What is the ego?

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Survival is part of the ego and dissolving the final layer of the ego is the experience of despair and death. Nothing really dies though since it's the illusiory sense of self.

Yeah, this is the key of the trascendence , realize that. But how? Trascending the ego hehe. for one thing to happen, the other has to happen first. like without psychedelics? very rarely. I would not say that if you transcend the ego it is seen that if you die you will continue. rather that there is no one who can die

[Mason Riggle]

10 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yeah, this is the key of the trascendence , realize that. But how? Trascending the ego hehe. for one thing to happen, the other has to happen first. like without psychedelics? very rarely. I would not say that if you transcend the ego it is seen that if you die you will continue. rather that there is no one who can die

When you awaken from a dream, where does the 'you from inside the dream' go? Does 'dream you' die while 'you' remain? 

Consider (don't take this as belief, it's an idea to think about) your existence as a continual 'waking up' that happens when and how it does, and your desire for transcendence is just more 'waking up'.. it's just you waking up to yourself, repeatedly, forever.  Right now you are in the eternal process of waking up.

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

When you awaken from a dream, where does the 'you from inside the dream' go? Does 'dream you' die while 'you' remain? 

I think I know what you mean. When you wake up from a dream, the you inside the dream is essentially the same as outside the dream. When you wake up from the dream of the ego there is still something, although without the illusory characteristics that the ego gave it. it is empty consciousness. What I don't know is what else this empty conscience can awaken to. 

[VeganAwake]

Most people are trying to gain something, they are trying to acquire awakening.

Observe the individual that wants to aquire awakening.

Is it a real entity?

What does it consist of?

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yeah, this is the key of the trascendence , realize that. But how? Trascending the ego hehe. for one thing to happen, the other has to happen first. like without psychedelics? very rarely. I would not say that if you transcend the ego it is seen that if you die you will continue. rather that there is no one who can die

Ego transcendence is not a real happening. Transcendence is just a word used to describe the apparent awakening experience. No individual transcends the ego because the ego is the individual. 

It's an unhappening.

Because the very individual that was attempting to find a better experience in the future(awakening) is recognized to be completely unreal.

❤

[impulse9]

The ego is the one who asks what the ego is.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

No individual transcends the ego because the ego is the individual. 

It's an unhappening.

5 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

 

well I agree but only in part. there is no one in the sense that the person with his history, qualities, projection, was unreal, but there is existence. the pure present moment, call it what you want. many said that this is only the first step in awakening. the i, that ramana maharshi used to say, god, as many others says. The thing is that something is

Edited July 21, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[WelcometoReality]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

It's an objective appreciation.i have understood what the ego is many years ago, but it was impossible for me to transcend it until I discovered psychedelics and 5meo, a short time ago, and even now it takes hours of meditation every day so that it does not become too heavy. I know people who are very interested in spirituality, who do vipasana retreats, go to meditate in India and things like that and have not even remotely floated above the ego for a minute. most of humanity lives in the ego, and the possibility that separation is an illusion does not occur to them. So I can say that the ego is real, that the mind is innately programmed to carry out this construction, and that for that reason it is difficult to transcend it.

Yeah that's quite common. They go to retreats or meditate for an hour. They are waiting for a random moment where they get enlightened and when that doesn't happen they think maybe next retreat or next meditation I'll get it it. Then they go back to there normal lives and act through ego again and all the dissolving that the meditation had done is undone. So it takes them decades, if they do it at all, to awaken.

Each moment is a possibility to see through and let go of identification to thought and feelings. All that's needed is the willingness to do so. It's not hard but few are willing to do so.

[VeganAwake]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

well I agree but only in part. there is no one in the sense that the person with his history, qualities, projection, was unreal, but there is existence. the pure present moment, call it what you want. many said that this is only the first step in awakening. the i, that ramana maharshi used to say, god, as many others says. The thing is that something is

Yes of course the ego would rather identify itself as something rather than nothing. Ego = identification. It wants to be there to reap the benefits if and when enlightenment occurs.

The problem is the ego already has a preconceived concept about what enlightenment entails(what it should and shouldn't be like). 

Hence the importance of emptying the glass prior to any deep self-inquiry. Unknowing!!

The ego quite literally takes the words used to describe enlightenment by the mystics, and twists them to fit into it's preconceived egoic fantasy story.

No ego can ever understand what Ramana Maharshi was pointing to because he was describing the end of the ego's experience.

❤

[James12345]

On 7/19/2021 at 3:43 PM, Gesundheit2 said:

I want to beat this horse to death.

There are various definitions for the ego but very little agreement between people, including spiritual. Maybe it's because of how vague and general the term is being used and how layman it's now become. Or maybe it's just because the ego is actually a tricky beast, as they say.

