The Rev

<img src="http://www.designerspirit.c om/w-buddha/w-sleeping%20buddha%20 2a.jpg" align=left hspace=20 vspace=10>This idea has come up in a number of threads, and I don't get it. The ego is the center of consciousness that perceives memories, thoughts and sensory input. Without it, you would be unable to perceive anything, and would be, effectively, unconscious permanently.

Now, I don't really understand why someone would consider it to be the height of spiritual attainments to pass out, so, I'm tossing this one in the ring for those of you who love to throw tantrics over the subject to pipe in and explain what this idea means to you.

Now, for some groundrules:

The Question is: What does it mean to transcend the ego?

Now, there are a million and one highly esoteric and just as highly VAGUE answers for this question, so I expect every explanation to carry with it a concise definition of both "ego" and "transcendence." And, if you must refer to ideas from religions or other spiritual schools, define your terms. Make your explanation make sense, IOW.

Example explanation from Kitch -->

This explanation confused me (no offense to kitch, he obviously just knows more about this subject than I do), but would have been easier to follow if I knew how he defined "ego", "moxa", "atman", and an explanation of what makes selfishness something to avoid.

Make sense?

Okay, blow me away with your spiritual repartee...



The Rev

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supermarket :)

I didn't see this thread, so I made a seperate thread based on a post you made in another thread, regarding the topics in this thread.








What you are defining ego is differently than I see it, so essentially we are talking about two seperate things.

I can't help you, because what I've always considered ego is a product of the Human, not of the spirit. Therefore, we wouldn't pass out without ego, rather....we'd Wake up.



Ego is what keeps us asleep. It is our false self. The opposite of god realization or self realization, its Identity fraud!

it convinces you that you are Rev, not God.

Ego Tripping

I argee with Supermarket. The Ego is not part of the spirit. You unwillingly relenquish the Ego upon death (crucifixtion of Christ = crucifixtion of the Ego). Many people cannot handle that, since they are so attatched to their Ego..they feel their Ego IS who they are. Same thing occurs when people trip on LSD or shrooms...Ego is relenquished and people that are aready for it have blissful happy trips where they feel like themselves once and for all....other's too attatched to their Ego can't tear themselves away and throw themselves into a world of pain...and pain is an illusion of the Ego.

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SweetSativa

Well, having been a psych major , I would have to say that I don't think that we ever really transcend ego. However, I see that there is a type of 'letting go' of yourself... you know, Rev... like if you get really caught up in music or you start playing the guitar or your little native flute or something and you're not thinking about who you are, you're not thinking about what God is or if there is a god... you are just in a state of creation/ a state of 'being' that transcends words. I don't think I want to go on because I'm suffering from attention span disorder induced by our favorite herb I and I just added, "if we do not lose the ego, we are just human doings... not human beings" . Sorry, I didn't define ego... I won't follow your rules, man! (hehe j/k) But I will attempt if you would like me to... I just thought that you would relate to this and see what we're talkin' 'bout.

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"Why is it that when people talk to God, we call it praying but when God talks to people, we call it crazy?"- Touched by an Angel
http://www.youtube.com/user/immelody.../0/DDRj93dQ0O0

kitch

ego is the conscious processes that attach you to this reality. ego is the essential seperateness of yourself from everything around you, the part of you that you think of as yourself. Your atman is that part of God that rests within you, and that part of you that rests within God. Some people call it the soul, but I tend to think that that's kind of innaccurate. Each of us is part of an interdependent system, a web of existence. the ego is a way for desire to express itself. as long as the ego persists you can never break free from the illusion that is this 3 dimensional existence. To break free is to achieve moxa, or liberation. Your ego can never achieve moxa. Only your atman can. Transcending the ego doesn't mean losing yourself, it means losing that part of yourself that's false, that fools you into believeing you're anything other than God. Read Be Here Now by Ramm Dass.

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effervescence

It's what's right between the Id and Superego.

Id is our raw desires. Superego is our conscience (in a nutshell). Ego is what balances these out. Ego satisfies both Id and Superego without being too apprehensive and without going overboard with desires.

or at least that's what i learned in psych.


haha, one of the kids on my floor is shrooming right now and hes all over the place...hahahaha

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"...it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play." ~ Abraham Van Helsing

Ego Tripping

^^ I disagree. That entails the Ego is required which it is not.

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SweetSativa

In a nutshell... you said well what I meant... "lose yourself" in my post could have been replaced by "get caught up in God or godness" Nice topic

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"Why is it that when people talk to God, we call it praying but when God talks to people, we call it crazy?"- Touched by an Angel
http://www.youtube.com/user/immelody.../0/DDRj93dQ0O0

supermarket :)

kitch said:

"Transcending the ego doesn't mean losing yourself, it means losing that part of yourself that's false, that fools you into believeing you're anything other than God."


I couldnt have agreed more, and he definately recommended a wonderful book which I must say should be part of everyone's library who is interested in either Psychedelics, Spirituality, or both.

