Is the ego important or not?

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, Chimera said:

I recently discovered that the main reason I am unhappy since a long time in my life is because of denying myself and my personal needs. 

What you must realize is: THAT is ego!

Self-denial, being a doormat for others, people-pleasing, putting on a fake front of selflessness, trying to be a good boy or girl << ALL of that is ego. This is the ego playing the role of the selfless saint.

This is not true selflessness. It's ego aping selfless behavior, which is actually very selfish and problematic.

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But when I listen to my needs, what my heart tells me to do, i feel so much happiness, so much liberation... I am living again!!

I need to learn who I am and what do I want from this life I order to have an existence which I can claim as my own!

But isn't that ego?

Yes, that is ego, but it's a better, more honest, more developed form of ego than what you were doing before.

The trap you've fallen into is that you've adopted the selfless saint ego while in your mind harshly judging normal healthy ego which needed fro satisfying basic survival needs.

Life requires that you satisfy your needs within reason in healthy ways and don't act with fake selflessness. When you try to act and pretend as though you don't have needs but really you do have needs, this becomes a big problem because it is untrue and dishonest. You are being dishonest with yourself.

It is much healthier to say, "I'm horny and I need sex" than it is to say, "I'm so pure I don't need that dirty thing called sex", but then secretly you have sexual fantasies all the time. In this case the more developed and healthier form of ego is to just be honest and admit: "I need sex. I love sex! I'm like a sex-addicted animal!" << Good! That's progress. At least that's true! You always want to start from a position of honesty and realness, not fakery.

If you don't worry about your own survival, who else will? The ego's function is survival. This is very necessary if you want to stay alive.

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Is the detachment from ego implies that you must feel dead inside?

Not at all. This is a big misunderstanding of detachment and ego-death. Ego-death makes you feel alive inside.

What you must realize is that detachment and egolessness cannot be faked. The only way to truly be selfless is to reach such a high state of consciousness that you are directly conscious that the ego isn't real. When an ego tries to pretend to be egoless but it doesn't have sufficient consciousness to realize it isn't real, that's disaster.

If you want to really grow, you must start but admitting and giving up all your spiritual fakeness. The ego loves to adopt high spiritual ideas as if it can embody them. It can't. The ego has to realize its own unreality.

[Preety_India]

 

Practice healthy ego with healthy boundaries and standards and don't go overboard with feeding it. 

Treat your ego like your house pet. Too much adulation will spoil the pet, make it angry, petty and arrogant reckless. 

Not giving it attention will make it depressed. 

Feeding its needs will keep it happy and healthy. 

Not feeding its needs will make it sick and weak. 

Keeping it humble with boundaries and strict principles will keep it balanced, healthy and disciplined. 

 

Neither abuse the ego, nor pamper it. 

Getting rid of the Ego?? Well you don't wanna really get rid of that house pet, it gives you a sense of security, purpose, warmth and identity. 

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Preety_India

[Guru Fat Bastard]

 

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

10 hours ago, Chimera said
Is the detachment from ego implies that you must feel dead inside?

Instead of detachment,see it as non attachment. Ego is a story,a construct of ideas believed to be true,existing or real,but in reality has no existence.
When this is seen/perceived,attachment and/or belief in the story (aka., illusion), no longer draws you in.

[tsuki]

Summarizing spirituality as "ego is bad" is only good at the very beginning, when you are helplessly unconscious and you need something to get started. A more nuanced approximation is "ego is falsehood", or "ego is unconsciousness", or "ego is denial". That is why I prefer to call what is conventionally called "ego" as "the false self".

If you have needs and admit to that, then that is the truth. Denying that fact by believing spiritual dogma is denial. I am not saying that it is impossible to not have any needs like pop-spirituality is saying. What I am saying though that it is irrelevant as long as you don't actually experience it. In this sense, living in accordance with truth by consciously fulfilling your needs is more spiritual than pretending otherwise. In this pretending, denial, lies what is conventionally called ego, or the false self.

Edited November 16, 2020 by tsuki

[Gesundheit]

I can't believe the kind of replies here. Completely false and delusional.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

I can't believe the kind of replies here. Completely false and delusional.

Be specific, mr. Enlightened centrist.

[Shin]

[Gesundheit]

@Carl-Richard

Well, for starters, the ego is answering the question of whether or not it's important. Of course it will say it is important. Classic conflict of interests self-bias.

Next we have the notion of importance, which is the heart of ego. Who said the ego is important? The ego, of course. Why should I trust the ego? Because it is important, of course. Classic circular logic.

Next we have the wise people who advocate against ego from all old religions and spiritual schools. Clearly they're not just talking BS. Mohammad, for example, said that paradise is forbidden for those who have even the slightest bit of ego/pride. The Buddha said that the ego/attachment is the source of suffering.

