If the Ego seeks to preserve itself, how can it also seek to destroy itself?

[DreamBliss]

This questions comes after finding something I wrote not that long ago, inspired by Tolle's, "Power of Now", called, "Tar Pit." Essentially I had come to a number of realizations about my previous thoughts of suicide. I wrote this thing, never edited it, and forgot about it.

Recently I found myself appraoching the same sort of terrain I was in before I wrote this. That is to be expected, the time after Christmas has been dark for me in the past, and that is a thought pattern which has to be replaced with a new way of thinking as much as anything else. This year however has already been different, I am not down at all. I don't know that I can say I am happy or joyful. But I am not unhappy or joyless.

However if I were to continue to go deeper into this terrain, and appraoch the same sort of state I was in that I was writing about, then things could turn out quite differently. This year will be especially hard for me, as I approach 40, for reasons I do not care to go into. So if I were to allow myself to that particular place, mindset, way of thinking, then it is feasible I could do something that I have faced a few times before but never followed through with.

Please note I am nowhere near that state, so if you are concerned, I appreciate it, but there is nothing to fear or worry about.

In any case this brings me to my question... As I understand it the ego is concerned with self-preservation. The ego then, by nature, can not be suicidal. It can be self-destructive, but it can never seek to kill itself, as that would be against its nature.

Yet it is the ego that is responsible, I am certain, for forgetting I wrote this, that I realized these things. It is the ego that wants me to forget these things I have realized reading Tolle's book. If I was in the wrong mindset, if I did not find these words, the ego may then find itself destroying itself. If I were to kill myself, I would kill my ego. My death is its own destruction.

So why would my ego intefere with this? Why would it cause me to not remember what I wrote, the things I realized? How could I forget these important realizations? Remembering this is life, forgetting them is death. The ego seeks its own death in forgetting them. Because while I am not in that mindset right now, where I am is fragile and tenous at best. I can easily fall or slip down into that mindset, and this year, of all years, it could be fatal. Why would my ego risk that? Suicide is killing my self.

Just wanted to get some thoughts on this. If the ego is going to do stuff like this (of course I presume it is my ego and I could be wrong, but assuming it is and I am right) understanding it will help me deal with it. I want to get to know this thing that, at this present moment, seems to be in control of me.. Specifically how come it would cause me to forget something at the risk of destroying itself.

Whatever else this thread may be, it poses some interesting questions and ought to be an engaging conversation. Understanding that thing in us that we are trying to free oursleves from might make the task easier.

Edited January 5, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Personally I find that this term 'ego' leads to a lot of confusion and internal conflict. Because then there's 'real me' vs an 'ego', trying to shut it down.

 

In my view - there are a whole bunch of tendencies in the mind. Some skilful, some unskilful. The unskillful ones are supported by deep-seated ignorance and grasping. So instead of trying to destroy the ego, try to cultivate skilful qualities (ones which benefit yourself and others), find out what views lie under the unskilful ones, and question them. Gradually shift your habits at the root.

 

In effect it's the same thing, but it's a shift in perspective which you might find helpful.

[Daeluin]

In my opinion, when the body dies, the heavy and the light separate, and one is called into a new body when circumstances align with the old patterns that were left behind.

 

So in this sense, when one's body dies, one's ego is preserved. But without the human mind and it's memory of choices made, patterns formed.

 

The ego attaches to itself because it thinks it is the whole. But it has been separated from its whole. Perhaps reminding the ego it is incomplete will lead to its voluntary dissolution and (hopefully) re-unification with what is missing. But ego is actually nothing but a web of attachments and expectations, a means to an end that works little different from an artificial intelligence. The laws of cause and effect it attaches to as one judges which ways are best, are, in the beginning, novel and refreshing, but in the end are inescapable ruts.

 

Perhaps the ego seeks to destroy itself when its attachments no longer result in benefit, but all lead to pain. But in this case it probably wants to destroy not just its self, but its host too (since it believes it IS the host). But really killing the host will just yield more of the same next time around. To improve things the ego needs to let go, loosen up and start thinking in terms of how it may be of service to others instead of its "self."

[Marblehead]

Seeker of Wisdom presented an idea that I really haven't thought about but it should be one of those "Duh!" things.

 

What we call ego are our instincts for survival - self-preservation.

 

This thing we call "ego" serves us very well in that it prevents us from getting between that rock and a hard place too often.

 

Thing is though, if we don't understand this we can very easily turn it into something that will cause us a lot of problems. That is to say, we can consider our ego and call it a reflection of our self-worth. And then we go and inflate this valuation well beyond reality.

 

Again, I will always speak positively about the ego. But we must do a reality check now and again to make sure we do not build up false ego or that we do not undervalue ourself.

[Wells]

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Edited February 11, 2015 by ZOOM

[Yasjua]

Ego wants to get rid of suffering, not itself. But ego is partial cause, partial victim of suffering. When ego blames itself it tries to destroy itself. Ego blames others and tries to change the world. Ego really cares about suffering and happiness, not destruction. Solution is not to destroy ego, but to understand how ego is a conglomerate of biological, social, mental and cosmic forces. With real understanding ego will no longer identify as localized entity that is independently responsible. Ramesh Balsekar says God does everything. Suffering stops when ego recognizes that the whole moves the whole and the parts are only apparently independent. Ego gives responsibility up to God and no longer gets upset over pain and pleasure in the same way. That's my understanding.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Yasjua

[Marblehead]

That's my understanding.

