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OfflinePhluck
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I love my ego.
    #1169827 - 12/25/02 01:34 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Do you really know what the word 'ego' means?

Why exactly is it a bad thing?


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"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1169835 - 12/25/02 01:36 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

One more;

If you're conscious of the fact you've lost your ego, how can that truly be considered ego loss?

And if you're simply unconscious, isn't that a form of ego loss in itself?


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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OfflineTheShroomHermit
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1169838 - 12/25/02 01:38 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

I don't think an ego is a bad thing... some people say, "You are so egotistical" but and ego is just the identity your brain has given you...

Without an ego, people would be mindless vehicles governed by impulse drives...

(I think)

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Anonymous

Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1169842 - 12/25/02 01:40 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Others will have better answers for this but here's my take on it.

There is nothing wrong with having an ego if the ego merely means the self.

When I talk about the ego I mean an attachment to one's self that is the overrriding purpose and fixation on one's self.

I am a human being. Better than some and worse than others. I try to consider others when I think or act. Many people have no consideration for others when they think or act. They are so completely focused on themselves that nothing else matters except as it is in relationship to them. I think a world of trouble comes from that.

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Offline3eyedgod
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck] * 1
    #1169846 - 12/25/02 01:41 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Sorry for the long post but someone posted a link to this before and I forgot the site. I saved it in word though. Here it is:

Ego the false center

The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
A center is born.
But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection.
First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning. Then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected.
The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no.
The real can be known only through the false, so the ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the truth. If you know the false as the false, truth will dawn upon you.
Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society.
They are not concerned with you.
They are concerned with the society.
Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge.
The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible.
And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives.
A child comes back to his home - if he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say, "What a beautiful child! You are a pride to us." You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure - he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back bench - then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try harder next time, because the center feels shaken.
Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
You get the idea of who you are from others.
It is not a direct experience.
It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
You come with it.
You are born with it.
So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, you ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
The others have given you the idea.
That idea is the ego.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.
You will simply be confused, a chaos.
Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.
And if you are daring, the period will be small.
If you are afraid, and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted.
I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark; I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here?" The boy said, "Yes, that's right - but that is MY darkness." This darkness is completely unknown.
Even with darkness you feel, "This is MINE."
Outside - an unknown darkness.
With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.
It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened.
Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there.
And then you become afraid.
Beyond the fence there is danger.
Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden.
One has to be daring, courageous.
One has to take a step into the unknown.
For a while all boundaries will be lost.
For a while you will feel dizzy.
For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
That is your soul, the self.
Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises.
But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself.
It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful.
The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it.
You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies.
But you are satisfied with a plastic ego.
There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent.
The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself.
To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies.
It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh.
It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering.
But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity.
It is the same flower which flowered yesterday.
It is the same sun, but in a different garb.
The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it, there is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob.
When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual?
The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, its not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the self.
And that's why you are so miserable.
With a plastic life, how can you be happy?
With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego creates many miseries, millions of them.
You cannot see, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it.
Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable.
Ego is hell.
Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer.
You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems.
This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. Is has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem.
If somebody says, "There is nothing," immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact.
Ego is false, it is nothing.
That you also know.
How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being - how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false? And then others say that there is nothing - and whenever the others say that there is nothing they hit a wound, they say a truth - and nothing hits like the truth.
You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be?
You will be lost.
The identity will be broken.
So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash.
A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody.
It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back.
A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it."
The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."
You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you.
The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry.
It lives on attention.
So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego?
Other's attention is needed.
In millions of ways you attract the attention of others; you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you immediately change so that people pay attention to you.
This is a deep begging.
A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.
Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center.
But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center.
This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this.
And start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.
You expected something, and it didn't happen.
You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why.
Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask:
Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if you look outside you will miss.
Just close the eyes and always look within.
The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego.
And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will prefer to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it.
And remember, there is no need to drop the ego.
You cannot drop it.
If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says, "I have become humble."
Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it's not dead.
Don't try to be humble.
Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the real center.
And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic.
He is simply simple.
He's not even aware that he is humble.
If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there.
Look at humble persons.... There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say, "I am humble," and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.
"You are really humble," they would like you to say. "In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are." Then see the smile that comes on their faces.
What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, "No one is like me." It can feed on humbleness - "Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man."
It happened once:
A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners."
Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying:
"I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at our door." When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said, "Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody?"
This is how the ego goes. It is so subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning; you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.
Just watch! No need to drop it.
You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back.
Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch.
Whatsoever you do - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.
It is your own ego.
If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. THE VERY UNDERSTANDING IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE EGO.
And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never traveled on it.
The whole path towards the divine, the ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops.
When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops.
And then you never say, "I have dropped the ego." Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery.
I was just looking at a few cartoons of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!"
He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat.
It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what is your problem?"
The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel.
But you are in the same boat - you cannot help.
Rather, you will harm.
People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent.
A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others.
In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat.
...It is difficult to see one's own ego.
It is very easy to see other's egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them.
Try to see your own ego.
Just watch it.
Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it.
It drops just like a dead leaf.
The tree is not doing anything - just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing.
The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that.
When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping.
It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises.
And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it.
It is nameless, so all names are good.
You can give it any name of your own liking.
From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho







