It's NOT About Getting Rid of the Ego

[Sincerity]

It's about radically evolving "it". 

Of course YOU are "the ego". It's about You growing YOUR SELF, You maturing as the consciousness YOU are. But NOT about "surrending yourself altogether".

I wanted to make this personal post because for so long I was suffering due to this stupid idea that the point is to somehow transcend "the ego". The idea that "the ego" is somehow impure and it has to be surrendered. That I'm sinful, evil and corrupt for having a sense of self and personal desires. That the point of spirituality is to get rid of me and my wants and let the universe work through me. That I'm weak, cowardly, evil and selfish for concerning myself with my desires and not with the world as a whole.

I'm not sure where I got this idea from. Maybe from my christian upbringing. Maybe from my parents. Maybe from spiritual teachings. Probably all of these in various degrees. Treat this post as a warning of the danger of this kind of attitude.

This God damn stupid idea is so disastrous I can't believe I survived as long as I did carrying it. The last year - and especially the last 5 months - have been the most difficult time I've had in my life ever. My mind has been plagued by vile and suicidal thoughts, I had very little control of myself and my mental health was severely damaged. Never before did I reach such profound emotional lows. There have been many weeks when I was just in a numb state and didn't do anything (besides distracting myself) because I was feeling so terrible.

During this year I (mostly) unconsciously held the belief that I just have to surrender myself and that hopefully I'll be taken over by the universe and finally be pure and be able to do God's will. I especially considered this belief true when I was going through deep emotional hardship. When I was feeling better I mostly did have the capacity to think good of myself.

I had VERY little faith in myself. This was especially devastating because I had no hopes of setting myself free in any way and I just wasn't doing things, thus diminishing my self-esteem further. I was convinced that the only way is to surrender myself more, process more emotions, understand more and maybe then I will finally disappear somehow and be free at last. I was convinced I am weak and sinful and that I need a higher consciousness to take me over - and that that's what's spirituality is about.

What I want to say is: this is NOT true. The point is to evolve your self towards Godhood, as much as You can handle. Well, at least for me I guess. Maybe You'll resonate with this message too. In retrospect I can see I was shown this insight a lot of times but I was stuck banging my head against the wall still focusing on the "surrendering myself" nonsense.

Believing in yourself and healthy self-esteem are so crucial for a satisfying life. I notice now how utterly tired I was from having no faith in myself and seeing myself as something to let go of. Life is SO MUCH EASIER when You trust yourself and have high self-esteem. So much stress and anxiety goes away.

Of course it's good to let go of many things "relating to yourself" like various attachments, thought patterns, etc.. I'm not denying the beauty and usefulness of letting go. I'm saying that the idea of surrendering "the ego" ALTOGETHER is rather misguided.

I'll add that I guess You could say that evolving yourself requires dying in a way and surrendering your old self, thus getting rid of it to a degree. I think that's partly true, but I'd still say the attitude of wanting to let go of yourself isn't particularly helpful.

To end this post I'll say this:

• It is entirely okay to be YOU and to do what YOU want.
• Always have faith in yourself. YOU can do anything You set your mind to.
• Don't wait for things in your life to change. YOU are the creator. You have the power to change them yourself.
• YOU can awaken your consciousness (=yourself). It's possible for You. Don't wait for a miracle, You work your ass off. If You want to of course.

Please let me know what You think. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Treat this as a more empowering perspective, not some objective goal or something You "should" do.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Sincerity

[Breakingthewall]

great post, the truth speaks in your message, unfiltered. That is the way, do not worry about anything other than being you, your truth, identify, as you are doing, all the acquired ideas that undermine you, become strong in your truth and everything will be clean, perfect, fluid

[integral]

That makes alot of sense, so with low self-esteem people are more inclined to believe the ego must die and thats spiritual bypassing that avoids self-developing and living with the ego. 

[Razard86]

1 hour ago, Sincerity said:

It's about radically evolving "it".

Of course YOU are "the ego". It's about You growing YOUR SELF, You maturing as the consciousness YOU are. But NOT about "surrending yourself altogether".

I wanted to make this personal post because for so long I was suffering due to this stupid idea that the point is to somehow transcend "the ego". The idea that "the ego" is somehow impure and it has to be surrendered. That I'm sinful, evil and corrupt for having a sense of self and personal desires. That the point of spirituality is to get rid of me and my wants and let the universe work through me. That I'm weak, cowardly, evil and selfish for concerning myself with my desires and not with the world as a whole.

