I was wondering if anyone can explain "the  ::) ego" to me with their understanding of it, and how it relates to their spiritual journey.

The "ego" is an idea that psychanalysts use to describe a part of our inner workings. The Ego would be the counscious part of your whole "you" that would make you adapt and decide what to doin real lfe based on your needs and values/code of honnor.

Please don't forget that it's only a concept.

I truly believe that in reality the Id, Ego and Superego are One. It would like talking about your different fingers when in fact you are seing a hand working together.

For exemple the Id could be the subject, the Ego the verb and the Superego the object of a sentence. Individually they can be useful if you are discussing ideas and theories but in reality you need all to work well. They are One.

So these are just words that helps the psychanalysts talk to each other with more precision.

Unless you want to debate whether or not they represent different regions in your brain. But again they would be parts of a "whole". And the "whole brain" would be "you".

I was inspired to write something exactly about what your asking, how our ego relates to spiritual evolution.  Just click the link and scroll down to the ego parts.

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=FfOUR&nextdate=3%2f12%2f2005+17%3a46%3a18.343&direction=n

Jason

EGO and PRIDE

Pride is really the downfall of humanity. If one takes a look at some of the more infamous people in history you will see how pride plays its role in leading to the end of empires. The history of the Roman empire is full of countless examples from Nero blaming the great fire on Christians to Ceasar's ride across the Rubicon, The defeat of 3 Roman Legions by Spartacus's slave army.Napoleon's audacity, to Hitler and the prideful nazis killing millions of Jews. Pride is a feeling caused by the inflated human ego. Pride and Ego is the part of a persons lower nature that causes them to feel elevated above his or her brothers and sisters. Our Ego is the part of us that cares whether or not we are better than or worse than other people at something... Sports, art, music, intellegence, confidence, charisma, how nice we are, appearance, etc. attractiveness to the opposite sex.  Our Ego is also the part of us that fools us into thinking we are hurt when it gets bruised when someone else bests us at sports, art, music, intellegence, etc.  Our Ego is the part of us that fools us into thinking that we are hurt when our partner leaves us for someone else. We think we are hurt because the person they left us for must have admirable qualities we are lacking we start to ponder what qualities this person has over us..perhaps they are..more attractive, younger, smarter, more wealthy, harder working, more refined,have a better personality etc.

So why do I keep going on about Ego? Because once you start to take notice of how your ego is dictating negative emotions for you to feel then you have a choice to take action to diminish your ego and hopefully one day get rid of it altogether. I once read from a wise man Vernon Howard that criticism is like an arrow, it strikes a sharp blow against a person's ego.  The bigger the persons ego the bigger the target is for the arrow to hit.  People with large ego's are more apted to get their ego bruised because the nature of a larger target is that there are more different ways the arrow can come at the target and still hit it mark. They also have the constant burden of defending a larger ego. A person who has a tiny ego has fewer points of pride to defend against, and hence has to spend a significantly smaller portion of his time and energy to be cautious of critics and those who may cause harm. This person is naturally a much smaller, more difficult target for the arrow to hit. If a person has gone through the inner journey of eliminating his or her ego altogether...for this special person the arrow of criticism flies right through.  There is nothing to challenge the arrow, this person no longer cares about being stuck by arrow, he or she has evolved beyond this lower nature. This person is invincible!

The person who has a big ego may claim criticism effect on him or her , unfortunately this person has told himself a lie in order to deceive his own mind and the minds others purely for the reason to impress himself and to make others impressed by him.  This person is living from his own delusions of self grandeur and is far from even beginning to understand what an eliminated ego is less achieving it.

Hence the larger an ego you have the more fragile it becomes. A man's ego is like a waterballoon.  When filled to a minimal amount the balloon is still strong and durable, you can throw it around and it may not even spring a leak. But, when you fill up the balloon with more water than its own good, it becomes fragile and the slightest pressure may cause a pop.

Ego is a tricky thing usually when we have our egos deflated or crushed in one area we automatically compensates by inflating it in another. This is done subconciously, in most cases you will not catch this happening because you are unaware this even happens until someone mentions it to you. Now that you know you can put forth an effort to be aware the next time your ego is crushed and watch this happen,..try to catch yourself in the act! This is a good step in the process to understanding yourself. This is truely and act of self discovery.

What is Ego?.

Ego is the part of ourselves that we think we are.  Most people who set out to discover themselves are really only out to define their likes and dislikes, define their ego so they have a greater sense of who they think they are.  However, these definitions we carry of ourselves is far from the truth of who we really are.  Stripped away of all ego, everyone is the same on the inside.  Only when we are entirely  stripped of ego are we entirely stripped from selfish motivation.  A person with a larger ego will inherently act more selfishly than a person with a smaller ego.  Do not confuse a small ego with a bruised ego, they are 2 entirely different things.  A person with a bruised ego may feel "small" because their ego has been damaged. A person with a small ego is one who has decided not to play the "ego" game and hence, there is very little others can do to criticize and or damage this person's ego or self esteem.  Only a person with a big ego can potentially feel very small and dimished when he or she is hurt through rejection and criticism.  A person with a very small ego, can hardly ever be hurt, a person with no ego is invincible.   We as humans are motivated by selfishness proportional to the size of our ego.  

