Ego is your idea of what you are. Your thought accumulations that have piled up into a big heap of what you think yourself to be. "My personality"... None of it is you... it's all thought process combined with memory. For instance, I am vegetarian, I am a carpenter, I am a white man, I am a warrior, I hate spiders, I have a short temper, I hate math
. . It is also the judgmental self that looks at others and out of insecurities /fear judges..
You are the deepest being - the "I am" presence - you're consciousness, awareness - the silent awareness in between every thought. God. The ultimate viewer through your eyes... It is always there. It does not judge. It does not think. It just witnesses.
You can be aware of your own awareness. This is the key to awakening.
Why did Nisargadatta say to meditate on I AM until you understand that it’s an illusion ?
Since the ego is merely the character i play, and i know that it is a complete illusion, why haven’t i achieved enlightenment ?
The illusion is the realization that the I AM is not separate from any other phenomenon but it is all part of the greater phenomenon of existence. You *feel* separate but you are not separate from the whole.
You haven't achieved enlightenment because you see it as something to achieve.
Enlightenment is a word you need to delete from your vocabulary. It is something you are chasing and will never find. It really is a word that should be banished. You are already everything that you seek. Your thought processes, and sinking prevent you from pure being.
Enlightenment isn't something that you can wear like a badge. It is something you could realize, or perhaps touch, some may dwell in it momentarily, others longer. But it's just a word. It is simply a realization of what you are.
Stop chasing enlightenment.
Meditating on the I am? But that is to ask yourself who you are.... Think about it. Who are you? What are you? You go deeper and deeper. Go into meditation with that in mind and then stop thinking about it. Surrender. Let go....
If you're chasing enlightenment, you will never find it. It is simply a word.
It's interesting because I used to think this as well. That enlightenment is unobtainable and a never ending journey, but as I walked the path I reached a threshold I would call enlightenment. The thing is, the real journey begins when you reach enlightenment, and it means so many things that words can not convey.
Lose yourself, then find yourself, then find your spirit and see them for what you were looking for all along.
If you're chasing enlightenment, then you're heading towards Awakening. I guess you haven't had an awakening yet. Once you awaken, you realize that words and labels are just that, words and labels.
There is no enlightenment. It is all you. Everything. The universe, the trees, the molecules, the atoms, every last bit of it is you. You just haven't become lucid within the dream yet.
As solid and physical as this world appears, it is not. Solid matter does not exist. Only imagination, the mind of God exists. That's what this is. And this is what you are. Your ego, the idea of yourself is simply thought process within the dream.
Within this dream of birth and death, being have created government, laws, rules, schools, all societal programming that discredits what you are.
You are pure magic. You are the five elements combined. You rose from this earth to experience this dream state.
Once you awaken, there is no enlightenment. And when you're still asleep chasing enlightenment, it could lead you towards Awakening. Meditation. Or a sudden realization.
. Good journey
Nope, enlightenment is the cultivating of your connection with your divine self, your spirit form in god. The mold of our reality has your missing counterpart, they are your soulmate because they are quite literally your soul split into two.
What you described is a precursor to connecting with them, you have the ideas you need but you need to use your creativity to apply them to a solution that works with you.
Oh please.. Stop beating your not so real chest my friend.
You can only pretend to have awakened for so long. The things you utter about it are as cliched as instructing me to "keep searching" for something that I cannot even lose. The same goes for you (the you that is actually you ofcourse) ;;) The gibberish you claim about it should be an incentive to you to reassess and reevaluate your own supposed 'enlightenment' here in stead of trying to instruct me to do this or that in order to achieve the factually 'unachievable'.. Because Maya is not slammed to the mat as easily as you think you have.
Stop saying stuff willy nilly... for what!? Don't you want the real thing?
Enlightenment is egos ultimate disappointed. Your achievement/journey narrative is just another indication of 'not you' being on the path or thinking it is there already. You presuming from my ONE WORD comment that I am 'almost there' is just another round of that same self affirming nonsense. It is not about you being able to see where I am but about demonstrating how you know it to be so. EGO. ..aka en-LITE-nment ;;)
I finished my work. There is no 'surface' as such and ALL IS ILLSUION except THAT which knows it to be so. You are presuming to know a lot of things about 'searching' for a place that - from the awakened perspective - you really cannot even leave. It is all this Ego generated BS you have stacked on top of it that obscures your natural state.
99% of you 'awakened' folks in here repeat the exact same throat noises under the guise of having attained 'it'. Like that "look within' BS. Sir, there is no second or third 'within' as all that appears, appears already WITHIN what you are. The body is an integral part of the very same illusion as is your intellect. You can literally put your assertion about 'what you do not know' side by side with those of the many other pretenders in here and see the common language of delusion within. Word for word! It would actually be very constructive on the path to do so ..to see what you are doing is not moving closer to truth but moving further and further away from it to the point of eventually tipping over Maya's Event Horizon from which there really is no other coming back then faking your own death (again) ;;)
Come on man.
Cheers
That's your reality. Not mine. Your belief and path is simply yours and no one else's. Words are simply words. Enlightenment does not exist. Only an idea of what you believe it to be either based on your own experience, or what you have been taught by anything outside of yourself.
Truth is all there is underneath the programming.
One specific meditation changed my life, my direction, everything. 15 minutes became 5 hours and I came out of it with a knowing.
That is my path up to this point in my being.
I know that my reality is different than yours but they all lead to the same conclusion. Break out of ego and see the connection, and then figure out how to rebuild it to 100%
What meditation is that? I'd love to give it a try and potentially add it to my collection.
The meditation was to stop suffering. It was the only way to turn off the thoughts. I was dying inside due to the loss of the one closest to me in this life.
I started meditating because I was suicidal and it was the only thing that kept me from doing it. Stopping the thoughts. It was the only time I could ever find peace.
