losing your ego?

what does that mean?

 

oh boy.

it can mean a lot of things, it depends how far in you go and from which direction.

i'm not gonna try to define what your ego is... but i'll try to explain how it feels to lose it. at least how it was for me.

you give up fighting, accept what is happening, and suddenly you become very, very humble. you realize how arrogant you have been up to that point. you've assumed without realizing it that you already know, that you are the best, that everyone and everything else just needs to catch up to you and then everything will be right. seperateness dissipates. you see the all the bullshit that you have unconsciously and automatically filtered your true self through, before it finally reaches your conscious awareness, distorted and disguised and barely recognizable. anxiety, guilt, fear, anger, defense, judgment. it's all bullshit. why? the same reason for fighting THIS just moments ago... is there a reason? what happens if you don't? and so you stop. and the universe opens up onto you. it's love. all of it. all that ever was, will be, could be, couldn't be, it's love, it's right now. it's eternal... right? of course, there's no way it couldn't be, it's all there is and it's going to go on forever. everything is raw and revealed and out in the open, entirely. it's impossible to hide anything. you're naked. everyone can see your every flaw. but you have no flaws. you're accepted. you're perfect. you are IT, everything, in love.

then 12 hours later you might say you're right back where you were before it all started, like taking a shower and having to put on dirty clothes. but now you've seen it, and felt it, and know that it's there. it's not *there*. it's everywhere. it's right here. now. be it.





sorry that was sort of cliche, but that's how it is.

 

i think its like being a new born. Your mind is a blank, but your aware of it. Then it slowly comes back to you.

 

What makes you think that you have one to lose?

 

exactly what i was about to say. it just opens your eyes man. do it and find out.

 

That is something you are using to hide from your self, and untill you lose it, you really don't know who you are. Until than you are who you lie to yourself that you are.

 

ive had limited experience but i would say it is merely the part of you that references things to yourself, and exposes you to pure sensations and thoughts. until total ego-loss, there will always be a part that references back to yourself to some degree. ideas such as wanting things or avoiding people or feeling the need to acomplish something. these thigns can be good or bad to yourself or to some observer. but without the ego, all there is are sensations and realisations of what things really are. before reaching ego death, the minimalisation of ego leads to a lot of the epiphanies that occur because judging things as right or wrong immediately injects a quality into what you are feeling ot thinkings of. this is whitnessable often, in something as simple as food. for example if you fed someone weak acid and told them it was unsweetened lemonade they might like it more than if you suggested it was some acid from a lab.
or more pertinently, if someone had some idea about an energy solution for teh world, you might think it was a good idea if you were told they were an academic who had gained a scholarship as opposed to an old rich arab man, even if they both had exactly the same idea.

these are just very particular examples of the process I am identifying.

without the ego, there are still thoughts referencing one's self (almost paradoxically.. or perhaps this is merely a case of residual ego?), but not referenced -to- ones self.


though this is just what ive gathered from my very limited psychedelic experiences.

 

but most importantly, i dont think it has anything to do specifically with an 'ego' such as 'that guy needs to deflate his ego, hes such an arrogant prick'. i just think along with ego loosening comes humbleness, though humbleness doesnt imply lack of ego.

 

It's pretty hard to define ego loss, and I think it means different things for different people, to some extent. For me, it's really about realizing the absurdity of any possible definition for what "I" am. I am certainly not my body, I am certainly not my past experiences, nor my future ones or even my current ones. I am not my thoughts. I am not the different roles that I play in society (student, musician, friend to whomever)... so, who am I? What am "I"? A point of consciousness I guess?

 

The ego is your sense of self. It what makes you, "you" in your mind. It's what seperates you from the person next to you, or the speck of dust floating in front of your eyes right now.

Ego loss is that point where you stop worrying about the superficial labels of things that were invented by humans (chair, you, me, life) and just see the perfect energy that is the universe. There is nothing separating you from anything else, and there never has been. It's just that normally we don't see it that way.

For a better definition, read up on Zen Buddhism and the practice of zazen. Ego-loss is basically the basis for the way of Buddha.

I, as are you, simply are. The words we try to use to define us simply fail.

 

Simply beautiful nonetheless? Makes me teary. DITTO.

 

i love you.

 

Coming to Alaska through FedEx overnight delivery got an address I can have? Just kidding haha. I just believe it was very beautifully written and not cliche at all, it was very true in my eyes, or at least the same case for me. Best description hands down but everybodys loss of ego is different, I guess Could just see and feel the words all the way through as weird as that may sound. Just damn fine job really!

Peace + love for you
and whoever else who wants it, haha

 

Part of my acid trip involved a long walk through the streets with my friend, trying to make sense of the world around us.

The veryinteresting thing i found was that all of the talk of united consciousness, united being, that everything is one thing, you are everything, you are god, etc, it all made sense because there was the clear feeling of existing at each point in harmony with all things. it was like my perspective lost all of its housing as one person in this body and became merely a vector of thoughts in the universe, influenced by the particular surrounding that my sensations portray.

 

indeed... :flowers: for both of you and all the rest of the dancing beauties...

 

Sometimes, you can start to notice a personality that gets on your nerves, and he's always there. And you realize that it's you, but you can't escape yourself. Every time you start to think or speak, it's done by this personality that performs according to some formulaic system of causes and effects. A spiritual identity functioning purely on behaviorist conditions. And that can be unnerving to you the perceiver who seems to be another consciousness altogether. Exposed to yourself, there is no place to hide.

Beyond that, there's dissolution into oblivion, and connection with everything and nothing.

Not exactly fun, really.
You need an ego to have fun.

 

yes i second that

love love love

 

i agree, except that you need an ego to have fun. i think there's a difference between thinking you are your ego without even really thinking of it, and using seperateness and personality as a tool in a game... and when you're aware of the ego, and not under the assumption that it's all there is, or whatever... it's a little different than someone being able to say "oh, he still has an ego". i mean, you're right. you still have it, but then, you also don't.

i don't know. can't make sense >___<...

 

there comes a time when words to describe the state experienced (unity) are difficult to find

 

Fun can be had without an ego. It just isn't "you" having it, because you don't exist anymore Funness is still there, but you are the fun, instead of the being experiencing the fun.

But, it is true that generally ego loss isn't really the same kind of fun as playing a video game or baking cookies, hehe