Ego is the part of us that makes us jealous, makes us angry,  makes us fearful, makes us unaccepting of ourselves and our shortcomings.

1)A man is angered when his ego is injured.

2)People are imprisoned by their ego without knowing it.

3)People are controlled by their ego personalities without awareness of it.

4)Your egoes always have something to prove to others.

5)A person who has diminished his ego has nothing left to prove to anyone, and lives in freedom.

6)A person who has eliminated ego has overcome the largest obstical in obtaining real inner peace and real confidence.

7)A person who is no longer controlled by his or her ego is no longer emotionally imprisoned by outter events.

8)We cannot control what happens in our lives, only how we react. All faith requires action, faith without action is useless much like a boat without a paddle getting us nowhere.

9)Man is so intertwined in ego that he does not know anything exists beyond his own ego.

10)Ego is the part of us that needs more.  When you give your ego more it wants even more, observe your ego needs long enough and you will realize our ego needs are insatiable!  You can never have enough money, love, acceptance, free time, when your desires are ego driven.  

11)All addictions arise from our egos.

12)Not all egos are aparent, the majority of us keep it well hidden.





IDEAS WE HAVE ABOUT OURSELVES

Everyone bases their ego on something, for example In order to feel the joy of column A we will have to sometimes experience column B

                       A / B

"I am a successful person" / " I am a loser"

"I am better than that" / "I suck"

"I am a great ball player" / "I have no athletic abilities whatsoever"

"I am a great artist/musician" / "I am not as good as that person"

"I am intellegent" / "I am stupid"

"I am a good student" / "I am a horrible student"

"I can do better than that/ Thats the best I can do."



OVERCOMING EGO

All insults and hateful words stem from our false egos.  Enlightenment is achieved when the ego is finally released.  The ego can only be released by first recognizing and acknowledging for what is does to us, and making a concious decision you are through with those games.  It can only be set aside by someone who recognizes it brings nothing good to their life, and that it is ready to move on to the greater inner journey that exists beyond this first step.  A person begins to master his or her life by setting aside ego like a grown child sets aside a toy.  The toy served this person well as a child, he had a lot of good and bad times but after playing with this toy long enough, he has outgrown it and wants to move on.  When you are ready you will put aside ego like a child that has put away the toy he has outgrown for a grander pursuit.

Flattery inflates our egos, criticism hurts our egos.  A person who has no ego can neither be flattered or hurt by criticism.  A person without ego no longer accepts flattery from others.  Flattery and cricism go hand in hand.  If you want to know how much criticism can potentially effect your piece of mind you can just observe how happy you feel when someone flatters you with compliments.  The degree that you enjoy being flattered by compliments is the degree you take criticism personally.  

A person who enjoys flattery will also take criticism very personally, whether or not he or she is willing to admit it.  In order to begin feeling less effected by criticism, we must work on ending the happiness that we find outside of us from compliments of other  people.  The sole reason why flattery and criticism go hand in hand is that in both ideas of who we are come from outside of ourselves.  This simply means we strongly measure who we are by the opinion of others.  Sometimes listening to others has a good grounding effect, it lets us know what type of behavior and personality we are projecting out to the people around us.  However there is a popular saying that says we shouldn't listen to what other people think about us and only what we think about ourselves is important.  This is a very true statement, but this statement misunderstood will cause a person to lose touch with the reality and responsibility of his actions.  For example...In a typical scenario

Lets say I being a person motivated by ego self weigh the opinion of others about me, the opinion of my friends, family and coworkers is what I use to base my ideas about who I am.  This is because they can give me feedback about my behavior and keep me in check, for instance if I do something completely selfish, my friends would let me know, and lets say I disagree with them and feel that they have judged me incorrectly. Then I start to feel some resentment towards them for criticizing me.  Then I think why should I listen to them? Who cares what they think, its only important what I think about myself!

