Why does the ego naturally have a bias towards survival?

[Holygrail]

Why does the ego have this bias from the highest elevation perspective? It's hard to find an ego that doesnt care about getting eaten by a lion. I'm assuming it's because it doesn't want to dissolve into unity in order to maintain it's boundaries "alive". But why egos with this need?

[WelcometoReality]

@Holygrail it's survival for the sake of survival. That is its highest agenda because it is the survival program itself.

[_Archangel_]

@Holygrail Because every object, by definition, is naturally geared towards self-preservation.
The only difference is that Humans have a much more sophisticated survival mechanism than a rock, for exemple.
The idea of an identity, if you think about it, is just the ultimate survival trick!
Whatever you think you are, you have all reasons to protect it, right?

[snowyowl]

Could be there's a genetic component to it, after all we're descended from a long family tree of organisms (including our non-human predecessors) which were the ones who survived the natural selection process and bred. If you don't have a hard baked survival instinct you don't pass on your attitude of non survival. 

Maybe that's why it takes a lot of work to dig beneath the survival instinct, ie the ego, to see what's beyond it. 

[mandyjw]

I don't believe it does. When people panic, they do the dumbest, most dangerous things and can't think of a solution at all. And yet when they are relaxed, ideas come to them and they naturally and effortlessly avoid dangerous situations in the first place. 

[Corpus]

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

I don't believe it does. When people panic, they do the dumbest, most dangerous things and can't think of a solution at all. And yet when they are relaxed, ideas come to them and they naturally and effortlessly avoid dangerous situations in the first place. 

I think some dangerous situations are "imposed from the outside", and the ego, which is much like a personalised navigation/advisory function, kicks in to direct its holder/bearer to take the appropriate action to protect itself  and also that which it could not "exist" without, namely the body. Its ability to guide and advise is not objective, and the suggestions it provides are experientially constructed as a form of learning.

[mandyjw]

@CorpusThe ego is a false sense of separation, from which arises the need to protect itself. In reality this kind of protection that separation seeks for itself is ONLY the maintenance of its separation. This is why security is never found, it is actually fighting for its own finitude. Because the root of its fear and insecurity and need to survive IS this very separation which already is false, it can only act in self destructive ways. Sometimes, from any given perspective this looks like destruction of other, destruction of collective or destruction of what is taken to be itself, (harm of the body, self hatred, etc). 

The insecure self is fascinated by other selves acting out this way, trying to secure themselves by actions that tear others down, putting themselves first, disregarding others and the whole. Looking upon such a thing causes this insecurity to activate as the self thinks it must act in this manner ALSO to secure itself. And so this potentially becomes a kind of viral infection.

The real guidance is not ego but is feeling, or the suffering that arises which if we take note of is only perpetuated by our feelings of insecurity or by the actions we take to try to remedy what already is not a problem. We are trying to avoid suffering by perpetuating suffering. 

It's as if this whole survival deal is a boogeyman. We have developed what we think is a very sophisticated system to keep ourselves safe from the boogeyman. We sleep with the lights on, we dig a moat around our house, we wear garlic around our neck and spin it around three times while chanting some magic word. We live in fear 24/7 without ever bothering to investigate the actual existence of the boogeyman. 

We ARE the boogeyman. 

You breathe without thinking, you digest without thinking, your heart beats without thinking. 

[WelcometoReality]

Isn't fear a basic human/animal emotion? It seems like a great incentive to take action. The ego would be the resistance to or grasp of feelings. It grasps that which feels good and resists that which feel bad.

Resisting/avoiding fear and grasping/seeking bliss as an example.

Edited June 15, 2021 by WelcometoReality
Or maybe fear is just old conditioning that hasnt left the body yet

[tatsumaru]

My intuition is that Ego is simply a byproduct of identification with maya. Everything in maya is impermanent and as a result when your true Self identifies with anything in maya be it your body or even the universe itself, the false belief in survival appears out of thinking that something needs to be protected. Naturally if you believe you are something impermanent you will try to hold on for as long as possible. Realizing that the true Self is not of the universe quite possibly either dissolves the Ego completely or makes the Ego a slave of the true Self. The biggest shock possibly is that upon letting go there's no loss whatsoever.

A Buddha said, "identifying with anything, even the universe at large, is an ego illusion."

Edited June 15, 2021 by tatsumaru

[gettoefl]

ego being fake knows its day are numbered so does all it can to thwart divert and obfuscate its soon to come death

ego cannot live indefinitely only as long as you dream

Edited June 15, 2021 by gettoefl

[tsuki]

The purpose of the ego to facilitate the survival of the ego. The ego does not 'care' for you by keeping you alive.
You can-the-fuck-not die. Period. The body will die, the mind will die, the heart will die, but you will not.

[Carl-Richard]

It all goes back to self-replicating lipid membranes.

[WelcometoReality]

.

Edited June 15, 2021 by WelcometoReality
Meant as an edit of my previous post

[Someone here]

44 minutes ago, tsuki said:

You can-the-fuck-not die. Period. The body will die, the mind will die, the heart will die, but you will not.

What's the 'you' in this context? 

[tsuki]

Consciousness, love, truth, being, nothing, etc.

Edited June 16, 2021 by tsuki

[Nahm]

@Holygrail

How many ego’s you figure there are?

[tatsumaru]

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Holygrail

How many ego’s you figure there are?

Personally I feel ego is a byproduct of identification with some aspect of maya. If you identify with your country you get the patriot ego, if you identify with your religion you get the religion ego, if you identify with the universe you get the oneness ego. Not sure if you can have more than one identities but if you can maybe you could have multiple egos? G.I. Gurdjieff  said that we hundreds of tiny disintegrated selves who are in constant conflict with each other.