This is a question probably only the older members can answer. But when I manage to completely dissolve my ego, and then when coming back, theres still many components I throw out, switch around, try to change. What I'm wondering is, does this process of refinement continue on forever? Or do you eventually develop an ego that you just automatically return back to everytime, thats exactly the same as it was before? I still feel like I have to consciously put myself back together, when you've done it enough times and have really figured yourself out, do you no longer have to consciously think about it? Or do you just automatically piece back together into a permanent never-changing ego thats always the same?
I've never ever lost or dismantled or killed my ego. The ego, to me, is the awareness of myself and even while I'm soaring through vortexes at light speed I still know who I am, what I am, etc. I can manually change my ego, though. That's called shape-shifting.
My personal oppinion is that it is never ending process. Yes you get less and less need to change your ego, but think of it this way. Now you are at certain age and your life is composed of certain situations where you can get comfortable with and know your ego in those situations, and there is no need to change something about yourself if you are happy like that. But, as the time goes, you are getting older, more mature and you just from time to time change your oppinion of certain things, hense you need to change again your ego to fit your needs from now new point of view. There are still situations that you never went through, and because of that, you don't know how you will react in those situations, so you don't know what your ego will tell you in that specific situation. Think about getting a child. Thats a completely new evironment to you and again your ego is there to tell you this or that, but you can not prepare yourself now, before you FEEL that situation fully and change your ego to fit your feelings and thinking at that situation. So to make a conclusion on your question. You will always need from time to time to refine your ego, unless you go to the rest of your life trough exact same situations and expiriences, without any need to change, but I highly doubt. There is always something new, new evironment, new job, new town, country, baby, holiday, friend, wife, wife's parents, your parents, grandchildren, their school, friends, car, boat............... you will always find yourself in a new expirience, surrounding and people. What is important is not to go against your own feelings and not to do what you think is wrong. If you follow that moto, your ego will automatically change without your need to manually dismatle it and redefine. Its very simple once you managed to go through what you mentioned that you did - disolving and redefining your ego. Just follow your heart!
"I" arrises from the "ego" and now you're "I" is referencing the ego in which it arrised from. It's like a snake trying to eat it's tail. There's many definitions for ego, but for many it just means the false, mind-made self. (Just so we can establish what I'm talking about when I say it anyway) You don't need to think of anything to piece anything back together. You don't need to identify with your mind, you don't even need to think, or have some common continuous stream of thought that you are familiar with. Thinking requires consciousness, but consciousness does not require thinking. It's about as much as a mind game as you make it into, or that your mind makes it into anyway. Ego, thinking, says, "I am this, I am that, I did this, I did that, I am going to be doing this, because I need that." and so on. Consciousness, being aware of itself, says, "I am.", and does not need to think of anything because there's just "knowing", and the integrity that comes with it. Thinking is resistance, so just drop the complexity of the matter from your mind, and certainly don't start to think about your ego and think that you broke certain ends off of it, lol, thinking is the ego. I've been blown away on plenty of trips, but I still know who I am, what I am (a human being, what else?), where I am, and what I am doing peripherally while on that sort of trip.. it's just our conditioned personality which seems to dissolve, or in my experience anyway.
i hear more and more definitions of ego so, rygoody, i ask: when you modify your ego or whatever it is that you are modifying after/during a trip, does it feel like it should not have to change any more? or does it feel like there are no other things that you would like to change?
