The Ego Is Not The Enemy

[soos_mite_ah]

Thoughts?

[Ryan R]

@soos_mite_ah

In the Absolute the ego simply does not exist. It is not relatively good or bad and it is not possible to fight it or befriend it because It is not Real. Ego is far removed, the survival thoughts of ideas of dreaming dreams, from the Absolute. This "coach/healer/spiritual teacher" should know this, ideally from being It. A step back from the Abosolute the ego, the lower self, is always less real than You, the Higher Self. A well awake human being who wishes to entertain continuing some attachment to ego must be mindful of the way ego operates and vigilant that the Higher Self remains dominant over the lower self.

Her criticism of "EGO: Edging God Out" is valid. The idea that is the lower self is as loved and as much a part of the whole of God as the Higher Self and the Absolute itself. It is ultimately all One and all Love. Again though, remember in degrees of densities of reality, ego is at the very shallow end of the spectrum. 

"Don't fight your ego, integrate it." is overall sound advice. When the seeker "wars" with the ego it is the ego dividing itself and (often endlessly) fighting differentiations of itself, and no matter what egoic identity wins You lose Self-realization. All her talk on integration as opposed to disintegration for healing is shadow work 101, and she is correct.

"You can get to God... with your ego, through your ego..... not transcending it." Nope, not even remotely fully. This sounds like something an egoic identity playing at being an enlightened spiritual person would say. The game is to get the ego to embrace it's own demise, not necessarily complete destruction, but it must embrace becoming the dog that sits at the feet of the Good Philosopher King when it was once the mad fool that sat on the throne. Once the ego has been willingly subjugated to that point, often after multiple awakenings, it can be fully transcended and enlightenment can be realized. Then the real work begins, lol.

This is an esoteric teaching that you will not hear often, but what makes a true spiritual master is not the complete elimination of ego (that is child's play by comparison) but the mastery of ego. Ego can be tamed, and yes, befriended, and used as the most advanced tool in Creation that it is. A spiritual master can craft and shape egoic identity as needed and then embody and disembody that identity like an actor might a role, except perfectly and as real as any organic egoic identity. Need to "win" any argument, meet any challenge, solve any problem? There is an ego for that. Need to protect, defend, or even become a predator in any way? These are the ego's specialties. Organic egos are largely unplanned, reactive, haphazard messes full of flaws and malfunctions. The egos of the master are beautiful purpose built creations of the mind of God acting through the awake human being. Good times

I do not think this sort of thing is what your video is referencing. This person says she was sexually assaulted as an infant or toddler. My heart goes out to her. She basically says that she still has attachment to her ego because of this trauma, and as a power move she is owning that trauma by keeping the attachment to her ego as her protector. Due to a variety of the things she says I believe she is still very attached to her body-mind, and she is clearly attached to her life story and the memory she had in her psychedelic vision ceremony experience or whatnot. She is not very awake.

Bottom line. Don't hate or war with the ego. Study it. Understand it. Love it. Weaken it. Transcend it. Only then, for bonus points, befriend it, tame it, and use it to serve You.
 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Ryan R
Edited for minor sentence structure and spelling issues.

[soos_mite_ah]

10 hours ago, Ryan R said:

I do not think this sort of thing is what your video is referencing. This person says she was sexually assaulted as an infant or toddler. My heart goes out to her. She basically says that she still has attachment to her ego because of this trauma, and as a power move she is owning that trauma by keeping the attachment to her ego as her protector. Due to a variety of the things she says I believe she is still very attached to her body-mind, and she is clearly attached to her life story and the memory she had in her psychedelic vision ceremony experience or whatnot. She is not very awake.

I mainly took that as the point that the ego comes up as a survival mechanism and it's not bad or evil for being that way and therefore shouldn't be demonized. I think I remember seeing another video (can't remember what it was) and it was describing the ego as the devil but it wasn't in a demonizing way rather it was on how the ego is like a fallen angel. It's like a guardian angel in the way that it helps you survive and thrive but eventually it falls from grace and become a hindrance when you move into higher qualities of consciousness. Like I'll use abuse as an example. Lets say there is a child who is hyper aware of the emotions people are experiencing around him and he had to develop that skill of reading between the lines because his parents never communicated things to him and punished him for not reading their mind or he needed to catch warning however subtle they may be in order to prepare for an anger outburst. This coping mechanism of being hyper sensitive and empathetic worked back then but when that boy grows up and is in a healthier environment, those same qualities turn into anxiety. I think the ego works in a similar way.

10 hours ago, Ryan R said:

Her criticism of "EGO: Edging God Out" is valid. The idea that is the lower self is as loved and as much a part of the whole of God as the Higher Self and the Absolute itself. It is ultimately all One and all Love. Again though, remember in degrees of densities of reality, ego is at the very shallow end of the spectrum. 

