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Blastrid
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Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all?
#895006 - 09/20/02 04:33 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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I was having a discussion with my roommates about psychedelics and their ability to distort/unveil reality. During the comeup on a trip, I notice each time my brain goes through phases. My thought patterns are the same as when i'm sober, thinking of words, images, ideas, things, but then they get faster and faster... then no longer are they trains of thought but rapid concepts shooting through my brain.. then (if you trip hard enough, that is) you get to the point where your mind no longer considers, it only acts purely from not-thinking, or instinct, or whatever you'd like to call it. To be able to act purely without considering would be a step towards , if not actually-, ego loss (and nirvana in zen buddhism).
Ok so the only way to have permanent egoloss is to die, you must come back from your trip. You can believe you had a complete loss of ego, because you felt you existed purely in the moment, acting on a whim, not of consideration (but would you remember?). So if you felt you had egoloss, but you're back in sober reality, you perceive that you know more about the nature of yourself undistorted by self-image than those around you. Thus, giving you a bigger ego. There is a story of Babaji, a yogi who once sat in one spot in the lotus position for 45 days without food, drink, or stopping to piss or sleep. to assume your mind is infinitely deep and to spend that amount of time either exploring yourself or unifying yourself with the One Consciousness, is that not the Biggest Ego? but yet, at the same time, it is the complete lack of ego. he neither uses nor destroys nor creates, he just IS, for that period of time. He existed no longer as the individual, but shedding the 'self' and existing as part of the One Consciousness. Your thoughts? very paradoxical, and quite a difficult discussion.
could 'nothing' be the ultimate goal? would you recognize it if you experienced it?
-------------------- Blas'?trid (bl?s tr?d) n. 3rd generation derivitave of a combination of 'bastard' and 'blasted'. Used as both an insult or an expletive. ex. Blastrid! Stereopattern <--My music.
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Anonymous
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895455 - 09/20/02 08:33 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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You are coming dangerously close to the Truth. There is a book by Herman Hesse called, Siddhartha. It is 152 pages long. I suggest you read it. It has the answer you are loooking for.
Cheers,
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Blastrid
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: ]
#895547 - 09/20/02 09:10 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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really? there's a book that gives all answers to The Truth? Sweet but who's truth?
-------------------- Blas'?trid (bl?s tr?d) n. 3rd generation derivitave of a combination of 'bastard' and 'blasted'. Used as both an insult or an expletive. ex. Blastrid! Stereopattern <--My music.
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Anonymous
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895553 - 09/20/02 09:13 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Not all the answers but the one you posted specifically about which was the ego.
Who's truth? I thought you knew better than to ask a question like that.
Read it. Then you'll know. Seriously.
Cheers,
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Blastrid
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: ]
#895560 - 09/20/02 09:16 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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i'll pick it up this weekend your past recommendations for books has been truely mind expanding Mr Mushrooms. Thanks!
-------------------- Blas'?trid (bl?s tr?d) n. 3rd generation derivitave of a combination of 'bastard' and 'blasted'. Used as both an insult or an expletive. ex. Blastrid! Stereopattern <--My music.
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Anonymous
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895562 - 09/20/02 09:18 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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You are quite welcome, Govinda.
Cheers,
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buttonion
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895690 - 09/20/02 10:34 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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to assume your mind is infinitely deep and to spend that amount of time either exploring yourself or unifying yourself with the One Consciousness, is that not the Biggest Ego? but yet, at the same time, it is the complete lack of ego.
Yes, striving for enlightenment (losing attachment to the ego) does seem ultimately to be ego-striving. But whether or not this is true for all people is debatable. Zen masters have written for a while that eventually zazen is done not as a means to some end, like reducing one?s anxiety or achieving some commune with the transcendent, but because the person is simply inclined to do so. You just do it?zazen? mu? ?my friend?s cat flying through the air? (that was my attempt at an inscrutable koan)
I would agree that taking on the path of yogi or monk is likely originally some form of ego-striving, but that doesn?t mean people can never succeed in overcoming ego-attachment. Some people play sports or a musical instruments primarily in order to get status in school, not really enjoying the activity itself. Later, however, they learn that they actually enjoy the activity in and of itself, apart from the extrinsic rewards that come with (not a perfect analogy, but I think it will suffice).
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Seuss
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of a [Re: Blastrid]
#895744 - 09/20/02 11:03 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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The ego is like a switch, it is either on or off... when the ego is on, it does everything in its power to stay on... if using the idea that you know more than other people and are somehow better helps the ego to hold on to itself, those thoughts will surface. Remember, knowing the path means nothing... walking the path however...
He existed no longer as the individual, but shedding the 'self' and existing as part of the One Consciousness.
