EGOS

[Tom]

Your ego is your identity. No ego mean no action. Ram Dass wrote that it is like an office you can go into for the purpose of getting work done. He said that the problem is that most people live in their office and do not know it is possible to leave it. You do not have to destroy your office to be free from it. Without a strong and very healthy ego it is impossible to follow a spiritual path of any sort. If you doubt this, just look at any variety of fundamentalist. That sort of person tries to kill the ego and become something else instead.

Yes, I've played the same games. It is fun when you know what you are doing while you are doing it. It is even better to suddenly stop playing the game and to do something absolutely contrary.

[rodentmouse]

are you saying that some ego is necassary???

Now i have  different  opinions of the importance of them.

could you elaborate on something Tom??.............
"Without a strong and very healthy ego it is impossible to follow a spiritual path of any sort"

i assume you mean wanting to better yourself  is an ego?

[fredhedd]

i too have a vague idea on what an ego is.  i always thought it as your personality or how you thought about yourself.  someone who is very humble is someone who i would think wouldn't have an ego or as big as one who wasn't as humble.  i believe your ego may be any part of you that likes or dislikes anything, aside from physical pain.  opinions and such on matters on aestheticity.  

by subconsciously trying to achieve the label mystic, do you mean consciously but your pushing it down so you try not to think about it, or that thought doesn't come to mind unless you sit back and look at what you are doing? i've found that there are many  people that start out on the spiritual path for reasons that would hinder their progression like for the label or maybe to be able to perform some certain skill like telekinisis.  for me anyway, after a while you start to see that there really is more to it than that and maybe the interest will start to shift, along w/ your impetus for trying to accomplish your goals.  this is not how everyone is but it's very easy to be like this once you start to really get going.  

choosing your wording carefully is someting that i believe almost everyone on here does.  maybe i'm wrong about this but i myself do not speak the way i type.  if you were sitting next to me it would be totally different.  there are words i use posting that i wouldn't or don't use speaking.  this is normal, i believe.  i can't say why i do it for sure.  it may be to help w/ ease of reading for the readers.  i also like using vocabulary words and coming across as strong and effecient as possible when writing anything.  

this is something that just came to mind and since i haven't given it much thought just take it for food for thought.  you say you adopt your mystic persona on here but doesn't everyone adopt some type of persona in every situation?  when you believe you are acting the way you truly act, isn't that also a persona that you've adopted from an earlier time?  sure showing off for the wrong reasons could be considered fake but if you are conscious of why you are acting a certain way and honestly don't believe you are being fake, i don't see a problem w/ changing the way you handle situations.  

if this doesn't help it may work better to think of an ego as a very good waffle.  the spelling is a little different but they're damn good waffles.

[Tom]

Ego has a bad reputation. It is not deserved. The funny thing is that without ego it is not even possible to bash the ego. Who is it that bashes ego in order to feel so spiritual and so superior to other people? Actually, spiritual progress is scary and insulting. It takes a powerful ego to be able to accept it. Buddhism has two main styles of meditation. One (shamatha or zhine) is designed to expand the ego and it is followed by the other (vipassana) which brings the realization that ego was never really solid to begin with. They can also be seen in the generation and completion stages of Mahamudra in Vajrayana Buddhism. Even Dzogchen stabilizes and heals the ego before doing anything else.

[Paukki]

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. R-Mouse, but it sounds to me like you would like to reach a state of mind wherein there is neither pretense nor awkwardness, but a certain grace and clarity of mind and action.  I know I would like to reach that state; then, as you surely would agree, doing something like writing posts in this forum would be easier and more fun!    But on to EGO!  I have had many discussions with a brother of mine about this very thing, because it is a big part of his "A Course in Miracles" studies, which he's been into for 15 or more years, now.  These discussions led to my checking the dictionary definition of ego, and in mine it defined ego as one's conscious self.  I cannot imagine operating without a conscious self, (which I told my brother), so when he would go on about the ego, (usually in terms of the illusion of separation, as compared to our actual oneness, universally),  I would simply think of him as talking about egocentricity, (or selfishness).  So many debates, arguments, etc., begin with a word, or a lack of definition, or a confusion about definitions!  I don't think reducing the ego question down to one of  selfishness is enough, though, when it comes to holy men and their discourses about dissolving the ego in Christ-Buddha consciousness and such things.  Surely a pan-holistic approach to spirituality--within the bounds of the present discussion on ego--would have to include the notion of an EXPANSION, so that one CONSCIOUSLY find's his/her beta consciousness swallowed up in something infinitely larger.  (Everbody in this forum is working on this, yes, no?)   This would be a conscious experience that limited intellect would only later begin to try to explain.  EXPANSION is a lot more, I think, then just recognizing that, (for example), your silly egocentricity just cracked a joke at the expense of your wife's dignity.  Maybe dealing with egocentricity is elementary school stuff, whereas becoming a conscious microcosm of the macrocosm is very much more than that.
--Paukki

[rodentmouse]

hello to the people

I have an incredibly  vague understanding on EGOS,   hence this post may be a bit vague.

I  am taking a self-knowing course on the internet (available at www.mysticweb.org)   and  it mentions that to gain wisdom and intelect you must eliminate egos and  be in a total state of awareness always,  this means recognising them when they crop up.

This is where i have a problem,  im not sure if what i think is an ego is really an ego.......  this is my stand so far  on what egos are........

****scenario*****

im around  the people i work with and they ask me about my spiritual studies,  and when i answer,   i mimick the mannerisms and gestures of stereotypical,  media-induced mystics....   e.g.  ill  answer with a quote ive read somewhere but dont fully understand,   or Ill talk in a quiet, polite  way  to appear  mystical.  

***************

NOW,   subconsiously,   i think im trying to acheive the label as "mystical"  or "wise"  by adopting all the recognised,  stereotypical mannorisms of what   Films  and Tv shows suggest so......  e.g.  Yoda  and obe-wan.

 or another example is in this post as you read it......  i am consiously writing in  elaborate code,  and  trying to be as articulate as i can-  (atleast i hope)
in the hope that  all of the people who read it will  think im  mature and well spoken,  but in real life,  i speak  like any other person from my city in England,  except lie in the above scenario,  i  adopt my  mystical persona.

Do you see where im coming from???   i hope so,  i hope i havent embaressed myself  either.

when  i first wanted to understand egos, i asked  some people in some pyshic learning  chatrooms  to explain them to me,    they seemed to  repeat what they  had read in a book etc.

So,  failing  this,i  used my intuition,  and over time  i have come to understand egos as what ive tried to explain  to you people in this post...(e.g. my being at work scenario)...

Basically,  is there anyone else who  fully understands  egos,  and could clarify  my  understanding as being the right idea,  or the wrong idea of what egos are.....

thankyou