Survival, Ego and thoughts?

[Inder]

Hello everyone, I have question about Ego and thoughts

Does Ego really helps us to survive? It seems like after lot of learning about ego, that it is the biggest obstacle for our surviving and thriving in life.

What about thoughts, as we know now thoughts are the biggest cause of all suffering, so why Ego and thoughts are exist in first place then? What is the purpose and use behind thoughts then? 

Thanks

any opinion would be helpful.

 

[RobertZ]

An opinion—

Ego can provide some survival benefits—and possibly even utility to a whole community. From what I can tell, ego can tend to lack sensitivity. A person might perceive others differently than those people experience themselves. I see this as a dialectical tension between hypnotic openness to other people’s ‘realities,’ and critical evaluation. The ego is good at judgement (and even generosity*) but can be rigid when it comes to openness and empathy.

There seem to be different kinds of thoughts. For example, a slow thought might contemplate a rash person experience ‘love and loss’—and just observe that. Some thoughts are coherent and focused. Others are rambling (like this). Others trippingly describing everything all at once. I like the thought that my thoughts are an instance of the universe’s self-reflection.

 

[Truth Addict]

@Inder

I prefer using the term imagination instead of ego. I think it's more direct.

Do you not think imagination is helpful for survival?

However, and since imagination is very flexible, it can get so "wrong" (meaning not identical to reality) and then create all sorts of illusions. Not only that, but also since imagination "seems" like reality, it can be confused for it, because better maps are more likely to be confused with the territory.

Add on top of that that reality is non-linear and it doesn't have to obey any laws whatsoever, even the most fundamental physical and mathematical laws can change at any moment.

The point is that nothing is guaranteed with imagination, we can only gamble. But the consequences can vary from physical death to living the dream. So, I think it's worth the bet.

As for thoughts and suffering, thoughts are not "the biggest" cause of suffering. Be very careful here because it contains the clue to how to stop suffering.

Suffering is not caused directly by the thoughts. Thoughts are a stairway either to heaven or to hell. The trick is that the stairway is one, but the one who's going up is different in each case. Suffering stems from not accepting reality as it is. Sometimes reality is mere thoughts, and you'd have to accept that in order not to suffer. The most important thing here is to develop more awareness of the present moment.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Truth Addict

[Enlightenment]

3 hours ago, Inder said:

Does Ego really helps us to survive?

Ego IS survival mechanism, without which an organism can't survive

3 hours ago, Inder said:

so why Ego and thoughts are exist in first place then? What is the purpose and use behind thoughts then? 

The ego uses thoughts to exchange concepts about reality with the purpose of survival 

[Leo Gura]

@Inder Human survival is not primarily about physical survival, it is about survival as a unique persona. That's what ego is mostly doing: surviving the complex social persona of you. And it's doing it perfectly. All of your thoughts are about that.

[Inder]

@Leo Gura so you saying ego doesn't really care much about physical survival but survival of concepts, self images and beliefs of our mind.

So thoughts have no real value but to keep the construct of mind survive,

What about higher self or true self, i know it concern about thriving and growing, but what about physical survival does our higher self help us?

Does our intution not just concern about thriving but also surviving?

Because lot of time i try to observe my thoughts and emotions and try to accept them as its, and try to follow my intuition without thinking, but after sometime thoughts pops out in my brain and let me keep stuck in my head and assure me feeling of control.

But thanks Leo what you have done for this world, its very helpul, God bless you brother.

[Consept]

25 minutes ago, Inder said:

@Leo Gura so you saying ego doesn't really care much about physical survival but survival of concepts, self images and beliefs of our mind.

So thoughts have no real value but to keep the construct of mind survive,

What about higher self or true self, i know it concern about thriving and growing, but what about physical survival does our higher self help us?

Does our intution not just concern about thriving but also surviving?

Because lot of time i try to observe my thoughts and emotions and try to accept them as its, and try to follow my intuition without thinking, but after sometime thoughts pops out in my brain and let me keep stuck in my head and assure me feeling of control.

But thanks Leo what you have done for this world, its very helpul, God bless you brother.

Ego cares about whatever you believe to be real, so for example if you believed you were a loyal citizen of Germany in the 1940s you might kill and die to preserve that persona and ideology . It doesn't make it real but the key is that you believe its real. 

So yes physical survival is important but can be trumped if you believe something else is more important 

[Leo Gura]

@Inder This issue goes deeper than you yet understand.

Of course ego also cares a lot about physical survival. Your physical, social, and psychological survival are all intertwined.

Intuition and even the higher self are often also part of survival.

Try to locate what isn't survival in your experience. Most things will be survival.

[mandyjw]

Think about it as if you were a wave on the ocean. You are the ocean in the entirety but you only know yourself as this one wave. Other waves could crash into you and destroy you so they appear threatening. You could compare your size and location with that of other waves and feel significant or insignificant. You could be afraid of how long you have until you crash into the shore and die. All those thoughts perpetuate the idea of you as a separate wave, even though all those problems dissolve as soon as you identify with being the ocean as a whole. 

We also have different kinds of thoughts, thoughts about how to create things, manipulate our world, improve our world, thoughts about how to interact with people and communicate with people. We have thoughts of gratitude and appreciate. It's all play.

Thoughts bridge the gap between form and formless.The best way to align your thoughts with the formless, is to understand what thoughts are and where they are coming from. Aligning yourself with the energy of formless, (think meditation of all kinds) changes the thoughts you have and also trains you to recognize what kind of thoughts you are having by getting a feel for the energy of them.

Not all thoughts are bad, not all thoughts are good.

Ultimately and seemingly contradicting everything I just said, it is our judgement of which are bad and which are good that causes us to suffer.