From the biggest picture possible, how do you define the ego?

Creativity is encouraged, Mr. @Nahm 

“Thinker “.

[Kamo]

@WelcometoReality Ok i get it, so when 2 people are standing next to one another, person A and person B. what is experiencing A's senses and thoughts and what is experiencing Bs and is this separate? and if it is the same thing, would that mean person B know persons As senses and thoughts and vice versa? If not how come? and how come if they are not separate? Does this question make sense?

[WelcometoReality]

5 hours ago, Kamo said:

@WelcometoReality Ok i get it, so when 2 people are standing next to one another, person A and person B. what is experiencing A's senses and thoughts and what is experiencing Bs and is this separate? and if it is the same thing, would that mean person B know persons As senses and thoughts and vice versa? If not how come? and how come if they are not separate? Does this question make sense?

That's a complex question that I'm not sure I can answer. What I can say is that there is a field of "knowing" that reality is made of and that field is shared by all things. Person A is not directly aware of Person B:s thought but the information is "shared" in some way. 

You can test this by sending loving thoughts to a person everyday and see how this changes your relationship with him/her. I've tested this myself with drastic results. And how would that make sense unless the field was shared by everyone?

[Gesundheit2]

On 19/7/2021 at 7:47 PM, WelcometoReality said:

You know the old crt monitors that were used before lcd monitors? Let's say there was a completely white screen on that monitor. Seems very white. Then you take a magnifying glass to each pixel to investigate the whiteness and discover that the white was just red, green and blue dots put together and together they appeared white. Ego is the white appearing on the screen. If you start investigating what the ego is then you see that it's just thoughts and feelings (and other senses) that one is identified with. 

This explains how the ego can be viewed differently from two different zoom levels, but it leaves out something very important, which is the viewer itself. There are those two different zoom levels (perhaps many others, but let's keep focus), and there is the viewer/observer/awareness of them who's capable of reflecting and talking about them. Does the observer (center of experience, so to speak) not count as ego? And why?

Edited July 22, 2021 by Gesundheit2

[Someone here]

The sense of being a separate self. 

[WelcometoReality]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit2 said:

This explains how the ego can be viewed differently from two different zoom levels, but it leaves out something very important, which is the viewer itself. There are those two different zoom levels (perhaps many others, but let's keep focus), and there is the viewer/observer/awareness of them who's capable of reflecting and talking about them. Does the observer (center of experience, so to speak) not count as ego? And why?

You can call both ego if that is how you want to define it. You are exploring what you are experiencing and you can define the parts in a way that makes sense to you. The words are simply pointers to parts of experience. 

If the observer watches something is it actually part of the thing it watches? Perhaps for claritys sake it's better to give them different names. Can you describe the nature of the observer?

[Kamo]

@WelcometoReality Yeah it is quite complex, i didnt expect an easy explanation. I appreciate your time and opinion. So fascinating contemplating these things though. I feel it will end up in a paradox anyway lol.

[Kamo]

@Gesundheit2

On 7/22/2021 at 5:12 AM, Gesundheit2 said:

This explains how the ego can be viewed differently from two different zoom levels, but it leaves out something very important, which is the viewer itself. There are those two different zoom levels (perhaps many others, but let's keep focus), and there is the viewer/observer/awareness of them who's capable of reflecting and talking about them. Does the observer (center of experience, so to speak) not count as ego? And why?

The observer as you put it is not the ego. Because the ego is a process of identification with anything that is "observable" thoughts, images, feelings, perceptions. The viewer/observer is the pure awareness which is not capable of anything but "Being" there. There's no actual viewer, only what is viewed in the form of perceptions/appearances. The idea of "my" perceptions is the ego. as you can see that idea itself is another perception. There is only perception made out of awareness. 

[WelcometoReality]

7 hours ago, Kamo said:

@WelcometoReality Yeah it is quite complex, i didnt expect an easy explanation. I appreciate your time and opinion. So fascinating contemplating these things though. I feel it will end up in a paradox anyway lol.

The paradox is only in your mind. It can't grasp what reality is since it is only a part of it. ?

 

[James12345]

7 hours ago, Kamo said:

There is only perception made out of awareness. 

Perception or awareness is an ego itself. Because,

7 hours ago, Kamo said:

@Gesundheit2

The observer as you put it is not the ego. Because the ego is a process of identification with anything that is "observable" thoughts, images, feelings, perceptions. The viewer/observer is the pure awareness which is not capable of anything but "Being" there. There's no actual viewer, only what is viewed in the form of perceptions/appearances. The idea of "my" perceptions is the ego. as you can see that idea itself is another perception. There is only perception made out of awareness. 

These are all thoughts, which comes from thinking.