Is The Ego An Unnecessary Add On To Reality, A Concept That Can Be Clung To Or Released

[Joseph Maynor]

Another epiphany folks, I think.  The ego, or concept of being a separate self,  is concept and therefore not part of reality.  And consciousness work is basically working on stopping to cling to the concept of ego in all of its manifestations.  Is this right?  Releasing the concept of being a separate thing in all of the manifestations.  Stripping that nugget of idealism from reality!  We can cling to the concept of ego or release it.  And this has no effect on reality whatsoever either way.  Am I on track here?  

Edited June 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Prabhaker]

@Joseph Maynor

It is impossible. The ego cannot be sacrificed because the ego exists not. The ego is just all idea: it has no substance in it. It is not something – it is just pure nothing. You give it reality by believing in it. You can withdraw belief and the reality disappears, evaporates.

The ego is a kind of absence. Because you don’t know yourself, hence the ego. The moment you know yourself, no ego is found. The ego is like darkness; darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is simply the absence of light. You cannot fight with darkness, or can you? You cannot throw darkness out of the room; you cannot take it out, you cannot take it in. You cannot do anything with darkness directly. If you want to do anything with darkness, you will have to do something with light. If you put the light on, there is no darkness; if you put the light off, there is darkness.

Darkness is only the absence of light, so is ego: absence of self-knowledge. You cannot sacrifice it.

It has been told to you again and again: “Sacrifice your ego” – and the statement is patently absurd, because something that does not exist cannot be sacrificed. And if you try to sacrifice it, something which is not there in the first place at all, you will be creating a new ego – the ego of the humble, the ego of the egoless, the ego of the person who thinks he has sacrificed his ego. It will be a new kind of darkness again.

No, I don’t say to you sacrifice the ego. On the contrary, I say try to see where the ego is. Look deep into it; try to locate it, where it exists, whether it exists at all or not. Before one can sacrifice anything one must be certain about its existence.

But don’t be against it from the very beginning. If you are against it, you cannot look deep into it. There is no need to be against anything. The ego is your experience – maybe it is just apparent, but it is still your experience. Your whole life moves around the phenomenon of the ego. It may be a dream, but to you it is so true.

There is no need to be against it. Dive deep into it, go into it. Going into it means bringing awareness into your house, bringing light into darkness. Be alert, watchful. Watch the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it manages at all. And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the less it is found. And when you have penetrated to the very core of your being, you will find something totally different which is not ego, which is egolessness. It is self, supreme self – it is godliness. You have disappeared as a separate entity; you are no more an island. Now you are part of the whole.

Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Talk #12

[Bob84]

@Joseph Maynor depends on your personal definition of ego. Find the word comparable to the word god. Noone means the same thing.

In a sense ego lets you enjoy life. We get excited about something. We mentaly mastrubate to motivate ourselfs. So in that way its a requirement for life. Ofcourse its also responsible for all the negative stuff.

The thing is, you believe yourself to be the ego. Which you are not. When you seperate yourself from it (enlightenment, trancendens, etc) it becomes a tool. Instead of you life, that its now.

[Joseph Maynor]

5 minutes ago, Bob84 said:

@Joseph Maynor depends on your personal definition of ego. Find the word comparable to the word god. Noone means the same thing.

In a sense ego lets you enjoy life. We get excited about something. We mentaly mastrubate to motivate ourselfs. So in that way its a requirement for life. Ofcourse its also responsible for all the negative stuff.

The thing is, you believe yourself to be the ego. Which you are not. When you seperate yourself from it (enlightenment, trancendens, etc) it becomes a tool. Instead of you life, that its now.

I find it disconcerting that we can't define these terms more consistently.  Everybody does seem to have and use their own definitions.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[WelcometoReality]

@Joseph Maynor That's right. The ego is simply the identification with thoughts and sensory perceptions (body-mind). What is meant by Identification is believing that they belong to a person (you).

[Joseph Maynor]

4 minutes ago, WelcometoReality said:

@Joseph Maynor That's right. The ego is simply the identification with thoughts and sensory perceptions (body-mind). What is meant by Identification is believing that they belong to a person (you).

Can you explain body-mind to me a little bit.  I'm still not clear what that means.  

[WelcometoReality]

40 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Can you explain body-mind to me a little bit.  I'm still not clear what that means.  

It's just the body that the thought and sense perceptions are connected to. 

[Joseph Maynor]

4 minutes ago, WelcometoReality said:

It's just the body that the thought and sense perceptions are connected to. 

The human body basically.  My body.  

[WelcometoReality]

17 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

The human body basically.  My body.  

Yes exactly. 

[Joseph Maynor]

20 minutes ago, WelcometoReality said:

Yes exactly. 

The body-mind is the intelligence and operation of the body.  The consciousness of the body.  Something analogous to the consciousness of awareness.  I guess we can widen mind to include body-mind accordingly since we are simply dealing with categories here.  Is that the intent of the term?  A widening of the notion of mind or consciousness?  A widening of the notion of intelligence?  I can dig it.  Let's take that and run with it.  What are the practical uses of the concept of body-mind?  

Edited July 1, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor Practical uses for the body-mind....look at someone's body, and you can see their mind. Their will power, their intelligence, their compassion, their sense of self worth, their level of forward & long term thinking, their level of satisfaction & happiness. Now look at your body and accept what you see as representative & reflective of the current developmental state of your mind. It works both ways too. If you can listen to someone or read what they write, you can know of their body. 

[Falk]

On 28.6.2017 at 3:03 AM, Joseph Maynor said:

Another epiphany folks, I think.  The ego, or concept of being a separate self,  is concept and therefore not part of reality.  And consciousness work is basically working on stopping to cling to the concept of ego in all of its manifestations.  Is this right?  Releasing the concept of being a separate thing in all of the manifestations.  Stripping that nugget of idealism from reality!  We can cling to the concept of ego or release it.  And this has no effect on reality whatsoever either way.  Am I on track here?  

Depends,

lets pretend this is whats going on in your part of consciousness:

i am Jospeh i have an ego, the ego is an illusion and not part of reality. so jospehs job is to do consciousness work, so he is not clinging to his ego anymore. If joesph can drop the belief in his ego or the clinging to his ego then jospeh will be enlightened, the new enlighten jospeh will be so cool!! so happy and possibly rich? he will be a super-jospeh , nice...

Which sounds good, the problem is only that there is no jospeh with the problem of needing to get rid of his ego to begin with. THe fact that consciousness got conditioned into THINKING it is joseph who needs to do this and that in order to get that and this is what makes it feel that something is not quite right... so what is needed is not to ADD enlightenment TO jospeh, but to rid oneness of this joseph-idea, who is this joseph anyways? i heard he is quite a nice guy, i heard he will be rich soon, must be something about this guy  

[Joseph Maynor]

Got it.