LISTENING TO YOURSELF ABOVE ALL OTHERS A MISUNDERSTOOD MISUSED CONCEPT

Now this is an example of the popular belief: "of we shouldn't listen to what other people think about us and only what we think about ourselves is important"   run amok and misunderstood.  This is because when we are still acting out of our  ego minds, sadly WE MUST listen to our friends and family and those around us in order to keep in touch with reality.  Because perhaps I was really just being stubborn and stupid and I was being selfish but was too stubborn to admit it.  And being angry at criticism I didnt want to hear, I ultimately decided I should then feel that I am somehow on a higher path and not listen to the opinion of others who are trying to help me and just listen to myself when I am criticized.   When we act in this manner we have COMPLETELY MISUNhDERSTOOD the meaning and the application of the concept of "we shouldn't listen to what other people think about us and only what we think is importan t."   I have to stress now that the correct way to apply the above concept is to apply it first to compliments THEN, apply it to criticism.  When you have reached a maturity where you no longer accept the compliments of Family Friends and associates, THEN you can also disregard all Criticism  that comes from Family Friends and associates.  This is because you have now taken full responsibility for creating your own beliefs about yourself...good and bad.  And you no longer allow yourself to be effected by Compliments and Criticism.  An emotionally immature person will take all the compliments he or she can from friends family and associates and reject all  criticism by the very same people. When criticized this person will become defensive and tell him/herself the opinion of his/her friends and family doesn't matter, only their opinion of themselves manner.  This is a very immature thought process!  This shows a complete misunderstanding and misuse of the concept of "listening to yourself above all others"  So once again If you accept the compliments of other people and that makes you happy, you must also accept their criticism.  This is because you are still living from your false ego.  However a step up in maturity even for an ego driven person is a person willing to listen and accept criticism from others.  Only when you no longer accept compliments can you also disregard criticism.  When we reach the peak where we no longer accept the opinions of others good and bad, we begin to discover our true selves and take a large step towards real SELF confidence.

This is how we evolve emotionally

1)First you are a person who.. only accept compliments from other people, when it comes to criticism you become defensive inwardly or outwardly and try to justify that other people are wrong because only you have the right to judge yourself.

2)Then you becme a person who... accepts compliments from other people, you also now begin to see that criticism can be helpful and grounding.  It allows you to know what you are putting out to the world and how other people view you in regards to your actions.  You see it now as helpful feedback instead of something you should defend against.

3) Finally you become a person who... no longer feels happy when someone compliments you, that is their opinion and their opinion only, their criticism is also their opinion only and has no influence on how you feel moment to moment.  You truely are a person who is self motivated and draw strength from within.

bluejasn
I am very impressed with your writings.  I sincerely appreciate your replies and your link.  I haven't read your link yet, but I am going there now.  You have a very clear understanding about the ego, how it affects your life, how to know when you're operating out of your lower self (ego), and how to get out of it and thereby increase your confidence.  Wow!  It's almost a step-by-step guide.  Thanks again ;D

Bluejasn,

please don't forget to quote the source IN your post each time you copy something from somwhere else.

Aside of that, nice ideas.

Here is part of Seth's take on the matter:
(sorry for the format)
 
Quote:

Seth (Session 822): "The word "ego" is much bandied about, and in many circles it has a poor reputation 'It is, however, as I use it, a term meant to express the ordinary conscious directive portion of the self. 'It is your conscious version of what you are -- 'an excellent description, if I do say so myself. 'It is directed outward into the physical world 'It is also aware, however, of some of your "unconscious" activities. 'It is the you identify with, so it is aware of your dreams, for example, as you are, 'and it is quite conscious of the fact that its existence rests upon knowledge that is does not itself possess. 'As you have an ego, fully conscious, directed toward the physical world 'you also have what I call an inner ego, directed toward inner reality. Seth (2-6-73 ESP Class): “But, while you think that the ego is a step-child of the self while you think of it as an outsider who must be swept aside so that this great energy and knowledge can flow through-- then you set up a situation of opposites that need not apply-- 'for the ego can learn far more than you give it credit for-- 'and it can assimilate that kind of experience when the individual realizes that he is able to. 'There is no need for what you think of as the ego to be swept aside and annihilated, even in a symbolic death.” 'Now, there are two schools. One says that the intellect is off and that it must dissect and rip apart---- and that it sets up artificial systems and loses its touch with nature. One school believes that the intellect is all and everything-- and that all can be understood using the mind alone. You think of this school as the American school, as the Western school-- 'and it is the school that most of you, to one degree or another, try so desperately to escape. 'On the other hand, there is a school that says the intellect and the ego are nothing. 'We would be better off without them. 'The truth is not known to the ego, or to the intellect, or to the mind. 'It is all in feeling.   'And, both schools are equally wrong. 'And as long as you have systems dealing with one or the other 'the poor physical person is caught in between. 'Either his mind is tended to, or his feelings. 'The latest, if you will excuse me, caper, is the Eastern one. 'And, while it seems that I should go along with this-- 'because you think I am not physical and, therefore, must be so spiritual-- 'the fact remains it is just as distorted as what you all think of as the Western ideal of the dominating intellect. 'Each of you knows that you are creatures of mind, consciousness, and feeling. 'I told you some things last night and I have often said to many of you-- 'If a man tells you that you are guilty, he is a false profit. 'If he tells you to look to him and not to yourself, he is a false prophet. 'If he tells you to ignore your mind, turn aside from it and only trust your feelings, then he is leading you astray. 'If he tells you to disregard one portion of your being for another, regardless of the portion, he is cutting you up into pieces '--and you are letting him do it and smiling 'and saying, ‘Allah,’ the while, or whatever the word might be. 'You are entire beings blessed with consciousness and feelings '--with intellect, with thought--and meant to use them both, and all joyfully '---Your trouble has been, however, that you have not known how to use your conscious mind. 'that it cannot assimilate in a positive way--and that it is cut off from your being. 'And when you use the term ego '--you think of a permanent portion of your being '--something sits in your head that you cannot see '--but it is ego and it must be annihilated or it must be killed. 'Now, the ego is a living portion of the entire self '--and when, in your terms, you annihilate it for whatever reasons --symbolically or otherwise '--for that time and to that degree, you are annihilating a portion of the entire self. 'The ego is not a growth, like a cancer, on top of the inner self to be shot off or to take potshots at or to be removed. 'It is a living psychological portion of your being, as real, for example, in physical terms, as an appendix '--all a part of your being--but it is not a thing, as your appendix may be thought of. 'It is a living, psychological structure that is a part of you-- 'and if you think of the entire self, for example, and this is not a particularly good analogy, as a circle '--and think of the physical reality up here—are you following me?-- 'So then you think of the ego as up here at the top of the circle looking outward at physical reality-- 'but following this analogy, the self turns. 'As it turns, other portions of the self appear as ego-- 'and you can shoot down a thousand egos and they will come to the surface again-- 'because they grow automatically and beautifully and spontaneously from the depths of your being. 'So you re shooting down, in those terms, paper dragons. '---What I would like to see is someone carrying on the work that was only begun by Maslow. 'Study people who have such experiences on their own as a natural state of their being '--without drugs, without techniques, without rules, without regulations, but rather as a natural manifestation of their consciousness. 'Ask them how they have these experiences. 'Ask them where their ego is or is not at such times. 'You will find that the ego, or what you think of it, as the term is unfortunate because it means so many things to so many people-- 'But you will find that your ‘I’ consciousness then expands itself to contain such experiences of the universe-- 'and it is not annihilated within the experience. 'Instead, it expands to contain it until it contains so much that it has to learn again what it is and assimilate all of its many parts. It learns and grows and discovers. 'And within the experience, it is like a wandering child who looks out at a new universe, 'but knows itself as a part of that universe.

