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Can you help me answer my question?

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Yes the world is gray, we keep both good and bad with in our being.

I realized my words earlier in this thread may been a bit wrong.

Using a word like, letting go og get ridd off, may not say it the right way.
To hold control over our ego may be a better wording.
I believe it best not to think much of it. Put others first.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
This morning i listen to a teaching of a sufi master Sheykh Lokman Efendi about satan and God.

He Said something like ( in my words)

Satan is in you represent the Ego
God in you represent your virtue/goodness

What do you think? Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

He continue (in my translations of his words) to say, to remove ego from your being is to remove satan from within.

When you have fully remove ego, all that regain is virtue/god.

Any thoughts?

Adding: OP starter do not have the answer to this question. His understanding may not reflect the full truth.
Not often do i answer my own OP :)
I just want to state that my understanding of what my teacher said, ergo what i Said he say about ego is a misrepresentation. I am the one who saw it wrong.

It is not letting go, or kick out ego but to gain control over the Ego om every aspect om life. Letting the virtue come fully forth and become good. Is a better way to understand it, ( That said, my understanding may even change again when i study more)
 

Audie

Veteran Member
"Removing evil". So very Western/Middle Eastern of him.

Also, such a joke. At least I think so.

The powers within you that you deny become your demons, bro.

Don't try to kill the beast. You'll only enrage it, make it stronger.

Try to domestic the beast instead. Make it serve you.

Much more realistic and practical.

Begin the taming by non-judgementally understanding it.

Observe it. See how it behaves. Come to know its habits. it's scope. It's nature.

Forget to judge it good or evil. Doing either is a mistake.

Just see it, just understand it. Tame it.

To me it seems way less than sane and sensible to so distort the natural human
condition as to. "Eliminate ego".

Seems akin to mortification of the flesh,
growing yard long fingernails or other,
well, insane practices.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
To me it seems way less than sane and sensible to so distort the natural human
condition as to. "Eliminate ego".

Seems akin to mortification of the flesh,
growing yard long fingernails or other,
well, insane practices.

Yeah, that's how I see it too.

Reminds me of a story Jiddu Krishnamurti used to
tell. How an old man came to him one day,
saying to Krishnamurti that -- in his youth -- he had
castrated himself so as to better pursue
god, undistracted by sexual thoughts.

Only problem was he soon enough realized
he no longer had the drive, the energy to
pursue spiritual matters. Consequently, he
had spent almost his whole life right
where he started, only without his balls.

I guess the best I can say about that is, it's not
the first time, nor will it be the last, a member
of our species has done something as crazy
as that poor old man did.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
To me it seems way less than sane and sensible to so distort the natural human
condition as to. "Eliminate ego".

Seems akin to mortification of the flesh,
growing yard long fingernails or other,
well, insane practices.

What about yard-long beards? Not that mine has grown that long, but given it's the first time in my life I've been able to grow one, I may just let it grow. I haven't shaved since the beginning of December.

Then again, "sane" isn't one of the first words people use to describe me...
 

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
I can see ego as that sense of self that observes and analyzes, like a metacognitive middle man between the Id (the part of you that involves instincts, innate responses, and subconscious decisions) and the Superego (the part that is socially trained and oriented towards the rules of living in a community).

Theologically, the Id is often associated with Satan, since it encompasses the sexual drive, innate responses for survival such as gluttony, and hoarding things. The Superego is associated with God because it is where the conscience resides, bringing about feelings of guilt and right vs. wrong decision making.

While it is often religiously inspired that the Id is to be supressed or denied, this leads to much anxiety and is not a practical way of living. All three of these aspects of self are part of you and are only separate because of our tendency to piece apart reality in order to control it.

Rather than deny "satan" (or the Shadow in Jungian psychology), confront it, understand it, and accept that as a human being this is a natural aspect of yourself.

Consider that the Id is also there to help you survive, even if it doesn't always conform to the Superego. Realize also that the ego is the observer, and control is more of a way of defining the experience of being a conscious being in a complex and dynamic reality.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I can see ego as that sense of self that observes and analyzes, like a metacognitive middle man between the Id (the part of you that involves instincts, innate responses, and subconscious decisions) and the Superego (the part that is socially trained and oriented towards the rules of living in a community).

Theologically, the Id is often associated with Satan, since it encompasses the sexual drive, innate responses for survival such as gluttony, and hoarding things. The Superego is associated with God because it is where the conscience resides, bringing about feelings of guilt and right vs. wrong decision making.

