Ego is ??? your Foe

[Tim R]

So many people on this forum regard the ego as their foe, as some psychological aberration, like a tumor, like a mistake, like their worst enemy. 

And yes, I know. selfishness/egoism is the source of all devilry and evil and so forth, we've heard it ad nauseam. 

But to treat the ego as some horrible thing/idea that we must get rid of is 

1. not going to work

2. egoistic in and of itself

The ego is just as much part of the divine as anything else. Accept it, treat it as you would treat your pet, love it, nurture it - and before you raise out of your chair, appalled at this statement: to nurture your pet is not the same as fattening it. But to keep it healthy and always in check.

Jung says in his book "Modern Man in Search of a Soul":

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."

[nistake]

Preach.

My favorite quote from Eckhart Tolle: 

Quote

If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that’s just more ego.

 

[Gesundheit]

Ego is not a pet. It is a fucking monster.

1 hour ago, Tim R said:

But to treat the ego as some horrible thing/idea that we must get rid of is 

1. not going to work

2. egoistic in and of itself

1. Elaborate?

2. But it is less egoic.

[BlackMaze]

Sure it's wrong to see it as a foe but at the same time is something that you need to get rid of. It just needs to be let go. 

[Tim R]

2 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

1. Elaborate?

It doesn't exist, so there's nothing to get rid of. You can of course realize that it's an illusion, but the nature of illusion is, that they are also just illusions.

Furthermore, "you" (ego) can't do anything about it since "you" don't exist - equally of course, "you" can't not do anything about it.

6 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

2. But it is less egoic.

Quite the opposite. It's the most egoic thing you could possibly attempt to do. It's completely egocentric, literally.

 

Which is good. Because only so can you realize that it was a complete hoax all along.

[Gesundheit]

2 minutes ago, Tim R said:

Quite the opposite. It's the most egoic thing you could possibly attempt to do. It's completely egocentric, literally.

How exactly?

[Shunyata]

4 minutes ago, Tim R said:

It doesn't exist, so there's nothing to get rid of. You can of course realize that it's an illusion, but the nature of illusion is, that they are also just illusions.

Furthermore, "you" (ego) can't do anything about it since "you" don't exist - equally of course, "you" can't not do anything about it.

Quite the opposite. It's the most egoic thing you could possibly attempt to do. It's completely egocentric, literally.

Which is good. Because only so can you realize that it was a complete hoax all along.

Yeah, but in order to realize that waking up is also a part of the illusion you need to transcend.

[Michal__]

You want to transcend your ego, not get rid off it.

[Tim R]

27 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

How exactly?

As I said, it's entirely ego-centric/ego-centered. It's I dealing with me for the good of myself.

It can't be done. You can't lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Ever tried that as a child, pulling on your suspenders, hoping that you would start to fly? Guess we all did

Edited December 25, 2020 by Tim R

[Gesundheit]

5 minutes ago, Tim R said:

As I said, it's entirely ego-centric/ego-centered. It's I dealing with me for the good of myself.

It can't be done. You can't lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Ever tried that as a child, hoping that you would start to fly? Guess we all did

But it's less egoic than, let's say, trying to earn 100 million dollars. Isn't it?

Because inner peace is endless, but money isn't. So I can increase my inner peace to infinity without taking away any of your inner peace, but I can't earn 100 million dollars without taking some of your share.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Gesundheit

[SamC]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

But it's less egoic than, let's say, trying to earn 100 million dollars. Isn't it?

Because inner peace is endless, but money isn't. So I can increase my inner peace to infinity without taking away any of your inner peace, but I can't earn 100 million dollars without taking some of your share.

It's a paradox. You want to accept the ego to be able to transcend it. Otherwise you will create more ego.

It's the same with yourself. You can't use fear/ negative motivation to change yourself in a core sort of way. First you need to accept yourself, than you can transcend yourself. If you hate that you hate yourself more fear and hate will come up and you'll be stuck in the same pattern. Same goes for ego. 

If you perceive that the concept "ego" is bad - you also partake in the same pattern and create more ego. You can't hate your ego to death - only love it.

Edited December 25, 2020 by SamC

[Megan Alecia]

@Tim R jung= ego first half needs to be individuated, second half (of life) let go of

i know leo said similar in a video of his

Edited December 25, 2020 by Megan Alecia

[Tim R]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

But it's less egoic than, let's say, trying to earn 100 million dollars. Isn't it?

No. There is nothing more selfish than the desire to become enlightened. 

@Gesundheit Don't label "selfishness" as something "bad". SamC got it exactly right.

And as I already quoted Jung; "Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." 

@Gesundheit If you don't have access to the book, here's a lovely excerpt from the book read by Alan Watts.

 

[Gesundheit]

1 hour ago, SamC said:

It's a paradox. You want to accept the ego to be able to transcend it. Otherwise you will create more ego.

It's the same with yourself. You can't use fear/ negative motivation to change yourself in a core sort of way. First you need to accept yourself, than you can transcend yourself. If you hate that you hate yourself more fear and hate will come up and you'll be stuck in the same pattern. Same goes for ego. 

If you perceive that the concept "ego" is bad - you also partake in the same pattern and create more ego. You can't hate your ego to death - only love it.

It's not black or white. That may be true for you as a healthy individual, but not for an individual with NPD. If you love/accept that narcissist, you will enable evil. Not that that's bad in the ultimate sense, but in "our ordinary human equality rights" sense. A narcissist does not understand things like love or transcendence. In fact, they use these concepts to use others and further push their greedy agendas. If a normal human ego can be satisfied easily, a narcissist's ego doesn't. Thus all the problems of humanity. Now, of course, narcissists won't like me saying this truth, and brainwashed people won't like it either. But yeah, it is what it is. Some people are simply evil, and you can't sugar-coat it.

[Tim R]

@Gesundheit

7 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

If you love/accept that narcissist, you will enable evil.

Nope, because to love someone can also mean to restrain someone.

What you gonna do, condemn and oppress the narcissism in him/her? No, of course not. You accept the narcissism as given, entirely. Only then can you change/alleviate it.

10 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Some people are simply evil

*some people are simply not serving your selfish agenda      

(again: "selfish" is not a bad word)

[Shunyata]

@Tim R have you ever alleviated a narcissistic ego?

[Nahm]

One of the most profound misunderstandings is that the ego is a human psychological thought, belief construct, or identity.

[xxxx]

13 minutes ago, Tim R said:

What you gonna do, condemn and oppress the narcissism in him/her? No, of course not. You accept the narcissism as given, entirely. Only then can you change/alleviate it.

I agree. 

[Tim R]

4 minutes ago, Shunyata said:

@Tim R have you ever alleviated a narcissistic ego?

No. But you can alleviate narcissism in general, that's what I meant. (at least as far I know, maybe I'm wrong)

[Tim R]

4 minutes ago, Nahm said:

One of the most profound misunderstandings is that the ego is a human psychological thought, belief construct, or identity.

@Nahm Enlighten us, what is ego if not thought?