As you can see Seth's definiton of the ego is different from what the current (and past)  new age thinking.

Hi Rapael,

I know, im the author...it was something I had floating in my head ideas from the countless books, ive read, observing my life experiences and people around me, its been a series of on going papers that I put on my Xanga and add on to when I feel inspired to write more.

Jason

In fact I have a lot more on my xanga....I post some more from there

Jason

FEELING BIG AND SMALL

Our ego or pride has a dual nature to it, a yin and yang. The seasaw effect of pride causes us to feel big at times and small at other times.  An inflated ego is eventually crushed. There are no exceptions to this,. So if you reason correctly, if you don't want to ever feel small again...don't try to make yourself feel big or better than anyone else. Inflating our ego has become a second nature, we think we need it to survive emotionally in this world, but what we don't realize is that it the cause of all emotional and physical pain that we cause to ourselves and others in our world.

At the point our ego is hurt the most we like to say we've "hit rock bottom" After we "hit rock bottom" We might notice our confidence is also at its lowest point, this is no coincidence. Our idea of self "confidence" is directly related to our ego. If we have a big, unbruised ego, we will appear to others as being "confident" or cocky.Then when our big ego takes a sharp attack from a critical remark our ego gets bruised,..and our self esteem suffers. When this happens we have friends and family around who try to boost our egos again,they say things to make us feel better like "You're better than him or her" "You can get a better boyfriend or girlfriend" "He or she wasnt good for you" "You're such a great person Its his/her loss not yours" People tell us these things because they don't know any better. They want to help us feel better about ourselves again by boosting our ego. They want to help us feel more confident again by reinfocing our egos. Unfortunately, though their intentions are good, we have just missed a golden opportunity. Because now that our ego is boosted up again, this time we build stronger walls to defend ourselves, were more weary this time, our egos are rebuilt and fortified more than before. And we feel big again, and better about ourselves, and the cycle is complete and will inevitably start all over again,feeling big then getting torn, rebuilding again, feeling big, getting torn, feeling big, getting torn. It repeats over and  over and over again and again, until your awareness that this is happening to you right  now causes you to stop. And think. Look over your own experience and see how feeling big "confident" and feeling small insecure have always lead to one another. Do you want to continue on this cycle?? Or maybe there is a way out, and maybe now is the time to break the cycle we've all been in and we're all moving through now.

WHAT REWARDS DOES A PERSON WITH NO EGO ATTAIN?

A man or woman who breaks free of human ego will have the following characteristics.

A person with no ego has no fear. All other human beings live from and in fear., think of how many fear impulses you experience in a day the numbers are in the thousands.All fear stems from the ego mind, a person with a large ego can potentially have more fear.

Stripped away of ego everyone is the same on the inside, our authentic self is no longer selfishly motivated.

This person does is no longer effected by the most personal criticism.

This person's self esteem is no longer raised by praise and compliments.

This persons self esteem is no longer raised by their achievements.

This person's pride is no longer hurt by failure.

This person's self esteem good or bad is no longer effected by their physical appearance.

Low/no self esteem is not the same thing as no ego, it is in fact opposite. A person with no ego

ceases to esteem him or herself on ego based dilusions of self.

A person who has no ego has finally found their true selves.

A person with no ego is not longer confused by love.