While it is often religiously inspired that the Id is to be supressed or denied, this leads to much anxiety and is not a practical way of living. All three of these aspects of self are part of you and are only separate because of our tendency to piece apart reality in order to control it.

Rather than deny "satan" (or the Shadow in Jungian psychology), confront it, understand it, and accept that as a human being this is a natural aspect of yourself.

Consider that the Id is also there to help you survive, even if it doesn't always conform to the Superego. Realize also that the ego is the observer, and control is more of a way of defining the experience of being a conscious being in a complex and dynamic reality.

Much as I was thinking in my own way,
that its good to have self control, but not so much to try to force one's self into some utterly unnatural state .
 

Audie

Veteran Member
What about yard-long beards? Not that mine has grown that long, but given it's the first time in my life I've been able to grow one, I may just let it grow. I haven't shaved since the beginning of December.

Then again, "sane" isn't one of the first words people use to describe me...

Gandalf??
 

PureX

Veteran Member
This morning i listen to a teaching of a sufi master Sheykh Lokman Efendi about satan and God.

He Said something like ( in my words)

Satan is in you represent the Ego
God in you represent your virtue/goodness

What do you think? Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

He continue (in my translations of his words) to say, to remove ego from your being is to remove satan from within.

When you have fully remove ego, all that regain is virtue/god.

Any thoughts?

Adding: OP starter do not have the answer to this question. His understanding may not reflect the full truth.
Christianity teaches the same thing. Unfortunately people get confused because effective practical understanding was lacking at the time these religions were forming (as now). So they had to use artifice to try and explain their ideals.

Think of it as breaking down to the opposing internal forces of fear, and faith. Fear being the fear that we won't get what we need, or what we want in life, or that we aren't being who we think we're supposed to be to deserve getting what we need and want in life. And this fear drives us to see ourselves in competition with everyone else: and everyone else being the enemy of our fulfillment. So that we all claw at and contend with each other trying to get what we need and want before someone else gets it. And driven by this fear, we never seem to get enough, because we're always afraid someone else will take it form us at any moment. And they might, because they're contending with us to get what they need and want, just as we are with them. And it all makes for a horrific environment, and life experience; and for much waste, suffering, and destruction.

On the other side we have the option of faith. That is trusting that there will always be enough for everyone if we are willing to share and to cooperate with each other to provide it. To work for the well-being of all, instead of just for our own. To regulate our own desires so that they can accommodate the desires of others, too. And to regulate our own ego so that it does not drive us into blind fear and auto-defensiveness.

Humans have seen these two opposing forces manifesting within ourselves, and motivating our behaviors, for many thousands of years. But have not yet been able to gain control of them. Or to even recognize them as they control us, in many cases. Which is why religions have taken to representing them to us with simplistic, artificial images; like "satan", and the "holy spirit", and so on; to help us better recognize these internal forces in the moment. And to help us identify which of these to embrace, and which to reject.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
It seems strange to me to correlate the concept of Satan - who broadly represents an adversarial force - with the self. To perceive a sense of self and needing to satisfy needs of the self an adversary that needs to be transcended or defeated doesn't strike me as a healthy mindset at all. Surely that isn't what the speaker intended to convey?
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

Contrary to scriptures, I believe that God consists of billions of souls, and some are evil.

I believe that humans (large brains), are monkey vessels for souls which allow good souls to do good deeds and bad souls to do bad deeds. I believe that this is why God allows free choice.

I believe that Satan is God's jailer, expending his (Satan's) power to keep bad souls in hell.

Good souls return to heaven and become part of God again.

So, I believe that humans are a purification filter for God. This is how God becomes more good and less bad.

Scriptures disagree with my interpretation. Pastors would have a hissy fit over the idea that God is anything but purely good.

Yet, God allows Satan to exist, God created imperfect humans (some evil), and God has corrected his mistakes (Kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden, Noah's flood, Sodom, etc). So, it cannot be that God is purely perfect nor purely good.

Psychics who contact God hear a single voice that sounds like many waters. This is the voice of billions of good souls who all agree with the ideas and all agree with the wording, after eons of thinking about things and discussing things and reaching a consensus.

In my view, God and heaven are synonymous.

parts of the brain and their functions chart - Google Search

Various parts of the human brain make conflicting choices. There are parts of the brain that urge our inner child to ignore laws and prices. There are parts of the brain that make rational decisions. So, humans argue with themselves about decisions. For example: Should I keep my high paying boring job or retire and have fun.