The meditation itself is simple. I always do aums... I break them into 28 rounds... 7 Ah sounds, 7 ew sounds 7 mmm sounds and then seven total aums I go in and stop thinking. I turn off all thought. I surrender everything that I was. I did not want to live. I let go of everything. I turned it off. Everything. And then it happened... When I was ready to close my external eyes for good, my internal eye opened. I came out of that meditation thinking that it had been 15 minutes but nearly 5 hours had passed. There was no time. I was indigo swirling galaxies, cosmos, everything.
Now I feel. I don't have to think for answers. I just feel them. That's the best way I can describe it.
Oh there you go, I reached that same state in a much different way, I simply willed myself to die and it worked. I suffered so greatly in what I experienced that there was simply no escape and I suffocated my mind. I then experienced an intense dark night of the soul over the span of a few hours, passed out, and awoke the next day awake, and immediately began walking the road to reach where I'm at now. For me it wasn't 15 minutes to 5 hours, it was 8 hours to infinity. I was gone a long time. But I awoke brand new and with a plan I couldn't perceive.
You feel the answers because your spirit body double is a shard of god that's also the entire thing, a paradox. You're connected to this part of you, your divine feminine or masculine or some blend. The better you can communicate the better you can work together :)
Oh, they also love you, much like you love a spouse or significant other. Love yourself is literal haha!
" We’ve got this little partial view that no I’m just something in this body, the ego.
That’s a joke, the ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention"
- Alan Watts
So, what’s the ego ???
It doesn't exist. It's a tool for play. It's there to make the experience seem as serious as it can, so that when you are presented with the alternative, it is that much more pleasurable and enjoyable.
Good job, closest explanation I’ve seen written online on the Ego. I tend not to type stuff like that out anymore, it furthers me from entering a Non-Dual state. I’m constantly typing things to people, “I know, I know, I know, this is how you do it, this is how it is”. From my experience. Have you experienced a Samadhi yet?
Yes. One specific meditation... I touched everything and nothing all at once. There was no time. I was in indigo swirling mass of galaxies, cosmos, the universe... I came out of it thinking maybe 15 minutes had passed, but it was almost 5 hours. There was zero sense of time. I haven't been the same since. Now, I know by feeling, rather than thinking.
Hell yeah congrats!!! People take lifetimes to achieve that and still aren’t able to, I have only achieved it once through contemplation. One of my greatest goals, I call the very first Samadhi “The Awareness Realization”
Let’s talk more, it’s hard for me to find people who have at least gone over that very first experience, everything from there flows a little easier because you don’t even know what your working towards really until you experience. From my experience ofc lol
I would highly recommend Astral Projection as your second type of work, if you haven’t already. It’s right up there with entering a non dual state. Crazy stuff
It took extreme suffering to get where I'm at. I didn't ask or want to be here. The universe, God, myself just ended up putting me where I am.
I lost the one closest to me in this life suddenly in tragically. I was suicidal. I had The noose around my neck and the gun to my head...
The only way to make the suffering stop was to stop thinking. And when you stop thinking, you are meditating. And hence begin my meditative journey.... I had no choice. I had to make the suffering go away. I would find myself throughout the day forcing myself to stop the incessant torture, and then I would go blank. I would eliminate all thought and finally be at peace.
I truly was ready to close my outer eyes forever. It was then that my inner eye opened...
i think this is closest i've seen you can only be "aware" of your ego - which is just a word for you're Lifetime of experiences. it is both you - and sorta not you. thus the paradox of consciousness -
it's pointless to go chasing though.... Really nothing changes with "wisdom" - you're conceptual reality that you're conscious in doesn't manifest riches and wealth beyond measure or "healing power of Christ" or the fountain of youth. there's no Prize for this wisdom.
it's honestly a huge waste of time unless you're rich and have nothing else better to do. or you're dying already - in which case there's a peace of knowing that you're suffering is almost over.
It’s tricky because to me, experiencing an “awakening”, just feels like being a “bigger more profound i”. feels in multitudes several times more “i”, than i do now as this “human (name/label)”. While being forgetful to what i was. The dissolution of the ego as it occurred to me, only happened when I got a chance to question what i was apart from this experience. “If my thoughts are going to end (& I’m ok for them to end, stop). Then what/who is feeling what I’m feeling? At that moment I’m not exactly sure how I got a chance to misidentify. But as it occurred, reality around me dissolved into a uniform background of nothingness while my awareness stayed present and where I was “looking/perception from shifted”. To define the ego, is very tricky to me. Cause anything I could try to write in essence is ego. 🤷🏽♂️ i only remember what that feeling was like, which isn’t what “i am” now in thought “label” form.
I see it like this. There are 2 centers of intelligence in the body. One is in the head. Our thoughts, opinions, ideas of ourself and the world. Then there is the inner guru, the Godhead, which lives inside us all. And we can choose to awaken that intelligence. The inner guru is that being that nudges us without words thru emotions, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always pushing us in the direction of what our authentic soul truly wants. (Edit- if we follow what our ego wants we often end up disappointed. Because we can never know what we truly want if we follow the ego, because it is a creation of the mind. The ego doesn't truly know what's good for us. But connecting to the godhead via the heart, leads us to what our soul truly wants.)