Love is a confusing topic to anyone who acts from ego...love and the neediness andinsecurity of ego are misunderstood and confused to anyone who acts from ego.

This person no longer takes pride in association of any kind, race, religion, class, culture,but merely has compassion for all human beings.

This person understands fully the game of ego, pride and self esteem he or she had once been caught up and no longer wants to play.

This person no longer cares about being better than...

Shakespeare said it best

"All the worlds a stage, and all men and women merely players"
A Person with no ego is a person who has left the stage. Everyone else continues to act with no realization, they are actors on a stage,and certainly with no awareness that anything beyond the stage exists.

A Person who has finally stepped away from ego altogether can be called Aware or an awakened person.

He or she can now begin to explore the reality that exists beyond the comprehension of those actors still caught up in the drama of their own play.

Some of my ideas are inspired from Vernon Howards books among other countless books.
If you have check out some of his stuff.
"There is a way out"
"Mystic path to cosmic power"

TRYING TO CONTROL YOUR FEELINGS- THE DEAD END ROUTE

When we try to control our feelings, we are simply supressing them in an attempt to deny that feeling exists or to show that we are better than what we feel. No one is actually ever beyond the negativity we feel, although the majority of us like to flatter ourselves and pretend we are and that it doesn't effect us.  No one can actually control their feelings, but we sure like to believe we can, and the best of us at it can do very well in convincing others that our feelings of fear, jealousy, anger, frustration, resentment, sadness, emptiness, lonliness, doesnt exist. Some of us like to flatter ourselves into believing we can actually control it., when it fact it controls us. Believing you are better than your feelings is you thinking you are great and inflating your ego. Supressing your feelings like author Vernon Howard says is likened to a tornado in the night. The tornado cases just as much damage in the dark than it does in the light. Face it the reason we try to control our feelings is because our egos are bruised and our egos want a quick fix to the situation to feel better about itself once again and carry about its routine.  We will never achieve a lasting happiness by living our routine lives,  the most inner change is gained in times of pain.  Sadly in times of pain we often make the lesser choice and succumb to our ego instead of seeing the reality of the situation.  All moments of emotional hurt when experienced with an open mind and a true desire to end our emotional pain can lead to a great inner revelation.  When we experience enough pain with our awareness intact we begin to see the real culprit in causing the pain all along....it was us!  It was our ego!  No one can actually cause us to feel any pain we don't want to feel...sadly we want to feel the drama that causes the pain because it gives us a false sense of being alive...many feelings are experienced in drama and it gives us a false emotional high that we enjoy, it also always swings over to depression.  When we are aware of this seesaw effect of drama and pain and realize the outcome of our drama is ALWAYS pain then we can make a concious choice to end the drama and end the pain.  

example: your boyfriend or girlfriend recently broke up with you. Our ego does not like to be damaged so it convinces us we must make it better for it right away so it can feel better about ourselves again.  Our mind then tries to come up with a quick fix for our damaged ego which is to make ourselves think we are so emotionally or mentally strong that we can control our feelings and make the hurt that we feel insignificant. I know I used to do this a lot, I took it to its extreme and in the end you will hit rock bottom with this, its a dead end route.


9:13 AM - 2 eprops - 2 comments - email it


Thursday, March 10, 2005

 
WHEN WE END OUR DRAMA OUR PAIN GOES AWAY.

When someone does something hurtful to us we allow ourselves to feel bad and sorry for ourselves because we enjoy it. We enjoy the drama playing out in our heads of how they hurt us and how we are victums now with the right to react justly the next time we see this person. We enjoy that drama,..sounds strange right? Next time someone does something hurtful to you take an honest look at ur feelings, when someone hurts you,,you enjoy being the drama..of playing the role of a victum to someones malicious words. You relish the drama but consciously you are not aware that the drama always eventually causes pain and sadness. But it never occurs to you what caused the sadness. You thought it was the other persons words, or the fact that they dumped you that caused your sadness and pain, in fact you never gave it much thought, it was probably an automatic subconcious reaction to being dumped. You acted this way because you saw others reacting this way to hurtful words or deeds growing up and you learned to emulate your elders. But next time someone does something emotionally hurtful to you try to catch yourself in the act mentally! Catch yourself while ur ego switches to feeling sorry for yourself. Or prepare to expect this to happen ahead of time so when it happens you will now become conciously aware that this process of drama happens this way. If you can cause yourself that awareness in that key time, you can spare yourself the pain and suffering that is sure tofollow the drama, if you choose to. Once you do this once with awareness of what has transpired, you now know as an experienced fact what causes much emotional pain and sadness in our lives....drama.

All of life's emotional pain and sadness is caused by drama

Once you end your drama you end your pain.

Drama is ur ego mind playing scenarios of self pity in the aftermath of rejection or an unanticipated outcome.

Believe it or not, you find drama enjoyable or you wouldn't entertain it.