"Don't fight your ego, integrate it." is overall sound advice. When the seeker "wars" with the ego it is the ego dividing itself and (often endlessly) fighting differentiations of itself, and no matter what egoic identity wins You lose Self-realization. All her talk on integration as opposed to disintegration for healing is shadow work 101, and she is correct.

"You can get to God... with your ego, through your ego..... not transcending it." Nope, not even remotely fully. This sounds like something an egoic identity playing at being an enlightened spiritual person would say. The game is to get the ego to embrace it's own demise, not necessarily complete destruction, but it must embrace becoming the dog that sits at the feet of the Good Philosopher King when it was once the mad fool that sat on the throne. Once the ego has been willingly subjugated to that point, often after multiple awakenings, it can be fully transcended and enlightenment can be realized. Then the real work begins, lol.

I've been thinking about all of this for a minute and these are my thoughts on the subject:

Quote

Yes enlightenment and transcendence is more humanity and love. But before you go to transcendence, you need to go through integration. That's why stage Yellow is before stage Turquoise. Integration of all of the stages in order to ensure that you have worked through your shadows is essential in providing the foundation for transcendence. If you try to transcend your needs before meeting them, you risk creating a shadow for that need. Yes, transcendence and stage turquoise is higher than integration and stage yellow but integration is just as important and isn't lesser to transcendence.  

On 3/12/2021 at 2:19 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

We risk developing shadows and getting into dangerous situations when we try to aim for transcendence prematurely without going through the stage of integration. Goes back to the whole thing about needing to build a strong and healthy ego before ego death. That's why stage yellow is an important foundation to turquoise. Stage yellow is integrative while stage turquoise is transcendent.  And I know that I have to go much deeper into yellow and exhaust my needs from the other stages before jumping to turquoise. I believe that Teal Swan (and now the source I attached above) has a more integrative approach given how she talks about making peace with your shadow and integrating that to your identity to have a healthier ego and way of going about the world, while Leo has more of a transcendent approach given how he talks about enlightenment, letting go of the ego, and everything being an illusion

 

10 hours ago, Ryan R said:

Bottom line. Don't hate or war with the ego. Study it. Understand it. Love it. Weaken it. Transcend it. Only then, for bonus points, befriend it, tame it, and use it to serve You.

Yeah I agree with this. Waging a war with the ego causes more resistance. It also causes more disintegration which is at odds with oneness. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[hyruga]

Thanks for the video. 

I think it depends on the person's level of consciousness. Someone who is very low on consciousness may be very arrogant and insensitive towards other's feelings and they are the ones who need to check on their ego so in those cases, their ego is indeed their 'enemy'. 

If your level of consciousness move up, you can slowly integrate your ego more with your Self.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by hyruga

[Lyubov]

The "ego is the enemy approach" often cuts people off from awakening to unconditional love. Maybe it works and resonates for some people to get them to a certain point but I've noticed the people that preach it sort of have a rigidity to them and a poor level of systems, holism and integrative thinking when it comes to spiritual modalities. I outgrew the enemy ego stuff a few years ago and it lead to much deeper growth for me. 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Lyubov

[Raphael]

I didn't watch the video, but I already thought about this in the past.

Sometimes I wonder if getting rid of the ego is possible. Everyone have to deal with survival, even woke people. Ego is a survival mechanism, so by this logic removing it isn't possible. However, we can nurture it, purify it, so that it becomes more and more authentic. This would high-conscious ego rather than low-conscious ego, being whole rather than being separated into a small identity.

[soos_mite_ah]

@Raphael The video emphasizes integration and developing a healthy ego because that is more aligned with oneness and authenticity than a weak ego. I highly recommend checking it out. 

16 hours ago, hyruga said:

Thanks for the video. 

I think it depends on the person's level of consciousness. Someone who is very low on consciousness may be very arrogant and insensitive towards other's feelings and they are the ones who need to check on their ego so in those cases, their ego is indeed their 'enemy'. 

 

Yeah an ego that is arrogant, insensitive or not confident is still ego. The video is talking about an unhealthy ego. To get over it, premature transcendence isn't going to help. Instead, you need to build a healthy and strong ego. And I feel that this video is talking about that instead of talking about transcending. 

A weak, undeveloped ego is the enemy. Mastery over the ego so it manifests healthily is not the enemy. 

15 hours ago, Lyubov said:

The "ego is the enemy approach" often cuts people off from awakening to unconditional love. Maybe it works and resonates for some people to get them to a certain point but I've noticed the people that preach it sort of have a rigidity to them and a poor level of systems, holism and integrative thinking when it comes to spiritual modalities. I outgrew the enemy ego stuff a few years ago and it lead to much deeper growth for me. 

I've had a similar experience in the last couple months. I think this is yet another one of those pieces of advice that can either be helpful or harmful given where you are in your journey.