Ego

[yugenphoenix]

“The idea that no ego is synonymous with weak, powerless, and effete demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature and dynamics of consciousness.  Low personal entropy, high personal power, fearlessness, love, and no ego are all on the same team.

Beings with low or no ego have the highest quality consciousness and the greatest personal power...the personal power I am speaking of subsumes the standard definition. The power to take charge of your life, to defend yourself in the face of determined hostility, to find satisfaction and fulfillment, to lead and inspire others, and to accomplish great and lasting things in both the physical and non physical realities in which we exist, flows naturally from the same process that dissolve ego.”      

 

-Thomas  Campbell from “My Big TOE (theory of everything)”

 

Anyone else know him?!  I’m so excited by his writings and concepts. It really confirms and fits into place much I’ve been missing.  I’m only halfway thru the book (it’s actually a massive 800 page triolgy in one tome).  I’m slowly digesting it, it’s mind blowing me.  It’s a deep eastern like approach to life, the universe, and everything with no religious trappings.  Highly recommended. 

[Boundlesscostfairy]

The power is to go in and out of ego as penchant, with the feel and flow of life.. as appropriate!

[Boy]

Never heard of him. How does he define ego?

[yugenphoenix]

“Ego is the direct result of fear.  Needs wants, expectations, and desires are generated by the ego as part of its shortsighted strategy to reduce the anxiety produced by fear.  The ego has the job of building and maintaining a feel good fantasy barrier between fear and intellect.  The ego, in collusion with the intellect, builds a complex delusional structure held together by convenient beliefs that justify an intricate web of interactive needs, wants, and desires.  The devices you use to maintain your fantasizes or delusions are largely not understood for what they are-whether they are employed by yourself or by others.  To see with clear vision, you must first become detached and fearless in the face of ignorance.  Without fear there is no need for ego; no use for needs, wants, or beliefs.  Your capacity to love (a measure of entropy in your system) is inversely related to the ego and fear your being contains.  Because the ego is generated in response to fear, you can see that to love, to increase your capacity or ability to love, you must primarily let go of fear. “

On 3/13/2018 at 9:56 PM, Boy said:

Never heard of him. How does he define ego?

 

[Boy]

very complicated "definition" but, yes it's sounds somewhat right. normally needs, wants etc aren't said to be generated by the ego, and I think he's wrong in that, but it's actually an interesting idea! a few other details aside, the author is surely onto something. thanks!

[ChiForce]

Yea but do you know what is exactly an ego????  Where it comes from?  How it is formed?  When the ego is think and acting, what exactly it is doing?  Is kind of hard to discern it when you are still thinking with and by the ego....:)   

[Marblehead]

I think that Mr Campbell may have a misunderstanding of what ego is.

 

[ChiForce]

1 minute ago, Marblehead said:

I think that Mr Campbell may have a misunderstanding of what ego is.

 

We can use the Freudian paradigm that the ego is psychic energy entity designed to seek sexual gratifications directly if not in a subliminal way.  In the Jungian paradigm, ego is the god head (god is living inside your head instead of in your heart)...is more of a social construct.  I would assume a person with a big ego would have a greater social following.  Or to be well respected in its social surrounding...  I think the ego is nothing more than seeing and acting in the world based on what you are personally emotionally attached too.  Is about attachment...and extremely focused and narrowed...goal oriented.... 

 

Like people acting on a feel good concept but not be able to really think it through. 

[Marblehead]

I think that both Freud and Jung ate too many mushrooms

 

I actually like your view better than either of the two above mentioned.

 

Ego really isn't anything much more than a person's perspective (value judgements) of them self.

 

Nothing more than self-awareness.  However, our judgements can be very faulty.

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by Marblehead

[ChiForce]

Let's face it....there is nothing inside our mind that said EGO on it.  Is solely condition based....Is definitely goal oriented..like I have to become this at certain age and I have to have this now...and etc.    

[Marblehead]

Agree.  There really is no such thing as ego.  Yes, I know, I talk about it all the time.  Is that an oxymoron?

 

[ChiForce]

Nah..I think the ego is synonymous to the little "I."  The little self identity people hold dear to because they need protection.  Not the universal Self that knows no boundaries, neither in time and space. 

[Marblehead]

I don't know anything about a universal self.

 

I'm a big "I".  You know that.

 

[ChiForce]

No, I really don't know....:) 

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, Marblehead said:

I think that both Freud and Jung ae too many mushrooms

 

I actually like your view better than either of the two above mentioned.

 

Ego really isn't anything much more than a person's perspective (value judgements) of them self.

 

Nothing more than self-awareness.  However, our judgements can be very faulty.