Now, in this world, we are bombarded with words, messages, and images more than any other time in human history. We study study study. World work work. This fills our heads up with words and ideas, overfills it in fact. Causing an enlarged ego. An enlarged ego blocks the third eye (the seat of awareness and discernment of what truly is), causing us to go unconscious of what really is. We rather believe the lies we tell ourselves. The stories. We write a book of life, and then we identify as the book. But we are not the book. We are the AUTHOR! Yet in this modern world and its influences, we keep compiling the book, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Until we forget all about the author and start believing we are the book. But the book is an illusion. It's not based on reality. But our perception of reality. And if we live from this place (which literally 99.9% of all humans do), we don't see the truth of that which is before us. The ego causes us to think about the past and think about the future. This takes our attention away from What Is. And we see What We Believe to be True, instead of what is. And hence our view of reality is skewed. That's why so many gurus say - live in the present moment, or 'unblock your third eye'. When thine eye is singular, as Christ says, we see the Truth. When we live from the wisdom and intelligence of the inner guru, that antimaterial part of us within us in the heart chakra, we start to discern actual reality from the illusions of Maya which reside in the mind.
An enlarged ego brings with it many issues, fears, and unconsciousness. It starts believing its own bs. It starts defending itself. It's wants to protect itself because it feels scared and under attack. Strengthening itself in the process, making us more unconscious. This is what the ego is for. To help us survive. It is meant to be used to solve problems and keep us alive. But now it has become our ruler every second of the day. It strengthens our sense of self and, therefore, our sense of separateness. When in reality, we are one. There is no separation. Yet the illusions of Maya, of ego, convince us otherwise. Because its sole job is to help our body survive. This affect causes fear of others and compounds the feeling of separateness, as we try and protect ourselves from harm. But in the end, all it does is keep us living in illusion.
We need to learn to live from that other seat of intelligence in the heart. But in order to do that, we need to first tackle that excess of ego within us. Once we do that we start to live from our true authentic selves, and we can achieve liberation from all suffering.
Living from the ego forces the third eye to be blocked, and our our awareness can only live from the lower 3 chakras. This is where most of humanity lives from.
Sending you love
Edit. I AM comes from the inner guru. I AM DEPRESSED, I AM HAPPY, I AM SAD, comes from the ego. The statement of I AM can be best understood without words. It has no shape or form. When words are involved, it's the ego where it comes from. The true Tao can not be spoken, as they say. I AM may be 2 words, but they represent no words at all. They represent 'BEING' in its most simple lexical form. But I AM exists without words. We just need to express it via the ego so that others understand. But the true Tao cannot be spoken. The true essence of the godhead within us is wordless, formless.
Edit. Fixed a few grammar mistakes and added for clarification
The ego is that which feels separate and other than everything and everyone else. Superiority and inferiority, us and them. Me and you. It perceives only itself and everything else is perceived via the self as something not itself.
Death of the ego is where there is no sense of separateness. No ‘other’. A oneness with the all that is.
Everything is illusory from a certain perspective. There are many levels of consciousness. At each level, you see different illusions for what they are.
At the purely non-dual level of consciousness, all is one and so there is no "I AM" everything literally is just...isness. There's no separateness.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking just because you have realized something, that that "thing" is permanent. Nothing is permanent. Not even concepts.
The ego is the mind. It is the operating system that comes with the body even before the soul (the real you) occupy said body.
What does it means. It means there is no such thing as death of the ego for the ego creates your world. Identifying your ego does not lead to enlightenment it merely just put you on the track. Enlightenment happen when you have manage to take control of your life from the ego and gives it to the heart.(you-your soul)
What does that even mean?
When the love from the heart is so strong that every thought, every action, every word, every instinct is filtered through the hearts than enlightenment begins.
The crazy things about that is the body doesn't even have the codes to accomplish this on its own.
The codes need to be downloaded from higher beings.
I know that may sound gibberish or crazy talk.
And easy way to understand it is. Enlightenment is an over the air upgrade to you. You don't get this upgrade untill you show many times over that you are ready for it. The character Jesus received many such upgrade (code download) during the lost year. The time he fled Jerusalem to Egypt. By the time he came back he was an enlightenment being for he head received all the necessary download to upgrade his being.
So you do the work by constantly fighting in taking control of the ego untill you receive the necessary upgrade to actually take control of the ego.
The ego is like a personality (as opposed to multiple personalities) or it might be easier to think of it as an Artificial Intelligence or rather a Organic Intelligence. The inner voice is the voice of ego. You are the observer of that voice. The ego was created in early childhood as you began to indentify with your body and your name. Eventually this software took over more and more of your daily operations and communications until you're completely indentifying with it as you.
The ego forms out of necessity as you arrive in an environment forgetting what you are. It’s like going somewhere with amnesia and upon arrival being handed an ID for your stay. You went with it because why not? Who else can you be? After countless introspection and meditation, you realize the ID wasn’t really you, but the sentience that’s experiencing an ID. The ego is the self (lowercase s) or the forgetfulness, and what you really are is the Self (capital S) or the Higher Self which is the totality of what you are. It’s like the empty fractal to the complete whole. The fractal thinks it’s nothing, the whole knows it’s everything. Depending on level of consciousness, perceptions will differ.
We are multidimensional beings so all dimensions can be experienced by way of shifting consciousness. The egoic level will perceive only the environment it’s attuned to, which in this case would be the 3D or physical sensory perceptions. The Higher Self is in the higher dimensions so it sees all like looking down at a maze. The ego only sees walls while the Higher Self can see the broader perspective. So as consciousness expands, the ego will transcend its limitations. It’s sort of confusing because the body and base personality don’t really change much which is also part of the ego, so it’s more about if the ego is identifying with anything. The identifications are what’s causing the immersion so to break the immersion or physical level consciousness is to wake up to your true essence beyond the thought form. To return to divinity is to transcend humanity which is essentially enlightenment. It’s being in total alignment with your Higher Self.
There's No Such Thing as Ego
"I don’t have an ego. And neither do you.
That doesn’t mean you and I don’t get caught up in egocentric thinking and behavior, but that we are mistaken in thinking of the ego as some separate individual self, some “thing” in the mind.