I'm not sure where I got this idea from. Maybe from my christian upbringing. Maybe from my parents. Maybe from spiritual teachings. Probably all of these in various degrees. Treat this post as a warning of the danger of this kind of attitude.

This God damn stupid idea is so disastrous I can't believe I survived as long as I did carrying it. The last year - and especially the last 5 months - have been the most difficult time I've had in my life ever. My mind has been plagued by vile and suicidal thoughts, I had very little control of myself and my mental health was severely damaged. Never before did I reach such profound emotional lows. There have been many weeks when I was just in a numb state and didn't do anything (besides distracting myself) because I was feeling so terrible.

During this year I (mostly) unconsciously held the belief that I just have to surrender myself and that hopefully I'll be taken over by the universe and finally be pure and be able to do God's will. I especially considered this belief true when I was going through deep emotional hardship. When I was feeling better I mostly did have the capacity to think good of myself.

I had VERY little faith in myself. This was especially devastating because I had no hopes of setting myself free in any way and I just wasn't doing things, thus diminishing my self-esteem further. I was convinced that the only way is to surrender myself more, process more emotions, understand more and maybe then I will finally disappear somehow and be free at last. I was convinced I am weak and sinful and that I need a higher consciousness to take me over - and that that's what's spirituality is about.

What I want to say is: this is NOT true. The point is to evolve your self towards Godhood, as much as You can handle. Well, at least for me I guess. Maybe You'll resonate with this message too. In retrospect I can see I was shown this insight a lot of times but I was stuck banging my head against the wall still focusing on the "surrendering myself" nonsense.

Believing in yourself and healthy self-esteem are so crucial for a satisfying life. I notice now how utterly tired I was from having no faith in myself and seeing myself as something to let go of. Life is SO MUCH EASIER when You trust yourself and have high self-esteem. So much stress and anxiety goes away.

Of course it's good to let go of many things "relating to yourself" like various attachments, thought patterns, etc.. I'm not denying the beauty and usefulness of letting go. I'm saying that the idea of surrendering "the ego" ALTOGETHER is rather misguided.

I'll add that I guess You could say that evolving yourself requires dying in a way and surrendering your old self, thus getting rid of it to a degree. I think that's partly true, but I'd still say the attitude of wanting to let go of yourself isn't particularly helpful.

To end this post I'll say this:

• It is entirely okay to be YOU and to do what YOU want.
• Always have faith in yourself. YOU can do anything You set your mind to.
• Don't wait for things in your life to change. YOU are the creator. You have the power to change them yourself.
• YOU can awaken your consciousness (=yourself). It's possible for You. Don't wait for a miracle, You work your ass off. If You want to of course.

Please let me know what You think. Thanks for reading.

The ego is eternal as it is a finite representation of eternity that finite will reside within the absolute forever. What surrender means is to surrender your desire to be selfish and not sacrifice for others. As long as you are willing to sacrifice for others then you are fine. The point is to grow your self-love and hating your ego isn't going to grow your self-love it will do the opposite. 

Glad you are on the path keep going.

[Harsh Bagdia]

It's great to know that you overcame this trap.✌️ and thanks for this post, this gives me an opportunity to share my thoughts on this topic. 

I also went into a kind of similar phase as you. It was disempowering and felt very off. 

Yep not only ego is bad or evil and to be ashamed of, something to get rid of, it is to be grown, evolved and feel proud about. 

The idea of surrender is not so much about giving up ourselves but about embracing ourselves totally..which includes accepting our desires & creating our dream life and it fits perfectly with God-Realisation.

Leo shared this in Ultimate Structure of Reality video that God is nudging us to realize itself through our desires. As we evolve ourselves, our desires become more God-like. 

God is not someone who will award us for being good and for sacrificing ourselves??? In God's view everything is good.

Infact God wants us to be as much ourselves as possible. God is actualizing itself through us. 

Everyone, we seriously need to look God as our equal partner/friend. Not hold God as superior because then we fall into victim mentality and lose touch with ourself. 

I am proud of myself for where I am currently in my journey and I completely accept my desires how much ever lowly they may be in someone else's opinion. And I love fulfilling my desires and each desire brings me closer and closer to God my ultimate self. 

People use the word ego in such a variety of ways that I have stopped using it for myself. 

I like to keep it simple. I am Harsh Bagdia and I hold all responsibility for all actions performed by my body and my mind.

And being on the path of awakening, I am day by day realizing more and more how everything is interconnected and how I and Others & Universe are One in essence. ?

Edited August 10, 2023 by Harsh Bagdia

[SeaMonster]

The problem here is semantic confusion.

