finally, and most importantly you say:

  Our 5 senses are not very accurate in telling us what is outside us or if there is anything really outside us. We just have these mental pictures to go on,,which are not accurate.

  What is YOUR SOURCE of information? Are you positing a mystical source of more accurate data? If so, how do you succeed in NOT conceptualizing it into a rival to the ego?

  I'm only asking these questions so that I can be on the same page and not miss out on something valuable.

  This is like doing my own dentistry otherwise.

  Thanks in advance.

  Terry
• 

  love11

  We use this expression often, you know: "I just got lost doing..."

  Sometimes when I am reading or going to the beach, I lose track of time and forget that I am there in front of people. I get lost in the book or looking out onto the water and I forget about everything going on around me.

  My husband says that when he draws, it's like he's in his own little world and hours go by without knowing it.

  Is that what you are talking about?