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Without everything wouldn't nothing be everything and without nothing wouldn't everything be nothing.I am the beginning and the end,the source and the void, the light and the darkness,i am but a small drop of the ocean yet i am an ocean unto myself

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InvisibleRebelSteve33
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Posts: 3,774
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1169894 - 12/25/02 02:07 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

If you're conscious of the fact you've lost your ego, how can that truly be considered ego loss?

So true!


--------------------
Namaste.

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InvisibleRebelSteve33
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: TheShroomHermit]
    #1169900 - 12/25/02 02:10 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Without an ego, people would be mindless vehicles governed by impulse drives...

Exactly...


--------------------
Namaste.

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InvisibleRebelSteve33
Amateur Mycologist
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Registered: 05/28/02
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: ]
    #1169905 - 12/25/02 02:12 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

There is nothing wrong with having an ego if the ego merely means the self.

When I talk about the ego I mean an attachment to one's self that is the overrriding purpose and fixation on one's self.


Unequivocally yes!


--------------------
Namaste.

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OfflineMurex
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Posts: 3,599
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1169922 - 12/25/02 02:21 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

I think when people here say 'ego loss', they refer to the more consious loss of self, rather than the loss of self during sleep. I for one believe they are very different.


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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OfflineViBrAnT
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Murex]
    #1170052 - 12/25/02 03:19 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Ego is something to be nurtured for without it you would not be here, but to let it get out of hand, to forget your place, is not what works as we are observing presently on earth.


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" liken this life illusory, for your sand castle will one day be adrift amongst the wind "



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InvisibleRebelSteve33
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: 3eyedgod]
    #1170205 - 12/25/02 04:44 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

The following is an excerpt from the book The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, which I think is very relevant to this thread. It is a speech made by the main character, Howard Roarke, in defense of the ego and all the good it has done for the world. It's a bit lengthy, but worth the read.

Please, as you read, try to fully understand and comprehed the meaning of Roarke's words. Pick out parts that you particularly agree or disagree with, and discuss your feelings about them by replying to this post. This passage from the book really means a lot to me, and I would like you hear your guys' thoughts on what it means to you!

It took me a very long time to type this up, so I hope it was worth the effort.

Here goes:

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness of the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was porbably torn onthe rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of it memory mankind knew that it s glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the stop was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considereed sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was only his motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefites others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held this truth above all things and against all men.

"His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, howeve, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power--that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self generated. At first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no on. He had lived for himself.

"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmned. Hs brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, heneeds a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons--a proess of thought. From this simple necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribuite of man--the function of his reasoning mind.

"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

"We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this porducts as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given nore received,shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual man. That which it creates is the porperty of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

"Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways--by the independent work of his own mind or as a paraiste fed by the minds of others. The creator origintes. The parasite borrows . The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasites concern is the conquest of men

"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primry goal is within himself. The paraiste lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

"The basic need of the creator is indepdence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of ompulstion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinted to any considertion whatsoever. It demnds total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, al relations wtih men are secondary.

"The basic need of the secon-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declres that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

"Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

"No man can live for another. he cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reveresed the base of mankinds' moral principles. Men have been taught every precept taht destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The reltionship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquired slave has a vestiage of honor. He has the merit of having resisitesd and of cconsidering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself volunarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the condeptoin of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but tot give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not porduced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug an act of achievement.

"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffereing of others. But suffereing is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make sufferent the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerened with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of desease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffereing than any altruist could ever conceive.

"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

"Men have always been taught that tthe ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. Bt the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.

"There the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative--and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Althruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of the self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man as forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This as the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on mankind.