Enjoyment of drama stems from your ego

REAL CONFIDENCE

You may have noticed that I put quotes around the word confidence in the previous section FEELING BIG AND SMALL. This is because the confidence you and I and all of us think we have is a fascade compared to real confidence. What is real confidence? Lets start by looking at our present concept of confidence.  Throughout our lives we are trying to build this thing called "confidence",..its hardest in our teenage years because there is so much insecurity and change. Then later on as we do more and have more experiences and grow older and know the ropes better we think we have grown "confident" I'm here to burst everyones bubble.,,

You haven't grown confident, not really, you've simply solidified portions of your ego so that it has become a difficult to bruise. As we become older, and our lives get settled, the pace slows down a bit...we have a good job that lasts more than a couple years and perhaps even a family. Our ego has now set its roots down in this new seeminly secure persona,.. We are john doe.. age 45 now a respected vice president of a well respected firm. We've achieved a certain level of success that we have  strived for. We are married and have 2 kids a nice house with one mortgage, a luxary car an suv and a dog. Life has really become steady, we feel confident, confident inmany of our achievements and experiences, and even in those things were werentable to achieve we have learned to accept them. There are now very few assaults on our ego in the past several years, things look secure and safe,.

Real confidence comes from stepping outside of the cycle of feeling big and small. It comes from acting purely from No Ego. As a persons ego diminishes his/her real confidence finally begins at last to shine through. This is a new kind of confidence, ever lasting, not dependant on any fascade of who you are, of your merits and achievements,of your associations to any clubs, organizations, or brotherhoods, of your great relationships or even of your lifetime experiences. This confidence is the real thing! It comes from an everlasting source, this is the confidence I know exists and strive for. This is the confidence of the great teachers, who have single handedly defied and brought down the greatest empires of their time! THis is TRUE SELF CONFIDENCE because it comes from within Not from outside of us, not our experiences, not our relationships, not our associations, not our achievements in life. It comes from a greater source within, I believe it will come to anyone who seeks it and to anyone who sees the fault of human ego and pride. True self confidence is one of the best gifts to someone who is walking the path to enlightenment and self awareness.  The bible phrase "Pride goes before destruction" has its greater meaning.



SELF DISCOVERY.

A Period for defining our superficial personas.

What is the process of self discovery that is the subject of so many books and the remarks made by so many people. Many people throw the phrase around " Im trying to discover myself," while never really understanding the ultimate meaning behind self discovery. I used to mistaken self discovery for its superficial meaning, like tv and movies have taught me it is a discovery of my likes and dislikes, of my personality, what foods I like, what type of girls I find attractive, what kinds of cars I like, what talents I have, what type of clothes define me as a person, Am I an abercrombie person or do I wear Sean Jeans? Do I wear Nikes or do I wear Vans? Am I into Goth? Punk,? Rap? Classical? or Country? The process of self discovery or character creation usually starts in  High School, and it begins with how we dress, the type of music we listen to, how intellegent we are, how athletic we are, if we are charismatic or not,. This usually has a direct effect on the type of people we hang  out with. Then we find ourselves in one of those many catergories... Are we a nerd? or a bully? Or the football cheerleader jock. Although these labels are a part of growing up in today's society, they by no means have anything to do with the term self discovery spoken by many of man kinds greatest thinkers..socrates, marcus arelius, therou, Self discovery is a clear intention of finding the facts behind your motives and the motives of others.

Thought awareness- as the first step in self discovery.

This is the very first task at hand for a person serious about bettering themselves,. This is a difficult task to do but we'll worth it as through it you finally get an honest glimpse of yourself you've never had before. Your task is to monitor your thoughts, minute by minute, second by second. Make it into a game, at first it will be extremely difficult and stainning mentally, because your mind is untrainned and has a habbit of wandering into useless random thoughts. Its incredible the amount of random thoughts a person hasthroughout the course of a day. Studies show that the average human being has at least 30,000 thoughts a day, the vast majority of them are uncontrolled by you!! You have a virtual river of thoughts flowing throughyour head that influence and control your mood, lifestyle, actions and words! I think its frightening that most people have so little control over what goes on in their heads. There are many times throughout the day whenour mind simply drifts, this happens a lot when we are driving, our subconcious mind takes over and we go on autopilot until something calls our concious mind to attention. If we are not in control of our mind and our thoughts all the time then who or what is? Other people are! How many times throughout the day are you aware of yourself, and what you're thinking? Next time you're driving, try to catch yourself thinking what your thinking. And try to stay in that awareness, being conscious of each thought that comes to mind while you're driving. .



Acknowledging the existence our dark side.

