Ego

[crossfire]

Ego is the conscious mind. The goal is to bring content up from the unconscious mind into the conscious mind in order to be examined by the conscious mind and to consciously identify unconscious problems and to develop a practice that will resolve these unconscious problems.

-source-

 

[loverofhumanity]

Ego is useful when driving your car and other material things

Attachment to ego is a major obstruction for Spiritual Growth

Very wise words!

 

[Left Coast]

I agree with this statement. I see so many McDharmics talk about "shedding the ego," "dropping the ego," and "getting rid of the ego."

I think the key is understanding what it is an conditioning oneself to manage it.

I think it has to do with an oversimplification of the Buddhist teaching of anatman or not-self. At the end of the day, hatred or aversion toward one's ego is just as spiritually problematic as an attachment to one's ego, as I understand the Buddhist perspective.

 

[Thief]

What does your religion have to say about ego? Is ego a point of discussion in your religion? Is it considered good, bad, or simply a part of who you are? Are there any tenets or dogma associated with it? What is your religions opinion on what should be done with it?

Most importantly, is ego somehow related to superior fashion sense? If so, how?

when I participated.....that religion would have me set myself.... aside

It's not about ......me

now that I have set that religion aside.....

it's not about ......me

 

[sun rise]

The ego to me is part of being human for a long, long time. Even the most advanced souls have an ego when they incarnate.

For some, there comes a time when the egos purpose ends and seeking for something deeper starts.

As far as a fashion sense goes, I can do no better than to quote Kabir:

Friend, please tell me what I can do about this mud world
I keep spinning out of myself!

I gave up expensive clothes, and bought a robe
But I noticed one day the cloth was well-woven

So I bought some burlap, but I still
Throw it elegantly over my left shoulder.

I stopped being a sexual elephant,
And now I discover that I'm angry a lot.

I finally gave up anger, and now I notice
That I am greedy all day.

I worked hard at dissolving the greed,
And now I am proud of myself.

When the mind wants to break its link with the world,
It still holds on to one thing.

Kabir says: Listen, my friend,
There are very few that find the path!

PennyAPoem: Difficulties by Kabir, Translated by Robert Bly

 

[Vee]

Is that all you see when you yourself look at your ego, look deeply into it? Just curious. Not looking for a debate.

It's not something I think too much about. I try to be a good person and to practice the kindness and compassion I preach. When I analyze my thoughts and actions it's in the sense of "am I doing the right thing or how could I have handled that better?". I don't focus on ego per se.

 

[Clara Tea]

Ego means "not humble."


Christians are required to be humble.


Satanic demons, mascarading as Christians, are therefore required to pretend that they are humble.


No president is humble. Presidents have hubris to believe that they can win an election and rule the US. Some presidents believe that they can run other countries, as well, though they were never elected to be kings of the world. Some presidents play God, and playing God certainly requires a big ego. Playing God means that they have the power of death (who to kill, when to kill them, and why to kill).


Revelation (a chapter of the bible) says that a foul demon from the bottomless pit of hell rose to lead (as president) the most powerful nation in the world (this powerful nation is the United States of America, and it is called the Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17:18, known for sexual sins (Monica Lewinstky, and George Herbert Walker Bush's sex partner, Jennifer Fitzgerald), and the bible says that this demon attacked Babylon, Iraq (and his dad, the dragon, also had attacked Iraq ).


President George W. Bush bragged that he was humble. This is because pretending to be humble, as I mentioned before, is a requirement if you are a foul demon mascarading as a Christian. Yet, no humble person can brag....So how does one brag that one is humble?....One can't. W. Bush had the hubris to believe that he could win the presidential election, and had the hubris to believe that he could rule the United States. Hubris is the opposite of humility. W. Bush had the hubris to attack Babylon, Iraq, killing a million innocent civilians, and hubris to make a torture camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, though the United States had international pacts condemning torture. W. Bush didn't have a clear idea that Iraq was even involved in terrorism, and kept telling everyone that they were, but they would have the proof once Iraq was defeated. Once Iraq was defeated, there was obviously no proof of terrorism, and therefore no justification for the war or the killing or the torturing.


All this shows the harm that ego can play.


Don't be fooled by those who speak of ego and tell others to be humble. They wouldn't talk about it if they were truly humble.


