Self-esteem And Enlightenment

[How to be wise]

Will increasing your self-esteem make it harder for you to become enlightened? 

[Joseph Maynor]

@How to be wise I don't think so.  What hinders enlightenment is closed mindedness and lack of awareness, not high self esteem.

[How to be wise]

9 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

@How to be wise I don't think so.  What hinders enlightenment is closed mindedness and lack of awareness, not high self esteem.

But self-esteem promotes 'a bigger ego' and 'a stronger sense of self'. 

[sgn]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

But self-esteem promotes 'a bigger ego' and 'a stronger sense of self'. 

You sure?

[eputkonen]

11 hours ago, How to be wise said:

Will increasing your self-esteem make it harder for you to become enlightened? 

Perhaps, because someone who is attached to self-esteem and identifies as someone with high self-esteem really does not want to realize there is no "me"...and that there is no one superior, inferior, or equal to anyone else.  And so they will push realization/enlightenment away and continue to deny what is.

[ajasatya]

12 hours ago, How to be wise said:

Will increasing your self-esteem make it harder for you to become enlightened? 

yes. you're strengthening the illusion of a self to be esteemed.

if you want enlightenment, you'll need to get out of the comparing game altogether.
if you want enlightenment, choose self-love instead. take good care of your physical and mental health.

[sgn]

I've heard several times that a healthier ego is easier to transcend. Isn't the sense of self strongest with a unhealthy ego?
Think of how personal everything will feel all the time. All the self-judgment, judgment of others, comparing, victim mentality.
Isn't good self-esteem closely tied to compassion for others and compassion for yourself?

With good self-esteem it should be that you're less focused on yourself and see yourself and others closer to equal.
Important to make a distinction between self-esteem and self-defeating pride.
 

"Self-esteem is a realistic, appreciative opinion of oneself. Realistic means accurate and honest. Appreciative implies positive feelings and liking. Some speak of high and low self-esteem, but this makes self-esteem seem like a numbers game that is competitive and comparative. It’s preferable to say simply that people possess self-esteem when they have a realistic and appreciative opinion of themselves. The figure below clarifies the meaning of self-esteem. Self-esteem is squarely between self-defeating shame and self-defeating pride.

|------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------|
Self-Defeating Shame                            Self-Esteem                              Self-Defeating Pride

People with self-defeating pride are trying to be more than human. They are arrogant, and narcissistic, which means that they think they are better and more important than others as a person. Their view of others is vertical, or comparative, which is to say that to be on top means others must be below them. Self-defeating pride is often rooted in insecurity. Explore the lives of famous dictators, and you often find a complete lack of the parental antecedents that were discussed earlier. People with self-defeating shame, or self-defeating humility, believe that they are less than human. They view people vertically, and see themselves as the dust of the earth. They hold an unrealistic and unappreciative opinion of themselves. By contrast to the above views, people with self-esteem believe they are neither more or less than human. Knowing their faults and rough edges, they still are deeply and quietly glad to be who they are (Briggs 1977). They are like the good friend who knows you well and likes you anyway because they recognize the goodness, excellence, and potential that coexist alongside imperfections. People with self-esteem view others as equals, on a level or horizontal plane."

[Joseph Maynor]

@How to be wise Having a large ego is better than having a small ego for ego-transcendence work.  This is counter-intuitive.  It's almost like the best way to live is to have a large ego but be able to see through it so well that you almost always mitigate unreasonable conduct.  Paradoxically you need a large ego to be successful, but that doesn't mean that you have to act on it.  That's the key point!  Awareness alone is curative.  Use the ego to attain your higher virtues and outer-worldy (Yang) ends, but at the same time deepen your connection to Truth such that it pervades your entire experience -- so your prolific results are karmically sound.  You do want to fuck the world, but you want to do it nicely.  And that puts you on the horns of the paradox -- you both need ego and need to transcend ego to be truly successful in life.  A proper balance between Yin (No ego) and Yang (Ego) is needed to harmonize with the Tao.  Non-duality includes duality.  The Absolute is the perspectiveless perspective.  

Watch. I learned a lot from the below video on the issue of what Ego-Transcendence really is.  "A strong ego can ride above the wave, and actually ride the wave of life.  A weak ego gets crushed under the wave of life."

Also watch

Also watch

Also watch.  This is a good intro to what Yang is.  

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Leo Gura]

@How to be wise No, it will make enlightenment easier.

[Bastian]

Tolle's take on this: https://youtu.be/VauHIuyPwkM?t=9m16s

Edited August 1, 2017 by Bastian

[Shin]

That depends what kind of self esteem you're talking about.

If you're talking about arrogant style of self esteem where you compare yourself to others about your relative superiority, it could potentially be a problem if you stay along those lines (since you believe there is other self to compare and it feeds your monkey mind ...).

If you're talking about peaceful and non-needy self-esteem, like you know you can do everything you want if you put the right effort, without any praise or approval (because there is no you to be praised and every answers comes from emptiness ...), then no, in fact you need that if you want to go really deep, you won't be able to do it without that.

[ajasatya]

2 hours ago, Bastian said:

Tolle's take on this: https://youtu.be/VauHIuyPwkM?t=9m16s

very good. i like the approach that mentions suffering as the fuel for transformation. it's very realistic.

[Shin]

ENLIGHTENMENT NOW !!!

 

Want a cheat code in life ?

Watch this video every morning before going to school/work

 

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Shin

[Markus]

I think the high self-esteem = bigger ego thing is a misunderstanding. High self-esteem and excessive pride is not really the same thing. Excessive pride is a cover-up for lack of self-esteem. Like the people who need to feel like they're the best, they're the king - they need to feel grandiose to feel worthy as a human being. A high self-esteem comes down more to being aware of one's ego. Take that awareness high enough, you'd be enlightened. 

I invite you to make a distinction: healthy/unhealthy ego vs big/small ego. Any big ego is generally unhealthy, and both an extremely meek and extremely proud person likely to have it. What makes a ego healthy is not really size but awareness. But awareness also lets you see that a lot of facets of the ego are limiting and unnecessary, so you'll drop them. Thus enlightened people have egos that are both smaller and healthier.

A high self-esteem means you are secure with who you are. Young children have a high self-esteem, before traumas fuck with it. High self-esteem is a default, in a sense. A person with a high self-esteem is already more aware than a person with low self-esteem. Or they just never had so much ego crap in the way in the first place. So enlightenment would be easier for them, actually.

Love ya,
Markus

Edited August 1, 2017 by Markus

[WelcometoReality]

@How to be wise The ego will be trancended at first so that will not matter, but before it is trancended wouldn't you rather have high self esteem than low self esteem?