If he were striving to shed himself and exist as part of the One Consciousness, then he would not be able to. It is only when his sense of self got lost that the illusion of duality disappeared. All ego and no ego together.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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MAIA
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895761 - 09/20/02 11:11 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Assuming your ego is what you are, if you lose your ego you are no more, you die, so who is perceiving when you die ? You become aware thru the we, you perceive thru the "whole" and your conciousness is recreated with its knowlodge. Besides this philosophycal aspect, i believe is possible to achieve this state using meditaion techniques instead of drugs. I believe they are act differently to achieve the same goals, open the same pathways that lead us to an egoloss state. My position about egoloss regarding if it's good or not depends on what you remember or learned when in that state and what you're ego will do about that information. It is pretty subjective from now on but intelligence, imagination, knowlodge among others are a few but important factors to consider. I had a very intense experience whith salvia a couple of months ago and i still can remember the sensation of dying, the sound it makes when everything stops, what am i going to do about it ? Nothing, i just remember about that plane of contemplation and i fell good, it helped me already, it has done something already.
MAIA
-------------------- Spiritual being, living a human experience ... The Shroomery Mandala Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. Voltaire
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ChubbSubb
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#895767 - 09/20/02 11:15 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Don't get caught in the ideas, notions, and concepts of enlightenment or ego loss. Nothing is absolute truth. Don't get caught in any Buddhist or eastern concepts, or except them as absolute truth. They are tools to reach enlightenment. Nirvana is being free of all notions, concepts or preceptions. Peace, Trev
-------------------- Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
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Blastrid
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: ChubbSubb]
#895970 - 09/20/02 01:36 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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ahh this wonderful forum never fails to continue a great discussion. I have become more interested in Eastern and Buddhist concepts because they are so vastly different than Western thought. Purely, the fact that i can think in a different manner than traditions i was raised on is the biggest benefit. I will not except anything as absolute truth. Although every one of my experiences forms my individual truth. In a manner of Eastern thought (as Seuss stated), although egoloss might be desired from a trip or meditation, it cannot be reached if sought after. But it is interesting that some take psychedelics in hope of experiencing this. Would you hold truer (to yourself) a point of egoloss or other strong spiritual moment (or lack of moment) in a trip reality or in sober reality? In other words, To you, Do psychedelics open doors and remove the curtain to reveal grand underneath-it-all things that sober reality clouds or covers? or do psychedelics only further distort our individual concept of reality, and infact steer us farther away from Oneness and non-self.
OR, does it most beneficially act as a means to question reality?
OR am i making sense at all
-------------------- Blas'?trid (bl?s tr?d) n. 3rd generation derivitave of a combination of 'bastard' and 'blasted'. Used as both an insult or an expletive. ex. Blastrid! Stereopattern <--My music.
Edited by Blastrid (09/20/02 01:38 PM)
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In(di)go
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#896012 - 09/20/02 07:01 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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i think ego-loss can be attained if sought after, but it is harder to accomplish that way than say tumbling into it (i know people who have... eckhart tolle, for instance tumbled into enlightement and ego-loss and didn't even realize he had it until a few months later)... the reason for this is that the statement "i am seeking for ego-loss" pushes that experience away from you... simple because if you seek for something you state that YOU DON'T HAVE IT... and that is exactly the experience you get... not having, but seeking... so one would have to say "i am enlightened" or "i am experiencing ego-loss", and it would work if one really believed this to be true.... but that is the difficult part about it... i don't know if this makes any sense for you guys... but it does for me... my point is that enlightement or ego loss is not something you DO, it is something you ARE... therefore it is difficult to achieve them by doing...
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ChubbSubb
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#896080 - 09/20/02 07:36 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Do psychedelics open doors and remove the curtain to reveal grand underneath-it-all things that sober reality clouds or covers? or do psychedelics only further distort our individual concept of reality, and infact steer us farther away from Oneness and non-self.
Pychedelics are, once agian, a tool that can help reveal the ultimate dimension. I take mushrooms very seriously, for spiritual use only, not for recreation. I certainly don't feel they distort 'sober' reality or steer us further away from non-self. Our true liberation is the liberation from notions. Peace, Trev
-------------------- Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#896417 - 09/20/02 10:37 PM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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I just finished a tiny little book that I've been reading since my best friend gave it to me...in 1975. I've dabbled in it, and used it to reference papers - even my Doctoral dissertation back in '83. It was about the Hindu non-dualist yogi Sri Ramana Maharishi. I learned something brand new two weeks ago that I'll pass on to you.
Egolessness is NOT identical to loss of the sense of individuality.