Was Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush (or Reagan) humble when they conceived the Iran Contra scandal and supported a Contra dictatorship against San Dinistas, and sold hard narcotics on the streets of the United States to pay for this illegal war that subverted the will of Congress while hiding their illegalities from the American people? The Iran Contra scandal also traded illegal weapons, made to look like they were Russian made (to fool the world into believing that they were Russian), and it involved the counterfeiting of US currency to buy mercinaries and weapons to help the Ayatola Khomeini's Iranian dictatorship despite the arms embargo imposed by Congress and circumnavigating around Congress to get things done against the will of the American people.


All this shows the harm that ego can play.


Ego is about promoting onesself. So, big egos don't donate. Example: President Reagan took away a vegetable from school lunches, claiming that ketchup is a vegetable. Reagan had heard that the Berlin Wall was about to be knocked down, so he thought he could dupe the American people into believing that he could command it down. Reagan, when running for the presidency (according to Reagan's top aides), became a co-terrorist in the Iran Hostage Crisis (during the presidency of Jimmy Carter), ordering his fellow terrorists to keep the hostages until he became president so it would appear that he was feared enough to release the hostages by merely the sound of his voice. Reagan's acting allowed him to boost his ego.


President Bill Clinton displayed his ego by bragging about creating a budget surplus, and wanting to pay down the National Debt. This resulted in jealous Republican Congressmen voting away his Fast Track trade power which made the surplus. So, ego creates jealosy.


In 1923, Freud defined a different definition for ego (reality), and definitions for Id (instinctive drives, such as sex), and superego (morality). But this definition for ego is not the one used here.

 

[Sunstone]

It's not something I think too much about. I try to be a good person and to practice the kindness and compassion I preach. When I analyze my thoughts and actions it's in the sense of "am I doing the right thing or how could I have handled that better?". I don't focus on ego per se.

Thanks. Just curious is all.

 

[Sunstone]

Please expand on "attachment to ego." How does one become attached to ego? Is it recommended that one should become detached? What is the process?

In the context of attachment, 'ego' is just a term
referring to an aspect, trait, or characteristic of normal,
everyday consciousness.

Normal consciousness -- or just 'consciousness' here --
is based on the brain's ability to divide perception into
'self' and 'non-self'. That is, 'I' or 'me' and 'not-I' or 'not-me'.
In other words, whenever we become consciously aware
of something -- of anything -- we become aware of it on
some level as either a part of our self, or not a part of our
self.

Example: I know, just by looking at it, that my computer
monitor is not me. I know, just by becoming aware of my
feelings, that my feelings are me.

That division of perception into self and non-self is, in fact,
the process by which we humans create a self for ourselves.
That is, create a psychological sense of being a 'self'.

Now, 'ego' refers to some of the ways that our self typically
behaves, as it were. For example, when our self 'identifies'
(as the psychologists call it) with something -- anything --
then it comes to think of that thing as in one way or another
part of it.

For instance, when I identify my self with the flag of my country, I
begin to behave as if what happens to the flag is happening to me.
Or, as it is so often put, "I take what happens to the flag personally."
So, if someone now threatens to burn the flag, then depending
on the precise way or manner in which i have self-identified with it,
I might rush to defend the flag from being burnt with nearly or
even exactly the emotions that I would respond to me being
threatened with being burnt.

In some religious traditions, that sort of emotional and intellectual
investment in something is called 'attachment'.

It is possible to become attached to anything. Absolutely anything.
Including -- rather ironically -- one's own self.

At any rate, that's the best I can do this afternoon to briefly
answer your questions. I have an errand I must soon run.
I hope my take on this matter helps.

 

[Vouthon]

'Ego' might be thought of as a 'power' within you. As a nearly inviolate rule, the powers within you that you deny or suppress become your demons.

Don't try to suppress, crush, or kill the ego. You'll only make it stronger. You'll only cause it to swell up, aggrandize.

Interesting analogy, I very much appreciate your advice here.

Dare I be so bold as to compare your words with an extra-canonical saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas? (Please don't get big-headed and think I'm saying you're another Jesus, because I am not - this is just a case of textual parallelism in meaning )

I have in mind logion 70:


The Gospel of Thomas Collection - Translations and Resources

Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."​

As I read this enigmatic text - in light of having studied contemporaneous and scholarly literature to work out what it means - it would seem to me that 'Jesus' (or whatsoever early Christian scribe attributed it to him) is saying something roughly analogous to you here: i.e. "don't try to suppress what is 'within you', for if you try to keep it 'hidden' away in your psyche, it will ultimately "destroy" you."

