Advertisement
I have noticed there is often a reference to what ego is and on whether to 'kill' it etc and then fierce opposing views. It is worth remembering that Buddha says we have to 'let go of the ego'.
Much has been written in psychology etc and it is from psychological point of view that there is a fear of loosing the ego and we will become soft and weak or something. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
The ego is not a true part of who we are it is what we have learned to become, or to behave out of our fears mostly. I tend to think of it as the the computer brain trying to be so 'clever'. True sometimes it is or has been out of necessity to survive, but usually in the absence of any guidance or help, and out of desperation.
A song "You have got to be taught to hate and fear, day after day - year after year. It has got to be drummed in your dear little ear you have got to be carefully taught. ANd its got ot be done before its to late, before you reach 5, 6, 7 or 8. To hate all the people your relatives hate. You have got to be carefully taught.
Would show one aspect of our ego driven selves quite well.
If you have a problem, your brain will throw up every concievable or possible solution and we can end up going round and round. But clear your mind and maybe meditate and the answer will come quite clearly, from your own Inner Self or Higher Self.
Our ego's will often Justify why we should do this and so, and mostly its responses are learned and because it worked before we have a pattern of behaviour. Patterns are hard to break, when they have taken a life time to re-inforce.
And the biggest fight of all is the ego's threat to its existence. Then the biggest arguments will rear up.
Just think for one moment - you are having a hard time with someone - you fully intend to react differently to them to get on a better footing - you see yourself doing this, you know the reactions etc are silly and causing pain a difficulties. THEN you meet them they say, something or you see they havent tidied up or something trivial. And you react in the same old way and the same old arguements ensue. After, you think what went wrong, this isnt who you want to be..............it isnt who you REALLY are????
And you are right its your ego, taking over.
I more recently learnt that the ego is connect to the 7 deadly sins! Yes fundamentalism, because some things are fundamentally true!
So if you look at your behaviour, you can see........ Pride............envy................anger etc And I found you see even those little ones like, "aw I want one of those" or why does he have all the luck (resentment, anger) They are rife. And what is more important is they are often held up to be sought after as if a 'great' thing to be or have. Just look at Celebs!
Danyi WAhoo of the Cherokee says in her book Voices of our Ancestors - To be a Peace Keeper and attain Peace Keeper mind does not mean you reamin all love and take no actions. It means to stand up and speak out against what is not "Right Action". To be a Warrior!
Your true self - our True self cannot take action or do what is right unto 7 generations if we cannot hear it for all the noise of the ego's. Being in two minds arguing with ourselves inan inner turmoil of thoughts.
I had a horrible dream - where I killed a redheaded women - with a potatoe peeler - I was upset because I have never had such a violent dream -- my book said this is great news - you are "killing off" that part of you you no longer need, the ego driven self! That which must be 'killed' as in the 'base metal' before it can be turned into the 'Gold'!
Much has been written in psychology etc and it is from psychological point of view that there is a fear of loosing the ego and we will become soft and weak or something. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
The ego is not a true part of who we are it is what we have learned to become, or to behave out of our fears mostly. I tend to think of it as the the computer brain trying to be so 'clever'. True sometimes it is or has been out of necessity to survive, but usually in the absence of any guidance or help, and out of desperation.
A song "You have got to be taught to hate and fear, day after day - year after year. It has got to be drummed in your dear little ear you have got to be carefully taught. ANd its got ot be done before its to late, before you reach 5, 6, 7 or 8. To hate all the people your relatives hate. You have got to be carefully taught.
Would show one aspect of our ego driven selves quite well.
If you have a problem, your brain will throw up every concievable or possible solution and we can end up going round and round. But clear your mind and maybe meditate and the answer will come quite clearly, from your own Inner Self or Higher Self.
Our ego's will often Justify why we should do this and so, and mostly its responses are learned and because it worked before we have a pattern of behaviour. Patterns are hard to break, when they have taken a life time to re-inforce.
And the biggest fight of all is the ego's threat to its existence. Then the biggest arguments will rear up.
Just think for one moment - you are having a hard time with someone - you fully intend to react differently to them to get on a better footing - you see yourself doing this, you know the reactions etc are silly and causing pain a difficulties. THEN you meet them they say, something or you see they havent tidied up or something trivial. And you react in the same old way and the same old arguements ensue. After, you think what went wrong, this isnt who you want to be..............it isnt who you REALLY are????
And you are right its your ego, taking over.
I more recently learnt that the ego is connect to the 7 deadly sins! Yes fundamentalism, because some things are fundamentally true!
So if you look at your behaviour, you can see........ Pride............envy................anger etc And I found you see even those little ones like, "aw I want one of those" or why does he have all the luck (resentment, anger) They are rife. And what is more important is they are often held up to be sought after as if a 'great' thing to be or have. Just look at Celebs!
Danyi WAhoo of the Cherokee says in her book Voices of our Ancestors - To be a Peace Keeper and attain Peace Keeper mind does not mean you reamin all love and take no actions. It means to stand up and speak out against what is not "Right Action". To be a Warrior!