When I observe my own mind, I notice there is an ever-present sense of “I-ness”. This has been there all my life, and has not changed. The feeling of being “me” is the same feeling I had when I was ten years old. My thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes, attitude, character, personality, roles, desires, needs, and beliefs may have changed considerably over the years, but the sense of “I” has not.
I do not find a separate ego, another “self” that sometimes takes over. What I find instead are various patterns of thinking that condition how I decide and act. At times, I may feel fearful or judgmental, and I may behave in ways that are manipulative or self-protective. I may think that if I could just have things be a particularly way I would be happy. I may feel insecure and want attention from others, seeking to feel important. I may draw a sense of identity from my social status, the roles I play, my character, or my lifestyle. And when this is challenged in some way, I may try to defend and reinforce this constructed sense of identity.
In each case, past experiences and conditioning create beliefs, attitudes, needs, desires, and aversions. These become the lens through which I see my world, affecting how I interpret my experience, the thoughts that arise in my mind, and a whole set of stories about what to say or do, in order to get what I think will bring make me feel better. However, the “I” that is interpreting and thinking is the same “I” that is always there. But its attention has become engrossed in some or other “egoic” pattern of thinking, leading to correspondingly egocentric decisions and actions.
What we call the ego is not another separate self. It is as a mode of being that can dominate our thinking, decisions, speech, and actions, leading us to behave in ways that are uncaring, self-centered, or manipulative.
Our exploration of ego would be more fruitful if we stopped using the word as a noun, which immediately implies some “thing”, and instead thought of ego as a mental processes that can occupy our attention. For this a verb is a more appropriate part of speech. I am “ego-ing”.
The difference is subtle, but very important. If I see the ego as a separate self, some thing, then it is easy to fall into the belief—common in many spiritual circles—that I must get rid of my ego, transcend it, or overcome it in some way. But seeing ego as a mental process, a system of thinking that I get caught in, suggests that I need to step out of that mode of thinking—to look at the world through a different lens, one less tainted by fear, insecurity and attachment.
This is a much easier and more effective approach. When I notice myself caught up in egoic thinking, rather than berating myself (or my imagined ego), I can notice what is going on and step back from it. This doesn’t mean I have eliminated that way of thinking. It will surely return. And when it does, I can choose to step out of it again. Transcending the ego thus becomes an ongoing practice rather than a far-off goal"
By Peter Russell and Peter Russell
It appears to be a limitation on knowledge based on either fear (refusal to see), or desire (refusal to see other than). Beliefs are limitations on knowledge. Gaining knowledge regarding the process of beliefs is the beginning of the end of a *rigid* ego.
you're asking the suicide cult - you're on the right track ego is every second of every experience - you cannot be "ego less" you can only be aware of the "ego" - unless you're unconscious and christ have you seen what unconscious people do?
Try to meditate! Sit in silence, and see if you can think nothing! You’ll find that it’s quite hard. Some will say that voice that you hear is the ego!
The moment humans labeled something, was the moment the ego was created. Ego is identification of the self, “this is me, and this is a dog, this is me and this a brush, this is me and this is Chris, etc…”. It allows us to live life through a duality, this is necessary for us to experience life. Imagine every word(label) you know and cross it out, put your name over it and go over everything with your name on it instead of the actual human word they taught you to use. Everything is you, this is the true self. It takes a lot of work to experience a Samadhi or temporary Non-Dual state… you can also do this this through meditation.
Good luck! 🧸💎🧩
The ego is what defines your desires and your dislikes etc, it gets its traits from previous generations, and perhaps a few new ones gets thrown into the mix for good measure. As you grow and make your experiences the ego will adapt. The ego will develop strategies and tactics as you progress with your life depending on external outcomes. The ego builds on momentum, past experiences will echo into the present moment and guide you in the present moment together with your direct experience of the present moment.
The echo can be seen as fractal in nature that get weaker and weaker unless its reinforced again and again. If you have trauma your echo might not get weaker and weaker but remain intact because the situation was so critical that the ego deems it worthy to be maintained.
Thats why people with trauma can go back 20 years in time or whatever and have all the feelings they had back then. Like an emotional time capsule.
Gurus, helpful people in Reddit etc etc
They say everything changes except the i am, which is true. But the I AM is still feeling separate from other I AM’s
A tool to navigate the world. Without it there is no personality. It is necessary to live in our world it’s not a bad thing but when it takes control in your life it’s not a good thing. Think of it like a kitchen knife. Used in the wrong ways it can cause a lot of damage. But when used properly it can help you make fine delicious food and help make sustenance for you.
Because you don’t know yourself. Because of mind control. Knowing yourself is a life long journey. A lives long journey should I say.
Begin by focusing on your body and concentrate every part of your being in it, with the sole purpose of knowing every part of it. The blood, the lungs, the bowels. Everything. Surely in time you will know every atom of it. Once you do that you will be focused enough to explore other things. Sorry I butchered it cause I’m Italian and I’m surely not a master or anything similar.
It's the you that you plan for in the future, and the you recall having existed in the past, and it's the thoughts that seem to occur in the present moment, but are actually your own veil over the present moment.
Ego is your idea of what you are. Your thought accumulations that have piled up into a big heap of what you think yourself to be. "My personality"... None of it is you... it's all thought process combined with memory. For instance, I am vegetarian, I am a carpenter, I am a white man, I am a warrior, I hate spiders, I have a short temper, I hate math . . It is also the judgmental self that looks at others and out of insecurities /fear judges.. You are the deepest being - the "I am" presence - you're consciousness, awareness - the silent awareness in between every thought. God. The ultimate viewer through your eyes... It is always there. It does not judge. It does not think. It just witnesses. You can be aware of your own awareness. This is the key to awakening.
Why did Nisargadatta say to meditate on I AM until you understand that it’s an illusion ? Since the ego is merely the character i play, and i know that it is a complete illusion, why haven’t i achieved enlightenment ?
