Can you befriend the ego? or not.. I'm confused..

[Dragonfly210]

I'm on a spiritual journey and went through the awakening. Now, working through my shadow side and healing old wounds that's lasted for so many years. I'm working on intergrating my shadow side.

I came upon this video that explains the ego is not your best friend and is an illusion. 

Then, my Reiki teacher tells me the ego helps us conduct our daily life, such as, drive, wash dishes and so on...

I heard that if you do words of affirmation to build confidence, then we're coming from a place of lack?!! 

I want to find the truth about the ego because there's just so much information out there. It's hard to trust and can become confusing.

Seems like people have different belief systems about it and I just want to find the one that works for me.  

Any perspective would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[VeganAwake]

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by VeganAwake

[Consilience]

Yes you can. In fact, much of my resistance to embodying truth has come from creating shadow elements out of parts of my ego. Which ultimately stemmed from a lack of self acceptance and self love, because I wasn’t accepting and loving all parts of the psyche, there was a shadow being created. Im still working through this. You have to recognize the illusory and self deceptive nature of your ego without turning it into a shadow, that’s the challenge. 

[RevoCulture]

If you want to see a video "Ego Gone Wild" click on the first video above.. Whoa... 

Lets say you had a dog, a black lab.  Would you let the lab organize and run your life?  Does that mean you can't make the lab one of your best friends?  Is it an all or nothing scenario, I don't think so.. 

I question the merits of people who are advising to reject aspects of life simply for the sake of rejecting them without proper knowledge of what is being rejected.  Are they rejecting the thing or are they rejecting their notion of what the thing might represent, thereby not rejecting the thing but their notion of it.   

I like watching people who engage in what would be certain death for other people.  The people who "know" the situation, who are trained, dedicated, well practiced, educated can navigate through a position of knowing that those who don't cant.  Someone who knows stands outside and is like a conductor while a person who doesn't is consumed by the situation and is blindly treading water reacting to the situation which is calling the shots.. 

Wild animals

Explosives

Race cars

Stunt people

Anesthesia

LumberJack

etc. etc. etc.

Someone who understand the ego from a position outside the ego can "befriend' or work with this creation from a superposition.  

 

[WelcometoReality]

@Dragonfly210 The way I would define ego is the false or illusiory sense of self. The identification with certain thoughts and feelings within the body.

When we awaken the identification to those thoughts and feelings start to dissolve. Some times completely all at the point of realization, sometimes gradually over time. The practice then is to see through the illusion of the "sticky" thoughts and feelings until the ego is completely dissolved.

 

[The1One]

ego / thoughts are also a part of God (aka you), much like the devil

Self love = also loving the ego  (doesn't mean it deserves an audience)

[Forestluv]

15 hours ago, Dragonfly210 said:

I'm on a spiritual journey and went through the awakening. Now, working through my shadow side and healing old wounds that's lasted for so many years. I'm working on intergrating my shadow side.

I came upon this video that explains the ego is not your best friend and is an illusion. 

Then, my Reiki teacher tells me the ego helps us conduct our daily life, such as, drive, wash dishes and so on...

I want to find the truth about the ego because there's just so much information out there. 

Seems like people have different belief systems about it and I just want to find the one that works for me.  

In consciousness work, we often just use personal pronouns for convenience. There is a knowing that "me", doesn't exist - yet using personal pronouns can allow for more efficient communication. . . Sometimes personal pronouns are used for convenience, other times there is attachment/identification to "me". 

These observations come from my experience - perhaps they may shed some insight, perhaps I'm way off. Feel free to integrate them or throw them in the trash.

I common stage I see is a "good ego" vs "bad ego" structure. I would also call it "my higher self" and "my lower self". Here they psychological self tries to partition itself into a "higher me" and a "lower ego". The "higher me" are things that the self aspires to: self esteem, being a kind person, being a person that contributes to society etc. and the "lower ego" would be things like self-centerdness, greed, anger, laziness etc. - stuff we want to get rid of.

I think this can have value in a certain context, yet a meta view sees that this "higher self" and "lower ego" is all personal self/ego. There is a transcendence to all of it. I would try to transcend it all rather than continuing with a "higher self", "lower ego" construct and creating stories about how the ego helps me conduct my daily life. <-- That "ego" and "me" are the same thing. . . The entire story of "me" is the self/ego. That includes the good parts of the story and the bad parts of the story. It's all part of the "me" story and all of it can be transcended. 

If this route resonates with you, I would recommend observing all appearances of the "me story" without categorizing them into "me over here" and "the ego over there". It is tempting to identify with the "good me" on the spiritual path. 