Not everything you posted is incorrect.  You misinterpreted spiritual terminology which has very specific meanings which initially caused you to act in a self-defeating manner.  This seems to be becoming contagious on this forum because it's a bit of an echo chamber.

The problem is that you didn't really resolve the problem but put a band-aid over it.   

You have some correct intuitions about what is GOOD to do, you just don't have a clear understanding of the connection between spiritual awakening, enlightenment and its facilitation of what is GOOD to do.

All these terms like "ego" and "surrender" have very different meanings than the most crass kind of interpretation that one would expect a typical young person to make.

The "ego" means "I" in Latin.  It doesn't mean "I am this", it just means "I" -- it is identification itself, not the content of identification.

The content of identification can be a serious problem due to the fact that it is LIMITING, and can divide oneself, in essence putting parts of oneself at war with other parts (conscious vs. unconscious, accepted vs. rejected, etc.)

The reason "ego" is "bad" is not because the parts of you that are IDENTIFIED WITH are bad.

"Ego" is "bad" because it creates division and war within oneself, causing suffering (anxiety, depression, paranoia, etc.)

Ceasing to identify with only some parts of yourself can kickstart the process of healing, reconciliation and integration -- in other words WHOLENESS.

So your instincts are correct -- of course your desires or ambitions aren't "BAD."  It's just that they can also create suffering if other parts of yourself are rejected and unintegrated.

They are perfectly fine in balance with the WHOLE you.

This is tough for many people to swallow, because until that identification is surrendered, one clings to that limited conception of who one is for dear life.

But it ultimately is what also causes the suffering in one's life.

Edited August 10, 2023 by SeaMonster

[SeaMonster]

Let me illustrate my point by referring to an example you can relate to.

Leo's recent "apology" post.

Leo basically had an epiphany that he has been uncaring towards the forumites.

This is the "rejected/unconscious" part of one's psyche that I'm referring to above.  

We ALL have something like that in our psyches.  The more we deign to recognize and integrate such parts, the more whole we become.

Spirituality is ultimately a process to facilitate this by removing the stubborn clinging to only certain preferred parts of ourselves (i.e. "surrendering the ego.")

Edited August 10, 2023 by SeaMonster

[Yimpa]

It’s amazing how much growth can happen in a span of 5-12 months. Hallelujah!

[gettoefl]

consciousness has shacked up at the house of ego but better not get overly attached to bricks and mortar

it desires to expand in every direction to every molecule with every move

grafting its parts together is called love

and can be done in one swoop rather than one lifetime 

 

[Javfly33]

9 hours ago, Sincerity said:

 I was convinced that the only way is to surrender myself more, process more emotions, understand more and maybe then I will finally disappear somehow and be free at last. I was convinced I am weak and sinful and that I need a higher consciousness to take me over - and that that's what's spirituality is about.

...but I was stuck banging my head against the wall still focusing on the "surrendering myself" nonsense.

See, I warned here some months ago about that dangerous attitude that comes from that woo-woo spiritual ideologies. 

Good that you got out of that trap.

 

Quote

The point is to evolve your self towards Godhood, as much as You can handle. Well, at least for me I guess.

Notice that you are falling to the same mistake here. You are making Awakening or Spirituality as a goal to be at the standard or whatever 'Godhood' means to you.

This is again (at least how I have understand you, maybe you meant other thing, let me know) more morality. 

Quote

Of course it's good to let go of many things "relating to yourself" like various attachments, thought patterns, etc..

Those are great things to do. The only issue is that those things are not achieved by 'letting go'.

The 'letting go' motto is a woo-woo weak ideology for people that do not know or have learned how to manage themselves and this mechanism (mind-body). 

So 'letting go' is a kind of solace for them. 

Quote

To end this post I'll say this:

• Don't wait for things in your life to change. YOU are the creator. You have the power to change them yourself.
• YOU can awaken your consciousness (=yourself). It's possible for You. Don't wait for a miracle, 

Please let me know what You think. Thanks for reading.

Nice ??

Is like that. You are the Creator. You can create misery or heaven. And nobody will create it for you. If you just 'let go' and let things run like they are conditioned, nothing much will change. There's no one watching your ass. God doesn't have a mummy. Is either accepting full responsibility for what you create, or not.

[caspex]

You still need to dissolve your identification though. You misunderstood what the self is and started destroying things essential to your psychology. Sit down and contemplate who you are before you try to surrender anything.

Of course what you think is the self right now will still remain, and it will evolve and get better at withstanding the energy and openness of higher states of consciousness, but there will be no self.