Self discovery is achieved by self observation, the continual practice of minute to minute scrutiny of your thoughts. and the observation of others in their behavior and their reaction to situations. A person on the road to self discovery is a person who has a true desire to understandhuman nature, not human nature taught by Darwin or Freud or any theory, but the truest human nature through strict observation of what is real. A person who truely understands his nature, is worth more than a roomful of sigmund freuds. A person who understands himself to a high degree, understands other people better than others understand themselves. This is because at some point of observation one discovers that all people act out of the same set of motives. We are more alike then we lead each other to believe. When shakespeare was very correct in saying "all of life is a stage" We are like actors on a stage, we enjoy fooling others as much as we enjoy fooling ourselves over our true intentions. Everyone has a darkside to them, but almost no one will admit it. Sometimes we mask our selfish dark motives with a good intention. A person  begins his or her journey of self discovery by first acknowledging the existence of their dark thoughts,. Admit it, we harbor a lot of not so nice thoughts about even our closest friends and family members. A personwho is unwilling to admit and acknowledge this has not even scratched the surface of understanding self. The truth is our dark side exists whether you acknowledge it or not. Acknowleding it doesn't place the darkness there, It is there because you have not gotten rid of it. You have not gotten rid of it because you never paid much attention to its existence each time it surfaces in your thoughts and deeds. A persons dark side is that part which harborsall their unwanted emotions, Fear, Jealously, Rage, insecurity, guilt. The good news is acknowledging the nasty feelings that are in you, weakens their hold on you. Continual monitoring of these thoughts eventually causes them to fade away.  

EGO BLANKETS ITSELF IN NICENESS

SUPERIORITY

inner superiority

All ideas of superiority stem from the  ego self.  In fact the idea of superiority is the foundation of the human ego.  All thoughts of ego are rooted in self superiority or inferiority in comparison to another.  Superiority exists in 2 forms.  Inner superiority feeling that you are emotionally stronger than others, feeling that you are beyond rejection, feeling that can control anything that comes your way emotionally.  An example of a person with a large superiority/ego complex is Donald Trump.  I use him because he is a current popular example that we all know about.  Having read a couple of his books about business(which teach very little about business and deal more his fabulous lifestyle)and observing him on tv, his ego is very obvious.  Donald likes to talk about the amount of money he has, and has a strong distaste for criticism.  For those who criticize him he would say "let them make 5 billion first then come talk to me"  This is his cocky ego talking..feeling that he has made achievements far and beyond most human beings, he has the right to talk in this manner.  However, here is how a truely SELF confident person would have responded.  He would have let the situation rest because he would have felt no need to defend his ego.  Also he likes to ask other people's opinion about his girlfriend or fiancee, whether they think she is pretty or not. As one begins to achieve true inner confidence others will notice that he or she no longer asks the opinion of others in ego related issues.  I pose him as an example because on television he appears to be a very confident person, which is the type of falsely confidence that we look up to and emulate.  His ego/ false confidence is protected and walled by his many outter accomplishments, associations, and wealth.  Though it appears to be confidence..false confidence is always built on a foundation of outter achievements, and false confidence can be taken away, when the friendships, materials and wealth that built the foundation of the false confidence is entirely taken away.  The measure of a wealthy man with true confidence is to take away all his wealth, and relationships built from wealth.  If he remains a happy man, then he has placed no value of his "self definition" as being a wealthy person with a lot of friends., then you can call him confident.   It may be possible to accumulate wealth while attaining true confidence, but it requires that the person be careful to never let their achievements go to their head, rather the must know what makes them great from the inside out,.  Once a person realizes why he or she is worthy of respect, then they in turn will realize why ALL OTHERS are worthy of the same level of respect.  A person who demands respect based on his or her achievements falls short in understanding why he or she is worthy of respect based on nothing.  This type of person will demand respect without giving it first to all others,.. this is the foundation of false confidence.  The foundation of TRUE confidence is first finding out why and then accepting the fact that  you are respectable and deserving of love and acceptance from all human beings unconditionally.  Only then will this person also give out respect and love unconditionally.  This is the only type of person who has achieved confidence in life...all others still suffer from dillusions of chasing false confidence.  Real confidence somes from self acceptance.



outter superiority

Outter superiority is much easier to detect.  Outter superiority is the cause of all racial prejudice.  It is superiority human beings use to judge one another and dominate each other through  physical features race, gender,religion, height, strength, nationality, customs, wealth, etc.  The root of all outter superiority is ego.  Since ego is the cause of racism, it is the single most destructive idea that is given to humanity.  The overwhelming majority of religions in the world today is based on superiority.  Each religion believes their beliefs and their God is either superior or the only one in existence, this includes athiests too who believe they too are superior for not being conned into a religion or belief of a god.  Each religion believes their sacred texts are the the truest most accurate words of god.  ALL human tragedies, wars, and struggles have been caused by the idea of superiority over another.  This is the saddest idea ever given to humanity and it is our choice to overcome it or continue the trend and keep killing ourselves.  All the love, prayers, charity, kindness and unconditional acts of love are greatly outweighed by this effects and actions taken by you and me over this devestating idea of self superiority.  Racial superiority is everywhere,.. being Taiwanese I know its VERY prevailant in that country as mainland chinese are looked down upon and detested as well as Thai and Philippino workers who come to the Island.  America has its history of racism as everyone is aware of and we havent grown past it.  Today 80,000 people have died in the Sudan from the effects of Racism.  The idea of Superiority is the SINGLE BIGGEST MOTIVATION which drives humanity from our short history to this day.  At this moment it would do the world the most justice to work on ourselves and overcoming all personal inner obsticals of prejudice, racism, and religious superiority and not simply hiding it.  That is a bigger gift to humanity than anything money, prayer, and help put together.  This is because the personal transformation of one person will cause an immediate effect on all others surround us, it spreads like wildfire eventually to change a nation and the world.  I am not telling anyone to give up prayer, meditation or charity, those are very great things, but none of those can permanently change the world.  They are fleeting acts of kindness to a world that needs strong action and permenant change.  