Next we have to understand what is meant by ego and what functions it serves. Is the ego purely mind/thinking? Or is the thinking clouded by biases and selfishness and attachment and pride?

Now the most powerful evidence that the ego-mind is not important is direct experience. Insane people do exist in my direct experience and they don't have egos. So at least theoretically, we can survive without it. And also if someone is in a critical dangerous situation, the ego-mind is most useless most of the times and it cannot prevent death.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Gesundheit

[Moksha]

@Gesundheit You are correct. I think for some of the responses, it may be a semantic difference rather than a lack of understanding. People are using the word "ego" to describe "personality".

The ego is not the personality. It is the illusion of misidentifying with your personality. Once you realize yourself as Consciousness, the illusion of the ego is dissolved. Most people fall back into unconsciousness periodically, and the illusion returns. Eventually some wake up permanently, and the light is on all of the time.

You can be enlightened and still have a personality. The ego is gone, but the personality remains, and is actually necessary for form survival. The difference is that you no longer mistake yourself for your personality. You just shine through it.

[Someone here]

It is not important or unimportant. It just doesn't exist. 

[Javfly33]

16 hours ago, Someone here said:

It is not important or unimportant. It just doesn't exist. 

Bro...

[Chimera]

16 hours ago, Someone here said:

It is not important or unimportant. It just doesn't exist. 

Well....it exist since you are able to name it as ego.

[Someone here]

59 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Bro...

Bruh? Did I say something false? 

 

32 minutes ago, Chimera said:

Well....it exist since you are able to name it as ego.

How cute! So if I said aliens don't exist that means they do exist because I was able to name them lol. 

I'm just giving you the most direct answer. To ask whether this is ego or not you are still stuck in duality. This whole selfish vs selfless duality. The self doesn't exist. And that makes all actions selfless because there is no self doing it lol. You might ask but how is this practical? Well it isn't. 

[Javfly33]

4 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Bruh? Did I say something false? 

 

In the absolute sense you didn't said something false, but who lives in that state?

The reality is that most of us are stuck within the relative , thus we carry an ego with us. 

Ego is your whole fucking history as a human. (And the one you are maintaining right now unless you just a had a sudden raise of consciousness). So yeah, I think it does 'exist'.

[Someone here]

@Javfly33 

9 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Ego is your entire history as human. 

My entire history as human is just a thought. Boom gone. Where is it? Lol Hard to maintain an illusion. The NOW is the only reality. Don't define yourself by your past. Your past is imaginary as is your future. 

 

11 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

And the one you are maintaining right now unless you just a had a sudden raise of consciousness. 

No I transcended the ego long ago. Had massive no-self awakening . 

[The0Self]

The ego is importance itself. The ego-construct is simultaneously the formed past, and the forming future. It isn't really there. It's what provides context for the empty NOW so that what's happening can appear to matter to an individual.

[Javfly33]

5 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Javfly33 

My entire history as human is just a thought. Boom gone. Where is it? Lol Hard to maintain an illusion. The NOW is the only reality. Don't define yourself by your past. Your past is imaginary as is your future. 

 

No I transcended the ego long ago. Had massive no-self awakening . 

That´s cute, but you don´t fool me. You are mainteinig an ego like all of us.

This is actually not even a matter of discussion, there are level of consciousness where the ego doesn´t exist and there are levels where the ego does exist. It exists as an illusion, sure, but since illusion can give you a very real toothache, for the sake of it we take that state into account too.

See if you what you are telling me is that you are in constant high-awareness awakened state of consciousness, then that´s fine. I don´t believe you though, but yeah if you would then ego would not exist there.

[Someone here]

22 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

That´s cute, but you don´t fool me. You are mainteinig an ego like all of us.

@Javfly33 lol you don't even understand what ego is. It's not something that an individual possesses. It is the individual itself. Which doesn't exist. I know it's mindfuck but if you turn your gaze inward you will find nobody in there. 

22 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

See if you what you are telling me is that you are in constant high-awareness awakened state of consciousness, then that´s fine

No I'm telling you there  is no me or you lol . Crazy and ridiculous. But true. It's not my fault anyways lol. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Someone here

[Javfly33]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

@Javfly33 lol you don't even understand what ego is. It's not something that an individual possesses.

@Someone here Upps. You jumped too fast to conclusions... Who said I was talking about an individual?  

I was talking about You... 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Javfly33

[Gesundheit]

@Someone here

You aren't aware of the ego, but it does exist. You're only communicating here with us because of ego/attachment. If you want to test your ego, go and cross the streets without looking. The thing that makes you look is ego/fear.