"This was the device by which dependence and suffereing were perpetuatted as fundamentals of life.

"The choice was not self-sacrifice or domination. The choise is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which porceeds from man's independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon man is evil.

"The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerened with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in hs desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible betwen men.

"Now work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought.

"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men

"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling resuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

"Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dectators--as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them, which is a synonym.

"From the beginning of history, two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

"The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forwared and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state--was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was commited in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness equaled the carnage perpetrated by the disciples of altruism?

"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our coutnry. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renuncation or any precept of altruism. It was based on man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look at your own conscience."

I hope you found some meaning in this, as I have, and would like to discuss your thoughts on this passage! Like I said before, the beliefs and concepts discussed in this passage have a profound meaning for me, and I hope they have the same for you. Peace and Love,

-RebelSteve


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Namaste.

Edited by RebelSteve33 (12/25/02 05:00 PM)

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InvisibleSwami
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1170364 - 12/25/02 06:14 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

"Leggo my ego!"


--------------------



The proof is in the pudding.

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OfflineGrav
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: 3eyedgod]
    #1170570 - 12/25/02 10:10 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Thanks for that piece 3eyed, I saved it to Word too, I liked it so much.

One thing I question is the concept of having this center in you all your life... I would like to believe it but of course I'm not sure... Then again I don't think its really somethin to worry about.

Actually now that I think about it, it starts to make more sense. Not that the center is 'somewhere else' inside of you, the center is just what you feel when the 'ego' isn't dominating. It's the core.

When I think about myself I really have no clue what is a product of the ego and what is not. I would like to think I have a harmonious balance.

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OfflineJanUa
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1170966 - 12/26/02 06:19 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

ego-loss is a state of conciounsness ... it is a state of being ... not a state of thinking or living ...

you can loose ego in a few sec, gain it after having thoughts, realising you are again thinking and giving form to the ego, going back into silence (losing the ego) getting back out of silence*, over and over again ...

one tip ... if one wants to loose the ego ... don't say a word during the trip or meditiation ... not a single word!!! ... even if it is for a straight 8 hours ... if you talk, all ego is gained back ... talking comes after thinking, thinking is ego related ...

don't think ----> be ...

* "silence" is meant as silence of the mind, not just silence as not talking and being quit ...


--------------------
... in SiLenCe we are ... 3? ...

Edited by JanUa (12/26/02 07:33 AM)

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OfflineGrav
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: JanUa]
    #1170991 - 12/26/02 06:28 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

I disagree, I sputtered out many a nonsensical jibbery while on over 8 grams of mushrooms, and I'm pretty sure this was a constant state of ego loss...   

but your probably talking about a state attained without intoxicants. nevermind  :tongue:

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OfflineJanUa
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Grav]
    #1171044 - 12/26/02 07:00 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

sure thing, everyone believes his own truths ... i don't know what you experienced so i can't make an opinion ...  but it doesn't mean that when one eats 8 grams of shrooms, he will loose his ego ... and when one talks he is giving form to what he thinks - difrently called, giving form to ego ...

maybe people don't talk about the same experience, and maybe i'm totally wrong here ... again, what is ego? ... what is ego-loss?

and no, i'm not talking about a state, only attained without intoxicant's ... the one and only time i "experienced  ego loss" - "zero-experience", was on a normal dose of LSD ...

but, no need to be right on my side... it was just a thought, sharing with the group ...
:smile:


--------------------
... in SiLenCe we are ... 3? ...

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OfflineEarth_Droid
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1171053 - 12/26/02 07:06 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

While experiencing ego loss, you are preceding consiousness. You are the co creator of all experience. Also someone that has achieved satori enlightenment is considered clinically dead by medical standards. At this point, there really isn't any need to perform meaningless tasks like most of us robots do (including me).

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Offlinehighwayman
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: ]
    #1172146 - 12/26/02 05:00 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

When I talk about the ego I mean an attachment to one's self that is the overrriding purpose and fixation on one's self.

I am a human being. Better than some and worse than others. I try to consider others when I think or act. Many people have no consideration for others when they think or act. They are so completely focused on themselves that nothing else matters except as it is in relationship to them. I think a world of trouble comes from that.


I'm a bit curious mr_mushrooms. Do you think maybe that this is even an action of your ego. Maybe your ego feeds itself on the pride you get in considering others? Does one truly do this because of a lack of overriding attachment to their self, or quite the opposite, because it makes them feel better as a person.