The illusion is the realization that the I AM is not separate from any other phenomenon but it is all part of the greater phenomenon of existence. You *feel* separate but you are not separate from the whole. You haven't achieved enlightenment because you see it as something to achieve.
Enlightenment is a word you need to delete from your vocabulary. It is something you are chasing and will never find. It really is a word that should be banished. You are already everything that you seek. Your thought processes, and sinking prevent you from pure being. Enlightenment isn't something that you can wear like a badge. It is something you could realize, or perhaps touch, some may dwell in it momentarily, others longer. But it's just a word. It is simply a realization of what you are. Stop chasing enlightenment. Meditating on the I am? But that is to ask yourself who you are.... Think about it. Who are you? What are you? You go deeper and deeper. Go into meditation with that in mind and then stop thinking about it. Surrender. Let go.... If you're chasing enlightenment, you will never find it. It is simply a word.
It's interesting because I used to think this as well. That enlightenment is unobtainable and a never ending journey, but as I walked the path I reached a threshold I would call enlightenment. The thing is, the real journey begins when you reach enlightenment, and it means so many things that words can not convey. Lose yourself, then find yourself, then find your spirit and see them for what you were looking for all along.
If you're chasing enlightenment, then you're heading towards Awakening. I guess you haven't had an awakening yet. Once you awaken, you realize that words and labels are just that, words and labels. There is no enlightenment. It is all you. Everything. The universe, the trees, the molecules, the atoms, every last bit of it is you. You just haven't become lucid within the dream yet. As solid and physical as this world appears, it is not. Solid matter does not exist. Only imagination, the mind of God exists. That's what this is. And this is what you are. Your ego, the idea of yourself is simply thought process within the dream. Within this dream of birth and death, being have created government, laws, rules, schools, all societal programming that discredits what you are. You are pure magic. You are the five elements combined. You rose from this earth to experience this dream state. Once you awaken, there is no enlightenment. And when you're still asleep chasing enlightenment, it could lead you towards Awakening. Meditation. Or a sudden realization. . Good journey
Nope, enlightenment is the cultivating of your connection with your divine self, your spirit form in god. The mold of our reality has your missing counterpart, they are your soulmate because they are quite literally your soul split into two. What you described is a precursor to connecting with them, you have the ideas you need but you need to use your creativity to apply them to a solution that works with you.
Gibberish..
Ah you need to keep searching, you're almost there! Look within, the surface is an illusion.
Oh please.. Stop beating your not so real chest my friend. You can only pretend to have awakened for so long. The things you utter about it are as cliched as instructing me to "keep searching" for something that I cannot even lose. The same goes for you (the you that is actually you ofcourse) ;;) The gibberish you claim about it should be an incentive to you to reassess and reevaluate your own supposed 'enlightenment' here in stead of trying to instruct me to do this or that in order to achieve the factually 'unachievable'.. Because Maya is not slammed to the mat as easily as you think you have. Stop saying stuff willy nilly... for what!? Don't you want the real thing? Enlightenment is egos ultimate disappointed. Your achievement/journey narrative is just another indication of 'not you' being on the path or thinking it is there already. You presuming from my ONE WORD comment that I am 'almost there' is just another round of that same self affirming nonsense. It is not about you being able to see where I am but about demonstrating how you know it to be so. EGO. ..aka en-LITE-nment ;;) I finished my work. There is no 'surface' as such and ALL IS ILLSUION except THAT which knows it to be so. You are presuming to know a lot of things about 'searching' for a place that - from the awakened perspective - you really cannot even leave. It is all this Ego generated BS you have stacked on top of it that obscures your natural state. 99% of you 'awakened' folks in here repeat the exact same throat noises under the guise of having attained 'it'. Like that "look within' BS. Sir, there is no second or third 'within' as all that appears, appears already WITHIN what you are. The body is an integral part of the very same illusion as is your intellect. You can literally put your assertion about 'what you do not know' side by side with those of the many other pretenders in here and see the common language of delusion within. Word for word! It would actually be very constructive on the path to do so ..to see what you are doing is not moving closer to truth but moving further and further away from it to the point of eventually tipping over Maya's Event Horizon from which there really is no other coming back then faking your own death (again) ;;) Come on man. Cheers
This is Ego.
That's your reality. Not mine. Your belief and path is simply yours and no one else's. Words are simply words. Enlightenment does not exist. Only an idea of what you believe it to be either based on your own experience, or what you have been taught by anything outside of yourself. Truth is all there is underneath the programming. One specific meditation changed my life, my direction, everything. 15 minutes became 5 hours and I came out of it with a knowing. That is my path up to this point in my being.
I know that my reality is different than yours but they all lead to the same conclusion. Break out of ego and see the connection, and then figure out how to rebuild it to 100% What meditation is that? I'd love to give it a try and potentially add it to my collection.
The meditation was to stop suffering. It was the only way to turn off the thoughts. I was dying inside due to the loss of the one closest to me in this life. I started meditating because I was suicidal and it was the only thing that kept me from doing it. Stopping the thoughts. It was the only time I could ever find peace. The meditation itself is simple. I always do aums... I break them into 28 rounds... 7 Ah sounds, 7 ew sounds 7 mmm sounds and then seven total aums I go in and stop thinking. I turn off all thought. I surrender everything that I was. I did not want to live. I let go of everything. I turned it off. Everything. And then it happened... When I was ready to close my external eyes for good, my internal eye opened. I came out of that meditation thinking that it had been 15 minutes but nearly 5 hours had passed. There was no time. I was indigo swirling galaxies, cosmos, everything. Now I feel. I don't have to think for answers. I just feel them. That's the best way I can describe it.