This is VERY important to understand. You see, Ramana Maharishi was theistic, as am I (though surely not to equate us). He was in disagreement with the essential premiss of Buddhism, as I am. The Eternal Reality - God - Sat Chit Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss) - the Eternal "I AM" of the Bible...IS Identity - Ultimate Identity. God gives His Name to Moses, and the Name Identifies God as Pure, Eternal Identity! Our sense of individuality needs to be traced through the spacious skies of awareness - through the clouds of physical, social and psychological illusions, to the Center of Reality which is Pure Consciousness. And Consciousness, we learn from the Phenomenologists, is always characterized by Intentionality. It is always Consciousness of something, even if it is Consciousness of Consciousness - which is the introverted and involutional process that leads us to the Center and Source of Consciousness - which is God. This is not the Old-Bearded-Guy-in-the-Sky mind you, but the 'Ain' of the Kabbalistic Jews, about which one can say nothing, not because He is nothing, but because He is 'no-thing.' God is always the Subject, never the object. He is always at the basis of our human consciousness.
God is the Ocean, we are waves, thinking that we are independent 'objects' that come into being and go out of being - so concerned are we of our creation and dissolution. Rarely do we see that we are One with the Ocean, and derive our entire being from the Ocean. We go through life identified with the illusion of our identity as little waves, when at bottom, we are the entire Ocean. We are not an infinite ego, we derive our awareness, our self-awareness, from the Source of awareness - Infinite Awareness - God - "in Whom we live and move and have our being."
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (09/20/02 10:39 PM)
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Sclorch
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#896622 - 09/21/02 12:23 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Egolessness is NOT identical to loss of the sense of individuality.
I'm not so sure this is the consensus opinion (or fact?). What would you call "losing the sense of individuality"?
-------------------- Note: In desperate need of a cure...
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Albino_Jesus
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Blastrid]
#896639 - 09/21/02 12:32 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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wow. instead of letting yourself be overcome by the notions which arise from your internal perception of what goes on during a mushroom/other trip, why not consider what everyone else percieves to happen to your brain during such experiences, WHY you experience things like ego-loss, flowers melting into a characature of martha stewart, the sense of seeing the world as if you were a child again, the intensified beauty yet appearance of alienation of flowers and grass, and all the other things that people report during trips. read some neuroscience for farks sake. try "the dream drugstore" for a start. ego-loss is just a notion.
-------------------- The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. -Ralph Nader
Edited by Albino_Jesus (09/21/02 12:33 AM)
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buttonion
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: Sclorch]
#897117 - 09/21/02 10:08 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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Egolessness is NOT identical to loss of the sense of individuality.
I'm not so sure this is the consensus opinion (or fact?).
Can you lose the ego while still retaining some sense of oneself as an individual being? From a Buddhist perspective I think so:
I think a good way to conceptualize ego-attachment is: ?the assumption that the self ultimately exists.?
Buddhists strive not to lose any and all conception of themselves as separate from everything else, but strive to know deeply that this conception does not equal reality; It does serve a pragmatic function and is useful to meet certain goals such as acquiring food and helping others to understand the Dharma- but it is a map for the territory, and we know no one thinks that the contour lines or the legend of a map are reality. In other words, Buddhist strive to know that while conventionally things and theory exist, ultimately, they do not.
And so the person can lose ultimate individuality while retaining conventional individuality.
You may think that this is a trivial distinction, but I assure you it is not. Think about the map and how you view a map as simply a tool to navigate through "reality." To view the self as simply a tool is the goal.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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ChubbSubb
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: buttonion]
#897132 - 09/21/02 10:21 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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To view the self as simply a tool is the goal.
Nice.
-------------------- Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
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MAIA
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#897205 - 09/21/02 11:04 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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In reply to:
Egolessness is NOT identical to loss of the sense of individuality.
The sense of individuality is created by our ego. On the other hand, you don't need to perceive as an individual to sense, as i said before is pretty subjective with what you do with your post experience, we are all talking about a state wich can not be described by words, i mean, how can you describe a state where you are truly connected with reality and the whole but at the same time existing in an egoloss plane ? Of course now thinking thru your ego, you have to explain that state, you need to include "someone" to play as the "one" who had the experience, that one is you, you are forced to "de-egoloss" to understand that experience. I'd like to say that nothing is ever important. If I ever find myself thinking something is important, then I know that I'm believing the lies that my ego is telling me. Defining what the ego is, is definitely not important. Believing in your ego is denying the true meanning of the experience, i relate it when people try to explain dreams, is our explanation made by the ego that important ?
MAIA
-------------------- Spiritual being, living a human experience ... The Shroomery Mandala Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. Voltaire
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buttonion
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Re: Is the product of egoloss the biggest ego of all? [Re: MAIA]
#897226 - 09/21/02 11:13 AM (21 years, 6 months ago) |
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If I ever find myself thinking something is important, then I know that I'm believing the lies that my ego is telling me.
I like that, your statement is very important.. oh.. oops, I mean... it's... ahhhight... I guess.
Seriously, that is great "tool" to have on the path of losing the ego- when you realize that you have given something importance, you can know that it is ego at work.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
Edited by buttonion (09/21/02 11:14 AM)
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