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OfflineRemy
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: Grav]
    #1172406 - 12/26/02 06:02 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

In reply to:

Thanks for that piece 3eyed, I saved it to Word too, I liked it so much.

One thing I question is the concept of having this center in you all your life... I would like to believe it but of course I'm not sure... Then again I don't think its really somethin to worry about.

Actually now that I think about it, it starts to make more sense. Not that the center is 'somewhere else' inside of you, the center is just what you feel when the 'ego' isn't dominating. It's the core.

When I think about myself I really have no clue what is a product of the ego and what is not. I would like to think I have a harmonious balance.




The center is Zen. Thats what Buddha's teaching are about. Achieving oneness wiht yourself. Reaching zen, the center, the point of balance.

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Offline3eyedgod
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Re: I love my ego. [Re: RebelSteve33]
    #1172690 - 12/26/02 07:48 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

No man can use his brain to think for another.

That is not true. One only has to look at what is happening in America today to see this. The mass media tells people what to think. The corporations and the current administration are doing the thinking for a lot of people, and not to benefit those people, only to benefit themselves.

"Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced.

Did man's ego create the air? Did man's ego create the sun? Did it create the water or the earth? Did it create the animals to hunt, or the seeds to plant.

"The basic need of the secon-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declres that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
The creator origintes. The parasite borrows . The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasites concern is the conquest of men
The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primry goal is within himself. The paraiste lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

The ego then is the parasite. The ego is the second hander that needs to be fed. The ego is a reflection of everyone and everything in the world outside of you. The ego borrows from the views and ideas of everyone around it. The society creates it. The societys interest is the conquest of man. The ego needs attention, whether it's approval or disapproval, positive or negative. Others are it's prime motive. Without others, it dosen't exist. The true self (the not ego) , the creator. The creator is "his" work. It dosen't need approval or disapproval. It dosen't need attention. It is approval, it is disapproval. It just is as it always has been and always will be.

"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power--that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self generated. At first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no on. He had lived for himself.

True in regards to my previous definition of the creator.

"His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, howeve, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

The ego is not synonymous with spirit. The ego is not a prerequisette for conciousness. Conciousness dosen't require thinking, feeling, judging, or acting. Conciousness is simply awareness.

"No man can live for another. he cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reveresed the base of mankinds' moral principles. Men have been taught every precept taht destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

The ego lives for itself. It lives by others, for others, but only for itself. We are all one shared spirit. The ego has taught man every precept that destroys the true self, the creator. When doing for others one is truly doing for your own spirit, When serving your self you are doing for your own spirit. When doing for others at the expense of yourself you are hurting your own spirit, When serving yourself at the expense of others you are hurting your own spirit, you are enslaving the spirit to the ego. You are degrading the dignity of the spirit and condemning love.


"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but tot give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not porduced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug an act of achievement.

Again, true by my definition of the "creator" or "acheiver"

"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffereing of others. But suffereing is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make sufferent the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerened with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of desease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffereing than any altruist could ever conceive.

First of all most people are not taught that releiveing the suffering of others should be their primary concern. That is an outright lie. The ego wants to see others suffer. To show that it is virtuous. So that it can claim "I am a great healer", "I am virtuous". To gain attention and the approval of others.

"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

To agree and disagree are both actions of the ego. The creator neither agrees or disagrees, it just is.

"Men have always been taught that tthe ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. Bt the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.

I have to disagree with the first part. Men have always been taught that the ego is the ideal virtue, and that selflessness is synonymous with foolishness. The egoless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. He has found his true "self". He just is. To explain that a little better -he does not think, he is thought, he does not feel, he is feeling, he does not judge, he is the judgement, he does not act, he is the action.

"There the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative--and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Althruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of the self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man as forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This as the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on mankind.

That is simply not true. Masochism and Sadism are not the only options. You don't NEED to hurt others, and you don't NEED to let others hurt you. Think of it in terms of a magnet. Every magnet has a positive pole and a negative pole. The ego strives to be on one end of the magnet or the other. The ego is imprisoned between these two choices. The ego has to be one thing or the other, it can be anything or anywhere. The not ego is the whole magnet. The not ego dosen't have to be one or the other it is free to be everything, be everywhere.

"This was the device by which dependence and suffereing were perpetuatted as fundamentals of life.

So as you can see the ego is the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

"The choice was not self-sacrifice or domination. The choise is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which porceeds from man's independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon man is evil.