This commentary may bring out the nuances:

So, 'Jesus' - or his early Christian attributor - appears to be suggesting 'bring it forth, don't repress' and in so doing a person will ultimately be able to 'integrate' this egoic material within oneself by manifesting it consciously, and thereby integrating or gradually taming it with the result being 'salvation' (sozo - psychologically whole and healthy, which is how many Christians understood salvation).

Even though this particular gospel did not 'make the cut' post-Nicaea 325 CE for the New Testament canon, the underlying logic of it was preserved in the early desert monastic tradition, where Abba Evagrius Ponticus (a disciple of the church father Origen of Alexandria) taught contemplatives to hone the art of 'disspassionately' observing whatever thoughts or demons we have within ourselves without judgment, in an attempt simply to understand ourselves better:

"...If there is any monk who wishes to take the measure of some of the more fierce demons so as to gain experience in his monastic art, then let him keep careful watch over his thoughts. Let him observe their intensity, their periods of decline and follow them as they rise and fall.

Let him note well the complexity of his thoughts, their periodicity, the demons which cause them, with the order of their succession and the nature of their associations.

Then let him ask from Christ the explanations of these data he has observed. For the demons become thoroughly infuriated with those who practice active virtue in a manner that is increasingly contemplative...

A flaming arrow ignites the soul, but the man of praktikē (practice) will extinguish it..."

Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer​

Evagrius’s Demons

This essay tracks the dynamics of the demonic in the work of Evagrius of Pontus, a desert Christian monk of the 4th century. To recapitulate the practice of the Evagrian monk in writing, and therefore in ourselves, it will be helpful to review the cosmological theory of Origen, a theologian, philosopher, and biblical exegete of the early church...

To understand the demonic, the monk must understand and observe his own thoughts.[5] The demonic does not give itself as such. Rather, the demonic announces itself by virtue of the thought. Knowledge of the demonic, then, becomes correlated with knowledge of interior states...

If the monk can adequately set up his interior situation, rearranging the flows through setting up verbal banks and levies of scriptural content and bringing to mind the attracting love of God and the promise contained in his commitment to the fast, then all the demonic potential in the afflicting thought is rendered null.

Though we have treated means of cathexis interruption and prevention, it is important to note that not every cathexis (or anti-cathexis) is undesirable.[18] Take, for example, anger, “the most fierce passion.”[19] The author of James understood, as did early monastics, that anger is rarely godly since it is more often than not directed against the neighbor (Jas. 1:19-20). The proper channeling of anger, though, is beneficial.

In other words, the monk need not extricate himself from every cathectic or anti-cathectic flow, per se. Rather, the monk must perfect the art of rearranging his affective topography, channeling passions in the proper mode. Indeed, anger is a gift “given” to the monk, provided he can wield it properly. The irascible and concupiscible parts of the soul are sources of much needed energy, pushes and pulls, repulsions and attractions, that the monk needs in order to engage in his combat.
​

Hence the reason why, I always say that "sin" is not some kind of legalistic offence but rather 'disordered craving'.

Sin is not about two categories of avowed "lawful" and "unlawful", and then lapsing into the “bad” pile, but rather in the tradition, a case of not having ordered one's cravings properly.

 

[Vinayaka]

It's not something I think too much about. I try to be a good person and to practice the kindness and compassion I preach. When I analyze my thoughts and actions it's in the sense of "am I doing the right thing or how could I have handled that better?". I don't focus on ego per se.

The only time I ever even reflect on ego is when it comes up on RF. To err is human. To err only (the same error) once is wise.

 

[crossfire]

The first words of Buddha's first sermon upon awakening: I will add my commentary in green italics

"There are these two extremes that are not to be indulged in by one who has gone forth. Which two? That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects {id functions: the pleasure principle} : base, vulgar, common, ignoble, unprofitable; and that which is devoted to self-affliction {superego functions: the perfecting principle}: painful, ignoble, unprofitable. Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding {ego functions: the reality principle}.

"And what is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding? Precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.​

The middle path is through reconciling the id and the superego with reality via the ego--following some basic principles in the eightfold path.