The more you realize there is noself, the more you begin to realize that at the same time, there is ALWAYS you, and you cannot die. You are immortal, because you are a spark of God.

Mull D

Great question Rev, there's so much inconsistant use of some of these words that it's kind of hard to take these words seriously, and not as just some silly concept that's more distracting than enlightening. When we have a word as vauge as "ego" it serves us no purpose. There are so many different ways to interpret the word that it holds no value in communication. Is it something to overcome? Is it something to acknowledge and live with? "Ego" is just a sound made try to explain things that we all already know.

"Transcend the ego" is an extremely overused phrase, making it so easy to seem like you are saying something of value while explaining nothing at all, requiring very little thought from either end about what it actually means to "transcend the ego." If the guy who first said the words "transcend the ego" heard how they are being used today he might kick himself.

We all experience the same life, no??? Atheists see the same God as Christians but don't call it "God."

What the ego is and what the ego isn't is petty, we all see the same reality.

Ego Tripping

Wow...that can't be any more wrong than it is.

We all see our individual interpretation of that said reality. But so far, we've never been able to prove anything such as an 'objective reality.'

For example, my friend's girlfriend recently passed away. He told me, "Lars, even though the days were sunny and bright, my world was so dark and grey." Yet, if I was standing next to him, I would see a much different "reality" than his.

And who's is more legit? Experience is the only true definition of 'reality' and my experience and his experience are vastly different. Yet they are both experiences, hence they are both 100% legitimate.

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Ego Tripping

That's the point. Life is a walking contradiction, get used to it. Science tells us that an Electron can exist in two places at the same time, even on opposite ends of the Universe. This is (right now) intuitvely wrong to us, yet it's real, it's happening, it's proven. Yet, it's contradictory, it's BOTH at the SAME TIME.

Thus is the Ego. It's completely useless in the long run, but required for us to transcend and overcome (and hence, grow as spiritual beings).

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Ego Tripping

I should note..."Transcending the Ego" cannot be explained just like God cannot be explained. To transcend the Ego means to get in touch with God, to make that spiritual connection. Yet, that act in itself, that feeling, is indescribable with words. I cannot explain what A Minor sounds like, what the color Red looks like, what Love feels like, yet these are all integral parts of our lives. I cannot explain in words what it means to Transcend the Ego because it's different for everyone person. But when it happens, you just 'know', just as you 'know' when you find the right person for you. Everyone's path is different but the goal is the same. The goal is God. God is unconditional love. The goal is love.

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supermarket :)

Peter said it best. "I die Daily"


his false sense i believe was murdered through spiritual practice so we could obtain immortality, or self-realization.



A man who conquers ego Cannot die. He already killed the man in him, now he is his true self, undestroyable by another human.

Ego Tripping

Those who understand this realize there is, in a way, two people living inside them. One is transient, passive, physical.

The other is eternal, everlasting.

Those who cannot see the second person inside them, continously come back here to Earth until we realize that person was never real to begin with.

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Mull D

Please I'm not trying to be contemptous. Don't let your "head" get any bigger.
To say this can't be any more the wrong thing to say than it is. It's clear you refuse to see what I am saying. We all experience life, we're all people, we all know the same things, we all see the same earth with the same eyes and interpret it with the same brains.

Ego Tripping

That's just your reality.

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Mull D

On some core level, they way the world is transcends each individual's definitions for words such as "reality" Nigga

C_ka

lol i love you guys.

it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling reading these things, because i know you guys are right. ( well, as right as right is)

i had a freind that took a HUGE dose of mesc, he jumped off a bridge (he survived but the use of his right arm..) because, as far as he could explane it, (not that he could) he realised that in order to free his 'self'(compleatly wrong word i know...) from the bounds of phisical reality, he must lose his body.

well he sure wasn't scared, he had no visible emotion at the time, but he describes it as the most beauteful thing ever. when he was there he never wanted to leave, but when he left, and his ego returned, he was so scared of doin it again because he knew he would die (phisically).

and he once again saw himself as the 'false' ego.
even though he knows thats not him. well it is but you know what i mean.....

i suppose an alter ego is a good way of describing it? i.e the thing that is unchanged between an ego and an alter ego (assuming the alter ego is a true ego) is the god-self, i.e the true you?

but yea, now he knows that he is immortal and infinite, but he doesn't go lookin for death...

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"yes i smoke shit straight off the roach clip.."
- Cypress Hill

"Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
— Eugene V. Debs

kiWikkid

i'm afraid i skim read this thread a bit, but my feeling is i'm with user on this. Notice my transcendant use of small i's.
i've always thought of Ego as selfawareness, our perception of "us" in terms of space and time. Merely an evolutionary brain function that developes in children at around the age of two, allowing us to understand causality, so that we can interact with other "egos". i've never connected it to spirituality, a word i find even harder to define, let alone conclusively acknowledge. in my uneducated opinion, transcendence can be achieved by drug taking, various physical activies such as breathing or TM, or perhaps something a little bit more severe like a lobotomy, anything that might directly affect the cerebral area. But something spiritual?...i'm hedging my bets.

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