[Schizophonia]

11 hours ago, Razard86 said:

The ego is eternal as it is a finite representation of eternity that finite will reside within the absolute forever. What surrender means is to surrender your desire to be selfish and not sacrifice for others. As long as you are willing to sacrifice for others then you are fine. The point is to grow your self-love and hating your ego isn't going to grow your self-love it will do the opposite. 

Glad you are on the path keep going.

Delusional message and a very poor understanding of human psychology.

[Nilsi]

Everyone will fall into this trap at some point in their journey. Good on you, for recognizing it so early.

I would challenge the idea that you have to "evolve yourself towards Godhood" though.

What are you really saying? Is that not just a different way of saying "you have to slowly get rid of the ego."

This is why I like Nietzsche so much, because he will tell you it's all about affirming life, as it is; coming face to face with the eternal tragedy of life and saying yes to it nonetheless; that the true nature of infinity is finitude; that the one is the many...

You seem very sincere. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for sooner or later, if you keep going like that.  

Edited August 11, 2023 by Nilsi

[Schizophonia]

Your message is constructed in a rather occult way to camouflage facts that could hurt your ego if they were revealed publicly.
All you will get (or almost) are messages of congratulations, encouragement and witty chatter that may reassure you for a day but will ultimately lead to nothing.
Do you feel able to give concrete examples?

15 hours ago, Sincerity said:

It's about radically evolving "it".

 

It's a way of saying that since you can't evolve certain faults in a conscious way, then you want to evolve them "energetically".
But that won't happen, you can evolve into more natural/homeostatic tendencies if you are prone to certain excessive compulsive behaviors (addictions, weird sexual fantasies, neurosis...) but you won't win against your relative nature, never.
It doesn't matter how much meditation and how many blotters you can swallow.

I would like you to feel life for a few minutes with my "psycho" glasses, it would make you vacation in drastic ways lol.

Unfortunately this is not possible.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Sincerity

[LastThursday]

I'm reminded of this interview:

Definitely watch the whole thing if you have time.

[Ramu]

@Sincerity I think NOT being the ego is a very old and outdated teaching.  Of course God wants to be the ego.  That's why you're here.  Why get rid of something which was your original grand design?

It helps to have a few awakenings under your belt to get my gist;)

 

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Ramu said:

@Sincerity I think NOT being the ego is a very old and outdated teaching.  Of course God wants to be the ego.  That's why you're here.  Why get rid of something which was your original grand design?

It helps to have a few awakenings under your belt to get my gist;)

 

When someone says who they want to remove the ego, most of the time it just means that their libidinal fulfillment (in the holistic sense as in psychoanalysis, not just "sexual") is a source of guilt, and who wants to transform into a narcissistic, non-human thing that enjoys being some image.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Schizophonia

[Sincerity]

Thanks for responding everyone! 

7 hours ago, Javfly33 said:

Notice that you are falling to the same mistake here. You are making Awakening or Spirituality as a goal to be at the standard or whatever 'Godhood' means to you.

This is again (at least how I have understand you, maybe you meant other thing, let me know) more morality. 

I hindsight I wouldn't have said that it's "the point" to evolve yourself. It's not like You have do anything or that this is the "objective goal of spirituality" or whatever. I only wanted to propose a different kind of attitude - a more constructive and empowering one, I think. And this perspective isn't perfect too, obviously.

It is true though that I still want to have an internal compass for how to live and "do spirituality". I enjoy contemplating that. I like creating models for myself for what to do and what to avoid. Clarity and simplicity remove a lot of stress from me. 

4 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I would challenge the idea that you have to "evolve yourself towards Godhood" though.

What are you really saying? Is that not just a different way of saying "you have to slowly get rid of the ego."

I addressed this point here a bit:

Quote

I'll add that I guess You could say that evolving yourself requires dying in a way and surrendering your old self, thus getting rid of it to a degree. I think that's partly true, but I'd still say the attitude of wanting to let go of yourself isn't particularly helpful.

I think You'll never "get rid of the ego", but You can deepen yourself / evolve so much that You're pretty much unrecognizeable, as if there was no "you" there. But it's still YOU, just much more mature and broader.

I hope this clears things up.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Sincerity

[Javfly33]

2 hours ago, Ramu said:

@Sincerity I think NOT being the ego is a very old and outdated teaching.  Of course God wants to be the ego.  That's why you're here. 

 

Telling yourself this kind of stories to feel good about it is fine, but is not clarity about what really is going on.

 

[How to be wise]

Yes it is