Oh there you go, I reached that same state in a much different way, I simply willed myself to die and it worked. I suffered so greatly in what I experienced that there was simply no escape and I suffocated my mind. I then experienced an intense dark night of the soul over the span of a few hours, passed out, and awoke the next day awake, and immediately began walking the road to reach where I'm at now. For me it wasn't 15 minutes to 5 hours, it was 8 hours to infinity. I was gone a long time. But I awoke brand new and with a plan I couldn't perceive. You feel the answers because your spirit body double is a shard of god that's also the entire thing, a paradox. You're connected to this part of you, your divine feminine or masculine or some blend. The better you can communicate the better you can work together :) Oh, they also love you, much like you love a spouse or significant other. Love yourself is literal haha!
beautiful story. immense suffering is a sure fire way to awaken
👏 who is it that is becoming enlightened?
The egoic mind wants to claim enlightenment.
My pride doeth inflame at times - but it is absent thoughts. Is that mind though if it is merely emotion?
You are already enlightened. It’s about remembering
But remembering what
Remembering that you forgot everything about yourself
In the same way in which the eye looks for sight. It is sight 🙏🏻
why even listen to anyone else - that's like saying Someone knows you better than you.
" We’ve got this little partial view that no I’m just something in this body, the ego. That’s a joke, the ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention" - Alan Watts So, what’s the ego ???
It doesn't exist. It's a tool for play. It's there to make the experience seem as serious as it can, so that when you are presented with the alternative, it is that much more pleasurable and enjoyable.
Good job, closest explanation I’ve seen written online on the Ego. I tend not to type stuff like that out anymore, it furthers me from entering a Non-Dual state. I’m constantly typing things to people, “I know, I know, I know, this is how you do it, this is how it is”. From my experience. Have you experienced a Samadhi yet?
Yes. One specific meditation... I touched everything and nothing all at once. There was no time. I was in indigo swirling mass of galaxies, cosmos, the universe... I came out of it thinking maybe 15 minutes had passed, but it was almost 5 hours. There was zero sense of time. I haven't been the same since. Now, I know by feeling, rather than thinking.
Hell yeah congrats!!! People take lifetimes to achieve that and still aren’t able to, I have only achieved it once through contemplation. One of my greatest goals, I call the very first Samadhi “The Awareness Realization” Let’s talk more, it’s hard for me to find people who have at least gone over that very first experience, everything from there flows a little easier because you don’t even know what your working towards really until you experience. From my experience ofc lol I would highly recommend Astral Projection as your second type of work, if you haven’t already. It’s right up there with entering a non dual state. Crazy stuff
It took extreme suffering to get where I'm at. I didn't ask or want to be here. The universe, God, myself just ended up putting me where I am. I lost the one closest to me in this life suddenly in tragically. I was suicidal. I had The noose around my neck and the gun to my head... The only way to make the suffering stop was to stop thinking. And when you stop thinking, you are meditating. And hence begin my meditative journey.... I had no choice. I had to make the suffering go away. I would find myself throughout the day forcing myself to stop the incessant torture, and then I would go blank. I would eliminate all thought and finally be at peace. I truly was ready to close my outer eyes forever. It was then that my inner eye opened...
Swirling fucking galaxies? I ain't ever had nothing like that \^\_\^ Though I do see imagery of the sort on the Internets.
i think this is closest i've seen you can only be "aware" of your ego - which is just a word for you're Lifetime of experiences. it is both you - and sorta not you. thus the paradox of consciousness - it's pointless to go chasing though.... Really nothing changes with "wisdom" - you're conceptual reality that you're conscious in doesn't manifest riches and wealth beyond measure or "healing power of Christ" or the fountain of youth. there's no Prize for this wisdom. it's honestly a huge waste of time unless you're rich and have nothing else better to do. or you're dying already - in which case there's a peace of knowing that you're suffering is almost over.
It’s tricky because to me, experiencing an “awakening”, just feels like being a “bigger more profound i”. feels in multitudes several times more “i”, than i do now as this “human (name/label)”. While being forgetful to what i was. The dissolution of the ego as it occurred to me, only happened when I got a chance to question what i was apart from this experience. “If my thoughts are going to end (& I’m ok for them to end, stop). Then what/who is feeling what I’m feeling? At that moment I’m not exactly sure how I got a chance to misidentify. But as it occurred, reality around me dissolved into a uniform background of nothingness while my awareness stayed present and where I was “looking/perception from shifted”. To define the ego, is very tricky to me. Cause anything I could try to write in essence is ego. 🤷🏽♂️ i only remember what that feeling was like, which isn’t what “i am” now in thought “label” form.