According to the bible, Satan didn't used to reside in hell. Satan was called the dragon and used to reside in heaven. But, there was one who speaketh like the dragon whom the devil cast into hell. It is that dragon (not Satan) who recently came to earth to occupy the body of President George H. W. Bush to attack Babylon, Iraq, according to Revelation.

Revelation 17:18 "Woman which thou sawest is that great city (Washington DC) which reigneth over the kings of the earth."

This is the city that attacked Babylon.

Revelation 16:19 "And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her cup the wine of the fierceness of his wrath."

The translation of Revelation 16:19 is slightly wrong. It is not Babylon that was the cause of wrath. Rather it was the attack and occupation of Babylon by the United States that caused God's wrath (such as Revelation 15: (7 plagues, including COVID)).

Revelation 17:5 "Upon her forehead was a name written "Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother Of Harlots and Abominations Of The Earth."

Revelation 17:18 makes it clear that the United States had attacked an occupied Babylon, and by occupying it, corrupted it. It was the United States that was known for fornications (Monica Lewinsky, and George Herbert Walker Bush's sex partner, Jennifer Fitzgerald). So, with Revelation 17:18, we can understand Revelation 17:5. The United States is the Whore of Babylon according to Revelation 17:18.

Revelation 18:2 makes it very clear that Babylon had fallen and was occupied by the United States, and under US occupation, it became the "habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Certainly, US troops have impregnated a lot of Iraqi women and the US military has blocked women from contacting their fathers (many of whom are married to American women).
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
This morning i listen to a teaching of a sufi master Sheykh Lokman Efendi about satan and God.

He Said something like ( in my words)

Satan is in you represent the Ego
God in you represent your virtue/goodness

What do you think? Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

He continue (in my translations of his words) to say, to remove ego from your being is to remove satan from within.

When you have fully remove ego, all that regain is virtue/god.

Any thoughts?

Adding: OP starter do not have the answer to this question. His understanding may not reflect the full truth.

I don’t believe in a satan but I do believe we are dual natured. We have a higher spiritual self and a lower base self. We cannot fully subdue the ego because that would imply perfection and I believe only God is perfect.

In this world the thing is to have balance. So we tread the spiritual,path with practical feet.


If our higher self controls our selfish desires then we are spiritual people, but when we allow our passions and desires to dominate our lives we are materialistic.


The world and its system is based on appeasing the lower desires but it does not bring happiness. Whereas the spiritual self which focuses on things like love and virtues and justice does bring unity and happiness. This is something we still need to learn as the human race matures, that happiness won’t come from material things alone but we also need to treat each other right and practice virtues, and then we will have happiness.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Satan is in you represent the Ego
God in you represent your virtue/goodness

What do you think? Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

He continue (in my translations of his words) to say, to remove ego from your being is to remove satan from within.

When you have fully remove ego, all that regain is virtue/god.

Any thoughts?
I wish to tread lightly in my thoughts here, as often times how people use the term "ego" gets used (or misused) in a variety of ways.

First, the ego is the sense of the separate self. It is the "I" that is distinct from the other, or "you". It's part of natural, normal, and healthy development of the individual so they can function as a person in the world, interacting in societies. You cannot, "get rid of the ego", anymore than you can get rid of your body and remain a functioning human being. You can however train or "house break" it so it doesn't dominate your life and block you from higher spiritual realizations.

This sense of "ego" is how it is understood in psychology and human development. Refer to Jane Lovenigners work on ego development, as well as that of others to understand this as a normal, functional part of being a human being: Loevinger's stages of ego development - Wikipedia.

Loevinger describes the ego as a process, rather than a thing;[6] it is the frame of reference (or lens) one uses to construct and interpret one's world.[6] This contains impulse control and character development with interpersonal relations and cognitive preoccupations, including self-concept.
....

Loevinger proposed eight or nine stages of ego in development,[11] six of which occur in adulthood: conformist, conscientious-conformist, conscientious, individualistic, autonomous, and integrated. She believed that most adults were at the conscientious-conformist level.​

Now to the point raised about the Efendi's comments about "getting rid of the ego". This type of language is also heard in a lot of Eastern traditions as well. But what is really meant here? From a spiritual perspective, yes you do not want the ego, or the "separate self" and all that that entails to dominante you as your basic center of gravity. You want to be able to move or grow beyond all of that and its natural impulses. You want to be able to transcend the ego. This is very true, and good, and healthy.