It is the ego that must choose one thing or the other. The not ego is all. The code of the ego is the reasoning mind. The code of the creator is the silent mind. As for the last part those "All that" statements. It's not true that ALL that comes from the independent ego is good, and it's not true that all that comes from the dependent ego is evil.

"The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerened with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in hs desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible betwen men.
"Now work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought.
"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men
"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling resuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
"Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dectators--as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them, which is a synonym.
"The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forwared and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.
"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state--was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was commited in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness equaled the carnage perpetrated by the disciples of altruism?

I'm too tired to answer all these individually, and I'd just be repeating the basic concepts that I already demonstrated.

"From the beginning of history, two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

Now I do not totally condemn the ego. Two antagonists have stood face to face for all eternity. The creator and the created, the subject and the object, the parts and the whole. One can not exist without the other. The creator makes the creation and the creation makes the creator. They dance together in perfect harmony for all eternity.

I hope I made sense throughout this. It is getting quite late. This has been quite stimulating and thought provoking. I would love to continue discussion of this. So if anyone has any thoughts please post a reply.





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Without everything wouldn't nothing be everything and without nothing wouldn't everything be nothing.I am the beginning and the end,the source and the void, the light and the darkness,i am but a small drop of the ocean yet i am an ocean unto myself

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Anonymous

Re: I love my ego. [Re: highwayman]
    #1172694 - 12/26/02 07:51 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Interesting questions highwayman.

It is entirely possible that a person could be motivated for selfish reasons. But that is not the case with me. My consideration for others is born out of the incredible pain of my own life. A life filled with such tradegy that it would shock and horrify most that heard it. I have consideration for others because I do not want to add one scintilla of needless pain or discomfort to them.

That is all I will say about this.

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OfflineJanUa
Stranger

Registered: 12/17/02
Posts: 19
Loc: Sunville ...
Last seen: 21 years, 1 month
Re: I love my ego. [Re: Remy]
    #1172802 - 12/26/02 10:21 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

to go further on your post Remy - Balance ... when one reaches Zen ... the balance isn't achieved by two oposit poles being alike, but it means there are no difrences ... no yes or no, no true or false ... no me and you ... everything just is ... at that stage of conciounsness ... comes  purity ... pure happiness ...

with beauty comes ugliness ... beauty is nice, but the frustrating of the opposite being on the other side is always in fight with the self ... when one no longer divides things that are, he will reache Zen ...

all comes from 1 source, don't divide the source ... cause it would by in fight with itself. We come from the same source ... don't divide the us in you and me, it is a fight with yourself and the source of your creation.

(i care to believe ... in my ego :wink: )

btw: sorry for my native english, i hope things are clear enough ...


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... in SiLenCe we are ... 3? ...

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OfflineStrumpling
Neuronaut
Registered: 10/11/02
Posts: 7,571
Loc: Hyperspace
Last seen: 12 years, 9 months
Re: I love my ego. [Re: JanUa]
    #1172803 - 12/26/02 10:24 PM (21 years, 2 months ago)

very clear - well-said Janua :smile:

3eyedgod, great post as well :smile:


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Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Invisiblemr crisper
.

Registered: 07/24/00
Posts: 928
Re: I love my ego. [Re: Phluck]
    #1172846 - 12/27/02 12:07 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

you can view your ego as the house you live in, made up of your speech.


you can make your place of residence as comfortable as you wish, or as uncomfortable.
don't fall in love with it too much, for the day will come when it will be destroyed and you will have to build a new house.

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Offlinehighwayman
long hair, butno hippie

Registered: 12/03/02
Posts: 106
Last seen: 19 years, 9 months
Re: I love my ego. [Re: ]
    #1173010 - 12/27/02 03:56 AM (21 years, 2 months ago)

Then perhaps you do it to avoid the discomfort you feel in causing other people pain.

No need to answer though, far be it from me to pry into what you feel is personal. So let me use a more general example, and first state where I'm coming from here. I don't believe that while the ego is in place at all any truly selfless act is possible. Take for instance a man who rushes into a burning building to save a child. I don't think he does this because he is not thinking of himself. I think he does this because a) he will feel pride in being considered a hero by those around him, or b) because he could not live with the guilt inside himself if he didn't try, or c) it causes him great emotional pain just to sit and watch a child burn to death. Possibly a mix of the above, possibly others, but NOT simply because he wasn't thinking of himself. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that good acts are impossible, or that all people are evil. Just that all actions are born from a sense of self.

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