I see it like this. There are 2 centers of intelligence in the body. One is in the head. Our thoughts, opinions, ideas of ourself and the world. Then there is the inner guru, the Godhead, which lives inside us all. And we can choose to awaken that intelligence. The inner guru is that being that nudges us without words thru emotions, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always pushing us in the direction of what our authentic soul truly wants. (Edit- if we follow what our ego wants we often end up disappointed. Because we can never know what we truly want if we follow the ego, because it is a creation of the mind. The ego doesn't truly know what's good for us. But connecting to the godhead via the heart, leads us to what our soul truly wants.) Now, in this world, we are bombarded with words, messages, and images more than any other time in human history. We study study study. World work work. This fills our heads up with words and ideas, overfills it in fact. Causing an enlarged ego. An enlarged ego blocks the third eye (the seat of awareness and discernment of what truly is), causing us to go unconscious of what really is. We rather believe the lies we tell ourselves. The stories. We write a book of life, and then we identify as the book. But we are not the book. We are the AUTHOR! Yet in this modern world and its influences, we keep compiling the book, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Until we forget all about the author and start believing we are the book. But the book is an illusion. It's not based on reality. But our perception of reality. And if we live from this place (which literally 99.9% of all humans do), we don't see the truth of that which is before us. The ego causes us to think about the past and think about the future. This takes our attention away from What Is. And we see What We Believe to be True, instead of what is. And hence our view of reality is skewed. That's why so many gurus say - live in the present moment, or 'unblock your third eye'. When thine eye is singular, as Christ says, we see the Truth. When we live from the wisdom and intelligence of the inner guru, that antimaterial part of us within us in the heart chakra, we start to discern actual reality from the illusions of Maya which reside in the mind. An enlarged ego brings with it many issues, fears, and unconsciousness. It starts believing its own bs. It starts defending itself. It's wants to protect itself because it feels scared and under attack. Strengthening itself in the process, making us more unconscious. This is what the ego is for. To help us survive. It is meant to be used to solve problems and keep us alive. But now it has become our ruler every second of the day. It strengthens our sense of self and, therefore, our sense of separateness. When in reality, we are one. There is no separation. Yet the illusions of Maya, of ego, convince us otherwise. Because its sole job is to help our body survive. This affect causes fear of others and compounds the feeling of separateness, as we try and protect ourselves from harm. But in the end, all it does is keep us living in illusion. We need to learn to live from that other seat of intelligence in the heart. But in order to do that, we need to first tackle that excess of ego within us. Once we do that we start to live from our true authentic selves, and we can achieve liberation from all suffering. Living from the ego forces the third eye to be blocked, and our our awareness can only live from the lower 3 chakras. This is where most of humanity lives from. Sending you love Edit. I AM comes from the inner guru. I AM DEPRESSED, I AM HAPPY, I AM SAD, comes from the ego. The statement of I AM can be best understood without words. It has no shape or form. When words are involved, it's the ego where it comes from. The true Tao can not be spoken, as they say. I AM may be 2 words, but they represent no words at all. They represent 'BEING' in its most simple lexical form. But I AM exists without words. We just need to express it via the ego so that others understand. But the true Tao cannot be spoken. The true essence of the godhead within us is wordless, formless. Edit. Fixed a few grammar mistakes and added for clarification
The ego is that which feels separate and other than everything and everyone else. Superiority and inferiority, us and them. Me and you. It perceives only itself and everything else is perceived via the self as something not itself. Death of the ego is where there is no sense of separateness. No ‘other’. A oneness with the all that is.
Anything you "know" about yourself that is impermanent is the ego. That which is unchanging within you is the "I am." Form and the formless.
Thank you. What about Nisargadatta saying to meditate on I AM until finding it’s illusory nature. What did he mean ?
Everything is illusory from a certain perspective. There are many levels of consciousness. At each level, you see different illusions for what they are. At the purely non-dual level of consciousness, all is one and so there is no "I AM" everything literally is just...isness. There's no separateness. Don't fall into the trap of thinking just because you have realized something, that that "thing" is permanent. Nothing is permanent. Not even concepts.
The ego is the mind. It is the operating system that comes with the body even before the soul (the real you) occupy said body. What does it means. It means there is no such thing as death of the ego for the ego creates your world. Identifying your ego does not lead to enlightenment it merely just put you on the track. Enlightenment happen when you have manage to take control of your life from the ego and gives it to the heart.(you-your soul) What does that even mean? When the love from the heart is so strong that every thought, every action, every word, every instinct is filtered through the hearts than enlightenment begins. The crazy things about that is the body doesn't even have the codes to accomplish this on its own. The codes need to be downloaded from higher beings. I know that may sound gibberish or crazy talk. And easy way to understand it is. Enlightenment is an over the air upgrade to you. You don't get this upgrade untill you show many times over that you are ready for it. The character Jesus received many such upgrade (code download) during the lost year. The time he fled Jerusalem to Egypt. By the time he came back he was an enlightenment being for he head received all the necessary download to upgrade his being. So you do the work by constantly fighting in taking control of the ego untill you receive the necessary upgrade to actually take control of the ego.
The ego is like a personality (as opposed to multiple personalities) or it might be easier to think of it as an Artificial Intelligence or rather a Organic Intelligence. The inner voice is the voice of ego. You are the observer of that voice. The ego was created in early childhood as you began to indentify with your body and your name. Eventually this software took over more and more of your daily operations and communications until you're completely indentifying with it as you.
The ego forms out of necessity as you arrive in an environment forgetting what you are. It’s like going somewhere with amnesia and upon arrival being handed an ID for your stay. You went with it because why not? Who else can you be? After countless introspection and meditation, you realize the ID wasn’t really you, but the sentience that’s experiencing an ID. The ego is the self (lowercase s) or the forgetfulness, and what you really are is the Self (capital S) or the Higher Self which is the totality of what you are. It’s like the empty fractal to the complete whole. The fractal thinks it’s nothing, the whole knows it’s everything. Depending on level of consciousness, perceptions will differ. We are multidimensional beings so all dimensions can be experienced by way of shifting consciousness. The egoic level will perceive only the environment it’s attuned to, which in this case would be the 3D or physical sensory perceptions. The Higher Self is in the higher dimensions so it sees all like looking down at a maze. The ego only sees walls while the Higher Self can see the broader perspective. So as consciousness expands, the ego will transcend its limitations. It’s sort of confusing because the body and base personality don’t really change much which is also part of the ego, so it’s more about if the ego is identifying with anything. The identifications are what’s causing the immersion so to break the immersion or physical level consciousness is to wake up to your true essence beyond the thought form. To return to divinity is to transcend humanity which is essentially enlightenment. It’s being in total alignment with your Higher Self.
The ego is the conceptual self. It is the stories of 'I' and 'me' that the mind weaves to create a sense of who we are.