What "getting rid of the ego" really means, in both my own experience and understandings, is really more about the driving force that motivates that separate egoic self. Even the goal of "getting rid of the ego", can most easily become a snare that the ego feeds itself upon. "I" will overcome "me". It's like the oroborus, the snake that eats its own tail. :)

IMHO, the best approach is rather to accept the fact that you have an ego, and will always have an ego, just as you have eyes, ears, hair, limbs, a brain, and a body. It is human to have that separate self. It is essential in order to function. BUT, there is higher-order living as a human, as a spiritual human being, than just those lower-order needs of the body. The spiritual aspirant needs to not let those be the center of gravity, whose impulse dictate and drive everything else. For instance, the "ego" gets angry, "You can't say that to me!!!", as it tries to defend and protect itself.

If that is where you live at, running those programs, responding to those impulses, that can be detrimental to your spiritual aspirations to see and experience more than just the body and its needs (of which the ego is part of). That is "the devil" in the sense that it's impulses are powerful, and self-defeating.

To give a quote from the Apostle Paul,

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me."​

That's what it means to fall back into those habitual responses, rather than transcending them. He calls it "sin", and while it is relatively speaking when when your goal is spiritual liberation, it is really more just the lower-order impulses of the body. He is speaking of this paradoxical co-existence of both the higher-order and lower-order "self" in his body; the spiritual Will, and the animal body.

In short, if you hear someone speak of the ego as "the devil" or "sin", understand that in relative terms, not absolute terms. To "hate" your own flesh, is not spiritual either. To hate your ego, is in fact the ego itself. And that will do harm, not good on a spiritual path. This is my experience speaking as well.
 
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Hermit Philosopher

Selflessly here for you
This morning i listen to a teaching of a sufi master Sheykh Lokman Efendi about satan and God.

He Said something like ( in my words)

Satan is in you represent the Ego
God in you represent your virtue/goodness

What do you think? Is both satan and God in you at the same time, asking you to choose the Ego or virtue to follow?

He continue (in my translations of his words) to say, to remove ego from your being is to remove satan from within.

When you have fully remove ego, all that regain is virtue/god.

Any thoughts?

Adding: OP starter do not have the answer to this question. His understanding may not reflect the full truth.


Dear Conscious thoughts,

I’d say that your Sufi master here has got it right. Man’s Ego is indeed the root of human evil - whether one chooses to call it “Satan” or not.

To live by Will of Ego, is to live for the self. Instinctively, that is what Man does. The problem with it is that one cannot do so without eventually coming into conflicting with the self of another.

Beyond Ego lies selflessness. To live in God is to approach life from such perspective: free from self (i.e. without thought of self, as if one were not). From this viewpoint one is motivated, not by expansion of self, but by expansion of understanding and compassion for the rest. To live for this, is to live by Will of God*.

(*) I do not know about calling it “virtuous” because what is considered virtuous will vary culturally and historically; also, it is irrelevant to the selfless, what he is perceived as.

Humbly
Hermit
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Dear Conscious thoughts,

I’d say that your Sufi master here has got it right. Man’s Ego is indeed the root of human evil - whether one chooses to call it “Satan” or not.

To live by Will of Ego, is to live for the self. Instinctively, that is what Man does. The problem with it is that one cannot do so without eventually coming into conflicting with the self of another.

Beyond Ego lies selflessness. To live in God is to approach life from such perspective: free from self (i.e. without thought of self, as if one were not). From this viewpoint one is motivated, not by expansion of self, but by expansion of understanding and compassion for the rest. To live for this, is to live by Will of God*.

(*) I do not know about calling it “virtuous” because what is considered virtuous will vary culturally and historically; also, it is irrelevant to the selfless, what he is perceived as.

Humbly
Hermit
I like when you say beyond ego lies selflessness
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Which is why I prefer to say transcending the ego, versus getting rid of it. There are in fact times when we need to think of the self too, such as self-protection, and eating. :)
I have learned today that the propper Sufi way to comment on this is not to say, get ridd of it, but to control our ego, so virtue can become stronger, and be main focus, to do good, not evil driven by ego. :)
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I have learned today that the propper Sufi way to comment on this is not to say, get ridd of it, but to control our ego, so virtue can become stronger, and be main focus, to do good, not evil driven by ego. :)
yes, exactly as I said in my longer, far more word-heavy post. :) How we talk about it to ourselves, makes a big difference, as well as in the end result. We have to treat ourselves with grace and understanding, not violence.
 
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