Your true self - our True self cannot take action or do what is right unto 7 generations if we cannot hear it for all the noise of the ego's. Being in two minds arguing with ourselves inan inner turmoil of thoughts.
I had a horrible dream - where I killed a redheaded women - with a potatoe peeler - I was upset because I have never had such a violent dream -- my book said this is great news - you are "killing off" that part of you you no longer need, the ego driven self! That which must be 'killed' as in the 'base metal' before it can be turned into the 'Gold'!
posted by:
|
United Kingdom
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Talking of Ego's
Thu, February 12, 2009 - 1:21 PMI don't know if I agree. I think being disembodied is when we 'loose' our Ego. I think Life is about allowing Ego and Spirit to thrive together and make joint decisions, making sure we're allowing Spirit to drive and not Ego. That to me, doesn't mean I 'let go' of my Self. (or ego self) Just means that my Ego Self isn't the part of me which steers me down my path.
-
Re: Talking of Ego's
Thu, February 12, 2009 - 3:48 PMNice essay Chrissie-- good insights on understanding the ego!
-
Re: Talking of Ego's
Fri, February 13, 2009 - 9:56 AMGreat insights Crissie. I also have had a lot of questions about this over the years especially studying different eastern philosophies.
As a person who had very little boundaries I would get quiet upset when my husband would talk about the need to destroy the ego. I couldn't imagine destroying even one more part of me or I knew I would no longer be physical. I knew that my not having a healthy sense of self was not because I was "realized" but because I was different and I needed to balance in a different way then other people needed to.
Later, as I understood myself as an empath I realized that most of the western translated eastern philosophy books were not written for empaths. They were written for people who actually had an overly strong attachment with their unhealthy sense of "I".
When I studied the vedic Sam(n)kya philosophy, that Ayurveda is mostly based on, things fell into place for me. In a nutshell it shows that we are not simply a undifferentiated multi-dimensional being then we are a human with an ego we need to destroy. They delved into a physical reality that is just as rich and creative and deep as the nonphysical.
On a diagram, they show the non-physical/undifferentiated states of: BRAHMA (Tao/WuChi etc.) PARUSHA and PRAKRITI
l
below that line is the manifested states which are:
BUDDHI (Intellect) - the connection between differentiated and non-differentiated states (the higher-self?)
l
AHAMKARA (Ego or “I”-ness) then the Ahamkara divides into 5 groups:
l
*MANAS (mind/psyche) *SENSES *ACTIONS *SUBTLE MATTER *GROSS MATTER
It is like the East Indian pictures of Arjuna ("I"-ness) in the carriage being drawn by five horses (5 senses) but the reins are being held by Krishna (higher-self). It is as they say, "Be in the world but not of the world" - be fully human but keep your senses in the hand of your higher self. I think that our great challenge is not the ego but in poor training of it, and in forgetting that it is our child and up to us to train. When it is trained and loved up properly it does a wonderful job assisting us in the world but if not then it acts to protect us based on outdated paradigms that served us/or our parents to survive childhood.
I have seen clients who have attempted to break with the ego (before having a strong enough one to begin with) and have had strange reaction such as constant body shakes (nervous system), mental disorders and extreme headaches. These few that I actually know about were attempting kriya and kundalini techniques that were too advance for them as well as the fact that they were probably empaths to begin with. -
-
Re: Talking of Ego's
Fri, February 13, 2009 - 4:04 PMI think this is it in a nutshell, we identify with the ego so much that there is a great fear of letting it go. The misconception is that it is necessary. But you do not become 'powerless' you become more whole and true to yourself! Therefore, there is great strength in losing the ego which divides the self into many little 'I's'. This fragmentation is the abhoration, because it is "divide and rule".
The proble as you stae so clearly is people want the quick fix. ANd think they can take an easy route, with little or no preparation. I went through a 'kundalini' experience in my twenties and funnily enough, a Vedic Astrologer, told me in my thirties that it was right there in my chart! But there is a story of three Rabbi's who decided to go through the kundalini experience one killed himself, one went insane, and the last one survived but was wounded permanently. It is not to be undertaken on a whim, or ego based desire.
I went though a year or so of hell, my Vedic Astrologer said " you looked into the Kundalini" she described it as a maze that many never return from. It took me 3 years to get strong again. I get very worried when people talk of it so glibly. But from that came a gift, a bit like St Paul on the road to damascus if you will. But I still had loads of ego stuf. Even after years of mediations still ego stuff and it really traps your energy.
So I am working on elimanation of the ego, and I know its gonna take some time, BUT working on meditation and elimantion I feel I got a fighting chance, now. But it is scary because you can no longer say "but thats just the way I am" as some sorta excuse. But you can start to really see "what is" a bit more instead of what you think it is. And I like the disecernment you begin to have, where you can see everybodies part including your own, but you can then choose not to play. But how we humans love a drama, including myself. -
-
Unsu...
Re: Talking of Ego's
Sun, February 15, 2009 - 10:05 AMi think it all depends on whether the ego is healthy or not
-
-