If this route doesn't resonate with you, I would recommend working on personal development, including some aspects you refer to as "ego". Yet rather than identifying as the "good me", I would see it all as aspects of my personality structure. For example, rather saying that my competitiveness is "my ego" that helps "me" survive - I would probably look at it like "aspects of my personality, such as competitiveness, manifest at times to help me survive and excel at life. Yet at times, the same personality aspects can become too intense and harm others. For example, I got so competitive with someone that I sabotaged their project. This was unfair and I felt bad after I did it. Why did I behave this way and why did I feel bad afterwards? Hmmm, it seems like I was feeling fear of failure before I sabotaged him. That could have motivated me. And afterwards, I felt guilty - perhaps the guilty feeling was a signal I need to introspect my internal dynamics".

For me, this open observation of my personality works a lot better than partitioning me into "my good self" and "my ego self". The above paragraph is a semi-meta view. There is an awareness observing all of the personality traits appearing. If I added in "my good self" and "my ego self", there would be identification to the "my good self" and this would distort the image. There wouldn't be detached, objective observation of all the personality traits appearing and disappearing.  

[Rigel]

To me the ego is to be embraced. It is also you. There is not a "real you" and then "the ego" which is false and which you need to get rid of. Appreciate you for what you are; The whole of it. Even the "bad" stuff.

Easier said than done tho. Which assumes that there's something that needs to be done. Which is not so sure. A living paradoxe that is.

[Baotrader]

On 22/1/2020 at 3:40 AM, Serotoninluv said:

In consciousness work, we often just use personal pronouns for convenience. There is a knowing that "me", doesn't exist - yet using personal pronouns can allow for more efficient communication. . . Sometimes personal pronouns are used for convenience, other times there is attachment/identification to "me". 

These observations come from my experience - perhaps they may shed some insight, perhaps I'm way off. Feel free to integrate them or throw them in the trash.

I common stage I see is a "good ego" vs "bad ego" structure. I would also call it "my higher self" and "my lower self". Here they psychological self tries to partition itself into a "higher me" and a "lower ego". The "higher me" are things that the self aspires to: self esteem, being a kind person, being a person that contributes to society etc. and the "lower ego" would be things like self-centerdness, greed, anger, laziness etc. - stuff we want to get rid of.

I think this can have value in a certain context, yet a meta view sees that this "higher self" and "lower ego" is all personal self/ego. There is a transcendence to all of it. I would try to transcend it all rather than continuing with a "higher self", "lower ego" construct and creating stories about how the ego helps me conduct my daily life. <-- That "ego" and "me" are the same thing. . . The entire story of "me" is the self/ego. That includes the good parts of the story and the bad parts of the story. It's all part of the "me" story and all of it can be transcended. 

If this route resonates with you, I would recommend observing all appearances of the "me story" without categorizing them into "me over here" and "the ego over there". It is tempting to identify with the "good me" on the spiritual path. 

If this route doesn't resonate with you, I would recommend working on personal development, including some aspects you refer to as "ego". Yet rather than identifying as the "good me", I would see it all as aspects of my personality structure. 

You're such a treasure for folks on this forum. Moreover, people who commited suicide out of depression from the pursuit of enlightenment would probably changed their mind if they'd read what you say here

Bravo ! 

[Inliytened1]

When God appears as form, it must become finite.  The reason It appears as a particular form is to experience itself,  out of love for itself, but in doing so it must become the opposite of it's true nature.  It must forget what it is and become a devil. 

Something finite has to survive as a self.  It has to be selfish.  God (You) provisioned the ego with a mechanical, robotic aspect of this finite form in order to ensure its survival.  If it didn't it would die very fast. 

Thus there are certain survival mechanisms of the ego which are really selfish and devilish such as the need for more and more, and more - it can never have enough out of fear of death.   It has a built in sex drive and a built in desire for pleasure - all of which can spiral out of control.  Again it was programmed this way by God so that it could survive long enough to know itself.

But once God awakens to itself it becomes conscious of this.  God realizes its God appearing as form.    It is conscious that it can still experience itself as form without isolating itself completely from itself.  It can still survive as form without such things as dishonesty, selfishness, and never being satisfied. (Seeking outside itself)   It does need a certain level of selfishness simply to survive but it can be possible to be a healthy level..( a healthy level relative to its alignment with its true nature)

It can exist as form and be hyper conscious of the toxic tendencies of the ego and still experience itself and embrace itself as form   

Because if it did not do this, and it simply denied form altogether, while that would be one way of experiencing itself, knowing itself, and loving itself, it ultimately would be incomplete.  After an infinite number of incarnations God must ultimately come to the realization of accepting itself and loving itself as form because that is also a type of experiencing and knowing itself.

So in the end God is impartial.  It loves itself in all of its forms.  But it needs to forget this in order to learn it.