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'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless
    #11192390 -

First let us define ego as the self. The strongest argument against the notion of ego death, in my opinion, is that no matter whether you are thinking from one perspective or seemingly multiple perspectives, you always see them from the one root perspective.

The argument develops by redefining ego as a set of contructs that represent the self. This way, when you experience ego loss, your conception of self breaks down, rather than selfhood itself.

Furthermore, if a set of self constructs is disrupted, is there any diminishing of 'selfness' or is it a diminishing of a particular type of selfness?


If someone is Good, and they seem to be acting 'selflessly', are they trully selfless? or are they still selfish, with selves that include other people?

Perhaps, rather than thinking of good and evil as opposite forces, imagine there to be simply a level of selfishness and a level of selflessness between everyone. Goodness arises from a balance of self that includes others. Evil arises from a balance of self that excludes others. all these variables come in different degrees.


If people say they experience ego death when they take pyschedelic drugs does this mean a part of them is dying/ a process is ceasing? or does it simply mean that the self has changed, and becomes unrecognisable, foreign?

Similarly, is good and evil a matter of two opposing forces, 'good' and 'evil', or is it one force - 'selfdom', channeled in different ways?


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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Noteworthy]
    #11192419 -

self importance = ego

seeing through self importance = a lil less ego

death = no ego


:peace:


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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Noteworthy]
    #11192437 -

Right. IMO the ego is a necessary structure of the human organism. It helps us to navagate this reality and make sense of it. However the ego structure can be skillful or unskillful at this task. Some might say healthy or unhealthy.

IMO everyone acts selfishly at every moment. This is how seperate organisms are built. If I help someone at (seemingly) my expense it's because by helping them I am generating a feeling within myself that is more important to me than any thing I may risk. This can even enclude my life. So if I value love to a great degree I'm willing to suffer other things for it because that feelinng of love is so fulfilling to me.

I agree that "good and evil" are aspects of the same thing. I also think these are human concepts and not found anywhere else in our world and possibly not in the universe at large. The Tao does not care.


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192473 -

We cant say its caring, but we cant say its uncaring :wink:

I suppose the real question of - can we live without ego?
Is - can we live like we are dead?

:rofl: this makes me extremely happy for some reason

One Zen monks constant teaching was 'live like you are already dead'


:peace:


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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Chronic7]
    #11192490 -

Please explain in detail how one lives like they are dead?


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Chronic7]
    #11192532 -

couldn't personal detachment to the physical lead to ego loss?

if we detach ourselves from the physical we would just let life take its course

I think that is what a monk means by saying live life like you're already dead


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LAGM v.2.024 Grow log

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: cyb3rtr0n]
    #11192548 -

Please explain in detail how  a physical being detaches himself from his physicality?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192555 -

It's hard to comprehend ego loss even if you've been there.

Complete ego loss is a state of near unconciousness. A point at which one can barely even comprehend the state of mind at the moment.

I would say it's like losing the feeling of the body completley, forgetting that you're human, and at the very last stages of ego loss before loss of concsiousness, being able to only observe a speck of white on a vast endless background of light and not even having enough ego left to say, this is a white dot on a black background.

Ego is everything. Ego tells us to stretch, ego tells us to have sex, ego tells us to take the red pill.

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Fraggin]
    #11192573 -

The argument develops by redefining ego as a set of contructs that represent the self. This way, when you experience ego loss, your conception of self breaks down, rather than selfhood itself.



I assure you I have had this experience. A temporary disruption of the personality structure is not ego death. If the ego dies the self dies.

Just samantics I guess.:shrug:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192583 -

chapter 1 Tao Ti Ching by Lao Tzu
Quote:
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.



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LAGM v.2.024 Grow log

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: cyb3rtr0n]
    #11192619 -

That in no way answers the question. Try using your own words if you can.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192660 -

sure it does...


Icelander said:
I assure you I have had this experience. A temporary disruption of the personality structure is not ego death. If the ego dies the self dies.







we cant define ego as the self because the ego is opposed to the self
your personality is a representation of the ego.


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LAGM v.2.024 Grow log

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: cyb3rtr0n]
    #11192674 -

So  you don't know how a person who is physical can become non physical.

As I thought.:tongue:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192682 -

I haven't studied any eastern philosophy, however my understanding of "ego-loss" from my own personal perspective.
I wrote this after a high dose LSD experience on my ego loss.  I was 18 years old at the time.
Quote:
I can't think of any words other than it feels like going back.  It feels like my mind is going back somewhere it has once been before.  A feeling of authentic direct experience.  It feels strangely familiar.  The feeling is accompanied by a thought of "This is what life is all about."  The resulting feeling is not a feeling of realization, its not something that the trip suddenly sparked.  Rather its something that the trip allowed me to go back and feel again.  It is the most profound feeling possible.  It feels like the answer to the question "what is the point of it all?"  The point of it all isn't an action, or thought.  But a feeling.  A feeling of divine transcendental pure experience.  It is being in every spatial place possible, and experiencing the past, present and future all simultaneously.  It is being all. 



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L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #11192714 -

From user trip reports, I have concluded that many people label their mindstate as ego loss when it is more along the lines of simply losing control of their thoughts. Their ego is no longer in control of what's going through their mind, and they may lose the ability to steer their thoughts where they want to go, the ego panics and a loss is experience, but it is not the loss of the ego altogether, it's the ego's loss of control.

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #11192720 -

I have heard several differing and sometimes conflicting descriptions of ego loss from friends who claimed the experience. :shrug:

I think ego supression would be a better way to put it.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Fraggin]
    #11192724 -

I have had some crazy OOBE and encounters with strange beings before on high dose mushrooms. 

But i have only really had ego death from LSD.  High dose LSD... it is just relentless.


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L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192747 -

Icelander said:
So  you don't know how a person who is physical can become non physical.

As I thought.:tongue:


re-read that chapter I quoted and and yourself if you can still expect me to answer.


I know it doesn't sound practical: but, go be the rock....  that would be ego death.

and when I say be the rock, I mean be it how we perceive it to be.  because without being it we really don't know..


ego gives us self worth as we perceive relations to the physical.  ego is not truth.


but society relies on the ego.


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LAGM v.2.024 Grow log

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Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: cyb3rtr0n]
    #11192756 -

It's obvious to me you don't know what you are talking about.

How is something you have as part of your being as a human (ego structure) not true?

It's as true as anything else.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: 'Ego Loss' and what it means to lose your ego or be selfless [Re: Icelander]
    #11192800 -

can you define universal truth? truth that exists without attachment?


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LAGM v.2.024 Grow log

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