 

 

I have seen the term ego used in many contexts ; mostly the  Freudian or 'new age'. There are other concepts like Steiner   used, that I dont adopt.  I have my own understanding of it within the system I use to map the general human ' psyche' .  In this it is a function of consciousness that we can not really operate without, it is fed and formed by other 'states' or functions of psyche as well, and does not really stand alone or in conflict with them .  However it is within the 'medium' of  ego (my understanding of it ) that many of our  personal 'syndromes' manifest (Freudian )  .  Also if the 'balancing of the forces' of the psyche (whose outward product is manifest by the ego ) is  weighed towards the  "Id forces '  ( The 'Ahrimanic nature' via Steiner , or the 'Aingra Mainyu' of Zoroastrianism, etc . )  then ths is manifest in 'Ego' , giving it a bad rap .   The actual root force of what most consider 'ego'   is more from this influence ( 'Id' )  then ego.

 

 

... and just for some recent retro fun .... here is  'Shirley'   ;    

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, ChiForce said:

Let's face it....there is nothing inside our mind that said EGO on it.  Is solely condition based....Is definitely goal oriented..like I have to become this at certain age and I have to have this now...and etc.    

 

Only if that is how one defines ego .   I define the above as drive and ambition mixed with social expectation in an arena of western materialism.

 

 

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Agree.  There really is no such thing as ego.  Yes, I know, I talk about it all the time.  Is that an oxymoron?

 

 

No .  Its a concept . It might not exist in  'the real' , but it has an existence in ;the ideal' as a concept   Our behaviours , let alone our minds, are complex things  .  Grouping things into concepts helps to understand or at least be aware of  things . It does for me anyway .

Maybe why that is why you use the term?  Also not as a paradox but in the  wider  sense of the term   ;  " Sometimes they  (oxymoron) are used to create some sort of drama for the reader or listener, and sometimes they are used to make the person stop and think, whether it's to laugh or to ponder."    

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, ChiForce said:

Nah..I think the ego is synonymous to the little "I."  The little self identity people hold dear to because they need protection.  Not the universal Self that knows no boundaries, neither in time and space. 

 

Ahhhh   ....  you mean  the Supreme  Macro-cosmic Ego   ?   

[Starjumper]

On 3/12/2018 at 7:57 PM, yugenphoenix said:

The idea that no ego is synonymous with weak, powerless, and effete demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature and dynamics of consciousness.  Low personal entropy, high personal power, fearlessness, love, and no ego are all on the same team.

Beings with low or no ego have the highest quality consciousness and the greatest personal power...the personal power I am speaking of subsumes the standard definition. The power to take charge of your life, to defend yourself in the face of determined hostility, to find satisfaction and fulfillment, to lead and inspire others, and to accomplish great and lasting things in both the physical and non physical realities in which we exist, flows naturally from the same process that dissolve ego.”      

 

Disagree.  It appears you are confusing ego with egotistical, an easy thing to do for non Taoists.

 

A Taoist sage once told me:  "Your ego should be like a wild stallion racing free across the open plains".

 

I now return you to your standard Buddhist/Hindu mind programming.

 

Next we can talk for hours about the non existent 'self'.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Starjumper

[Marblehead]

4 hours ago, Starjumper said:

Next we can talk for hours about the non existent 'self'.

I've been down that road before too.

 

Define "self".

 

[ChiForce]

35 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

I've been down that road before too.

 

Define "self".

 

Th Tao self-no-self?  Or the Dharma self-no-self?  Hehehehehe.....  Rereading the OP quote, it appears the author, while shutting down the ego, he ended up talking about having an ego.  Hehehehehehhehe........... 

Edited March 25, 2018 by ChiForce

[Marblehead]

1 minute ago, ChiForce said:

Th Tao self-no-self?  Or the Dharma self-no-self?  Hehehehehe.....  Rereading the OP quote, it appears the author, while shutting down the ego, he ended up taking about having an ego.  Hehehehehehhehe........... 

Yeah, it's difficult to say you don't exist when you are standing there talking with me.

 

Indeed, if we have an opinion, any opinion, I suggest we have an ego.

 

[Nungali]

On 25/03/2018 at 12:07 PM, Marblehead said:

Yeah, it's difficult to say you don't exist when you are standing there talking with me.

 

Ha!   'Nasrudin and the Philosopher ' .

 

Nasruddin was  getting  tired of some philosopher going on and on about illusion of material world   ;  this is illusion, that is illusion, nothing really 'exists ' .    So Nasruddin punched him in  the nose   and then asked him ;       "  What hurts ? "