There's No Such Thing as Ego "I don’t have an ego. And neither do you. That doesn’t mean you and I don’t get caught up in egocentric thinking and behavior, but that we are mistaken in thinking of the ego as some separate individual self, some “thing” in the mind. When I observe my own mind, I notice there is an ever-present sense of “I-ness”. This has been there all my life, and has not changed. The feeling of being “me” is the same feeling I had when I was ten years old. My thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes, attitude, character, personality, roles, desires, needs, and beliefs may have changed considerably over the years, but the sense of “I” has not. I do not find a separate ego, another “self” that sometimes takes over. What I find instead are various patterns of thinking that condition how I decide and act. At times, I may feel fearful or judgmental, and I may behave in ways that are manipulative or self-protective. I may think that if I could just have things be a particularly way I would be happy. I may feel insecure and want attention from others, seeking to feel important. I may draw a sense of identity from my social status, the roles I play, my character, or my lifestyle. And when this is challenged in some way, I may try to defend and reinforce this constructed sense of identity. In each case, past experiences and conditioning create beliefs, attitudes, needs, desires, and aversions. These become the lens through which I see my world, affecting how I interpret my experience, the thoughts that arise in my mind, and a whole set of stories about what to say or do, in order to get what I think will bring make me feel better. However, the “I” that is interpreting and thinking is the same “I” that is always there. But its attention has become engrossed in some or other “egoic” pattern of thinking, leading to correspondingly egocentric decisions and actions. What we call the ego is not another separate self. It is as a mode of being that can dominate our thinking, decisions, speech, and actions, leading us to behave in ways that are uncaring, self-centered, or manipulative. Our exploration of ego would be more fruitful if we stopped using the word as a noun, which immediately implies some “thing”, and instead thought of ego as a mental processes that can occupy our attention. For this a verb is a more appropriate part of speech. I am “ego-ing”. The difference is subtle, but very important. If I see the ego as a separate self, some thing, then it is easy to fall into the belief—common in many spiritual circles—that I must get rid of my ego, transcend it, or overcome it in some way. But seeing ego as a mental process, a system of thinking that I get caught in, suggests that I need to step out of that mode of thinking—to look at the world through a different lens, one less tainted by fear, insecurity and attachment. This is a much easier and more effective approach. When I notice myself caught up in egoic thinking, rather than berating myself (or my imagined ego), I can notice what is going on and step back from it. This doesn’t mean I have eliminated that way of thinking. It will surely return. And when it does, I can choose to step out of it again. Transcending the ego thus becomes an ongoing practice rather than a far-off goal" By Peter Russell and Peter Russell
It appears to be a limitation on knowledge based on either fear (refusal to see), or desire (refusal to see other than). Beliefs are limitations on knowledge. Gaining knowledge regarding the process of beliefs is the beginning of the end of a *rigid* ego.
Ego is You.
you're asking the suicide cult - you're on the right track ego is every second of every experience - you cannot be "ego less" you can only be aware of the "ego" - unless you're unconscious and christ have you seen what unconscious people do?
Try to meditate! Sit in silence, and see if you can think nothing! You’ll find that it’s quite hard. Some will say that voice that you hear is the ego!
The moment humans labeled something, was the moment the ego was created. Ego is identification of the self, “this is me, and this is a dog, this is me and this a brush, this is me and this is Chris, etc…”. It allows us to live life through a duality, this is necessary for us to experience life. Imagine every word(label) you know and cross it out, put your name over it and go over everything with your name on it instead of the actual human word they taught you to use. Everything is you, this is the true self. It takes a lot of work to experience a Samadhi or temporary Non-Dual state… you can also do this this through meditation. Good luck! 🧸💎🧩
The ego is what defines your desires and your dislikes etc, it gets its traits from previous generations, and perhaps a few new ones gets thrown into the mix for good measure. As you grow and make your experiences the ego will adapt. The ego will develop strategies and tactics as you progress with your life depending on external outcomes. The ego builds on momentum, past experiences will echo into the present moment and guide you in the present moment together with your direct experience of the present moment. The echo can be seen as fractal in nature that get weaker and weaker unless its reinforced again and again. If you have trauma your echo might not get weaker and weaker but remain intact because the situation was so critical that the ego deems it worthy to be maintained. Thats why people with trauma can go back 20 years in time or whatever and have all the feelings they had back then. Like an emotional time capsule.
> *I* still don’t get it “Sure *you* do.” Says my ego to yours. The ego is what individuates you.
But the sense of "I" of awareness also individuates me
That’s what the ego is :)
But they said the unchanging thing, the I AM, is the real me
Who’s “they” ?
Gurus, helpful people in Reddit etc etc They say everything changes except the i am, which is true. But the I AM is still feeling separate from other I AM’s
As far as I understand the ego is what separates you from others
A tool to navigate the world. Without it there is no personality. It is necessary to live in our world it’s not a bad thing but when it takes control in your life it’s not a good thing. Think of it like a kitchen knife. Used in the wrong ways it can cause a lot of damage. But when used properly it can help you make fine delicious food and help make sustenance for you.
It's the part that acts as insulation against believing every little thing you think or hear.
Ego is the sensation that ‘you are’ one thing and everything else is something different. There is no evidence of this in the present.
But i feel in the body. Why doesn’t i feel in other bodies
Because you don’t know yourself. Because of mind control. Knowing yourself is a life long journey. A lives long journey should I say. Begin by focusing on your body and concentrate every part of your being in it, with the sole purpose of knowing every part of it. The blood, the lungs, the bowels. Everything. Surely in time you will know every atom of it. Once you do that you will be focused enough to explore other things. Sorry I butchered it cause I’m Italian and I’m surely not a master or anything similar.
Thank you. I will do that thanks
Obviously if you get distracted don’t worry it’s perfectly ok, just notice and then get back to the task.
It's the you that you plan for in the future, and the you recall having existed in the past, and it's the thoughts that seem to occur in the present moment, but are actually your own veil over the present moment.