Well, you went a little too deep for me but I "Like"d the post as it sounds as though you are satisfied with your understanding. And it is a fair understanding although not mine.

[DreamBliss]

 

So who is in charge of pulling the trigger when a person does suicide?

 

Exactly my question. It's starting to sound like the ego will use any means to preserve itself, including killing its host, as another poster put it.

 

But I don't know that I agree or like the idea of the rest of it, the whole light and heavy body thing. Smacks of karma as far as I am concerned. Why are so many religious types concerned with silly human notrions like justice and pusishment?

 

As far as I am concerned we can take whatever action we want in this physical life, and we only have to face the consequences while in the physical. It is irrelvant, what we have done, who we have been, outside the physical. Hitler is not roasting in hell, or choking on his own karma, as much as we would like to think he is. There are no eternal consequences for any temporal action.

 

I prefer to think of the afterlife is a sort of exit from the play we have been taking a part in. A stopping of the dance, using Alan Watts' description. What need have we for anything we left behind in the role we played? Outside of experiencing or learning whatever we came into the role to experience or learn.

 

I am a little confused about the whole body thing. Am I my body or not? Tolle seems to teach against the idea that I am not my body. So how would that work? If my body were, say, a physical manifestation of my energetic, real self, then it should simply dissolve or disapparate or something. But no, a corpse is left behind.

 

So if I am my body, when my body dies, I die. It would seem there is nothing left to leave the body and go eslwhere in some other form. But that doesn't seem logical, as there is an energy in the body, and energy can not die, only change form.

 

My thought is the ego dies with the host. It was part of the part I was playing. Like an actor really getting into characater. We're such good actors we forget we're acting and think we are our characters. All that gets left behind, somehow, in some way, when the physical form ceases to funtion.

Edited January 6, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Marblehead]

Body dies, brain dies, ego dies. I love my ego. I think I'll stick around as long as I can.

[Jetsun]

In the end the ego won't destroy itself, if it ever felt that you were close to its demise it will do all it can to distract you or convince you that you need it or rather that you are it, or that you need to do something urgent first, or that you aren't worthy, it will actively work against your growth and prevent your spiritual development. Which is why few people wake up or develop.

 

All you can do is with awareness recognise that this is happening, then if there is enough awareness you wont fall for its manipulation and tricks, you can even bring compassion to it as once it served your survival. Then ultimately you only move beyond it because the truth is that you aren't it, there is something eternally present even when the ego isn't there, but the ego will try to convince you that that isn't the truth and that you will die without it.

 

So if you keep going back to the truth of the eternal aspect of your being again and again then in the end the ego has to admit the truth and surrender its complete claim over your identity when it has no more cards to play, or some other influence may come in more powerful than the ego to push you over the cliff.

[DreamBliss]

Thank you all for your posts.

I have been listening to, "The Vortex", one of these Teachings of Abraham, and I think I understand something now.

I am both this physical body and some sort of energetic form that gives this physical body life. It may even have something to do with the meness of this physical form. The ego is, in essence, a sort of ghost in the machine.

If you have ever watched Jim Carey in, "The Mask" here is a humorous way of looking at it. We could think of Jim Carey's character, when he does not wear the mask, as our energetic aspect of ourselves. We could think of the mask, when Jim Carey's character wears it, as our physical aspect of ourselves. We could think of the ego as the god or whatever it was that inhabited the mask and took over Jim Carey's character.

So when we die we set the mask down, the physical body, and leave the stage. The ego dies with the physical body in this example. As well anything else related to the mask, the physical form, and that includes thought patterns, beliefs - everything we humans tend to fight and kill each other over.

So what do you think of that?

Edited January 6, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Marblehead]

So what do you think of that?

Hehehe. I think it's great. The mask is what we see in the mirror every morning. But it's only the container that we are looking at.

[FmAm]

Ego destroying itself isn't any more bizarre event than waves caused by wind. Thoughts and actions aren't disconnected from reality. The only difference is that waves don't know they are waves. We feel ourselves and we think we are the cause of our thoughts, feelings and actions. But we are not the cause. The cause is everywhere and nowhere, and this applies to both waves and thoughts.

Edited January 6, 2015 by FmAm

[Marblehead]

Yes, I "Like"d that. NO, I'm not converting to Buddhism. Hehehe.

[Nungali]

Interesting question Dream Bliss !

 

I have addressed self harm and suicide in a thread about cutlural devolution. But in regards to ego I thought this;

 

In our group of animals ( humans and their cultures.

 

The prime directive is survival of the individual unit.

 

yet the forces that seem to direct our evolution, as a species, (well , all species) works through a 'cycling' (death and birth) of those same individual units.

 

Just a thought. I haven't read all the posts yet.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Nungali