great conversation guys!! some really deep thoughts here!
ego loss is very difficult to explain, and the main reason for this is because you really don't know it's happening until your ego jsut starts to take back the throne. it's like you don't really know it's gone till it "re-appears"
now regarding your input, sight, smell and sound, any of these can "shut off" or become dorment. but that's not really what ego loss is about.
your sence of you is gone. this is why it's hard to judge what's going on because YOU aren't judging. all you are left with is your essential nature, that is, awareness. you are just aware enough to know something is going on, but you don't know what. you cease to have opinions of the world on even the smallest scales because your ego is the main source of these opinions. believe me, you will KNOW when you have experienced ego loss.
another thing you may notice is your head can very well be completely silent. it's because you aren't judging things so quickly and so often. You can lay down on the grass and look at the stars with no thinking that "you are watching the stars" get it? your head will be damn near completely silent, this is the essence of complete awareness. it's like this this and that is happening, but you don't assign a good or bad value to it. it just IS.
I'm going to compy something that I posted on another thread because I think it describes the process well and what ego loss showed me
For me, the most important aspect of ego-loss is it showed me that our ego is not out essential nature. We have something deeper within each of us. The reason I said this because it didn't matter whether it was shrooms or salvia, I still had one thing, my awareness. I was aware of htings happening and I knew "things" were "happening" just didn't know what at the time
Essence is that which is unchangeable. our true nature. Everything else that was "me" was gone. I noticed before I experienced ego-loss, I thought my personality was me. now that may sound strange, but what I really mean is that I identified with my image and the things around me.
with ego loss I realized that my personality wasn't me at all, it what I thought I was. What I am getting at is that when you know that your essential nature is awareness, not personality, your ego can relax more and more because it won't be defending the personality. I used to say things like "you can't say that to me.." and now I see how wasteful of my energy that was.
When you identify with the personality as your actual essential nature, your ego will constantly be guarding and manipulating. Guarding the things that you do or have done that might be threatened, and manipulating the world around you so that it fits what you think is the "way it should be." When in life, we all know, you will win some, and you will lose some. and therefore it is ridiculous to rely on the exterior world to providey ou with happiness.
when you feel that your essence is awareness, you can sit back in a deep place within yourself and just observe what is going on. the more your ego relaxes, the more your awareness increases, because you are using more thoughts to see what's going on in the present.
what I mean by awareness is this...
close your eyes for a minute.......notice what you "pick up"
do it......
what I normally notice is that I pick up sounds more.
now think of what would happen if you were in a place devoid of sound and sight. you would pick up on sensations on your body. the mind to me is comparable to an antennae.
now this is not to say that the ego is bad, no no! We need it to function properly. but when you lose it, you gain a new perspective that you might not have had before. soon it won't be your ego using you to try to change your surroundings to fit your desires, but rather you using your ego to understand what makes you mad, and therefore showing you what you need to work on so that if the same thing happens again, you won't be as angry or upset.
this builds acceptence, and more awareness. if you can see your personality for what it is, jsut a tool then you can use it. when in ego loss you realize a new perspetice which means, if I feel this one minute, and then another the next, which one is "correct" maybe this "space" can be experienced any way you want to experience it.
if our essential nature is awareness, then we are all essentially the same. In this way, acceptence of each other is easier, and therefore communication will also be upped a notch.
Suffering can be used to provide you with "clues" as to what you need to do in order to be relaxed in 90% of the situations life brings to you. We as a society get angry too much
say your tire blows out...you can get mad and curse the poeple who sold you the tires, and the weather, and the guy who threw the nail, but after al is said and done...you still have a flat tire.
-------------------- Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.
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