Racial Superiority Caused

Hitler and Nazi Germany to kill over 20 million Russians, 6 Million Jews, 3 Million Poles, and Millions of other Gypsies, Handicapped, Homosexual, Mentally retarded, people of both German and other origin.

Slavery in the United States and Racism up til today.

Slavery and Social Ethnic groups in all nations of the world... India, Australia, South Africa, African Colonies, West Indies,

Japanese and Chinese Americans to be put into Internment Concentration Camps while German and Italian Americans were left alone.

The Murder and atrocities of Japanese on Chinese in Nanjing.  The wreakless murder of Japanese on American British and Phillipino in the Eastern front  

Iraqis Killing Kurds

Genocide in Rwanda

Genocide in the Sudan

The murder of nearly all Native Americans in North America.

This list is endless..

Religious Superiority has caused even more destruction.

The persecution of early christians by the Romans

The persecution of the remnants early christians by the latter Christian Church under Justinian.

The execution of countless Chinese who did not conform with the communists ideas, even today.

The Roman Catholic Church Persucting executing non conformists in the Inquisition.

The Crusades into the holy land for political and financial gain, murdering, raping, torturing countless non believers of christ.

Bosnians and Serbs.

The Constant Fighting between Israel and Palestinians.

War on Terror.

Anyways these lists are endless, these are off the top of my head feel free to add any conflict or period of persecution and you will find endless examples of Racial and Religious superiority, or just feel free to read the daily news.

Real confidence comes from nothing outside of yourself

Real confidence is not based on achievements.

False confidence based on achivements can be taken away, it is a house built on a weak foundation.

Real confidence is based on the solid foundation of accepting yourself for who you are right now at this given moment with all your faults.,

Real confidence is never something that is achieved in the future,..it can only be achieved in the present moment.  


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Saturday, March 12, 2005

 
FEAR OF REJECTION

Most emotional fears when involving human relations are caused by fear of rejection. This is the most deeply seated of all fear as far as human interaction is concerned.  As a child we cried when your parents scolded us and feared losing their love, people of a minority race often experience some type of racial prejudice rejection growing up,  We may fear rejection from a new group of friends, from family, from not being good enough in school, from not being good enough at our jobs, the fear of rejection is everywhere in different forms it is the very core fear that causes us to feel "not good enough"  It is the motivating fear that causes us to wonder what other people think of us, it is the fear that causes us to care about other peoples opinions of us.  The vast majority of human beings are effected by this fear, those who claim to be beyond fear of rejection in almost ALL cases are lying to themselves in order to feel they evolved more than they presently are.  A person who no longer fears rejection has no need to mention it to others, and has nothing to prove to himself or herself or those around.  Often after a hurtful incident when our ego is bruised we will feel numb. In this situation we often have a feeling of not caring what other people think of us, we feel emotionally numb and any further that hurts us emotionally doesnt effect us any more.  Often times people who are emotionally numb after they have experienced hurt and rejection will claim,,,they are immune to rejection.  This is completely false, and shows a lack of understanding of rejection's nature.  They are simply numb from rejection and that numbness lasts only a day or two until they build up their egos again.  A person in this state may feel he or she is beyond rejection because he or she is already in great emotional pain and any further pain added to it will have little effect.. Its like someone soaking you with a garden hose, you're already wet it wouldnt matter if someone poured a little more water on you after that.   That is the same thing with our emotions after rejection.  The truth is everyone we know CARES what other people think of us, we are not beyond it, but it is good to be honest about where we are and work on it.

If we are a person who is constantly seeking approval of others, we fear their rejection. The reason we fear rejection is because we have low self esteem, and a big .possibly cocky ego. Having low self confidence and a big ego come hand in hand. You can't have one without the other, its just a matter of how well you cover the other with defensive walls around your ego.  In the end all human beings who have not discarded their ego seek approval of others,their friends, family, wifes, husbands, girlfriends, people they would like to date, peers, bosses, etc. It is simply more obvious is some people than others, none the less everyone seeks approval.

The only real way to overcome fear of rejection is by first accepting its there, and recognizing it each time it comes up. Making yourself aware that it is happening while it is happening and not fighting it is the first major step in its removal.  Not accepting its there and pretending you are beyond it strenthens the hold of this great fear on you.  In the end fear of rejection stems from our ego as well, our ego would convince us that we are beyond this fear to ensure its own survival.  When you feel you are beyond being hurt from rejection, it is simply your ego trying to convince yourself of your superiority again.. there has never been a more dangerous idea to the human race than superiority,.  

:o AWESOME AWESOME stuff bluejasn :o

Thanks create,

Im glad these papers are going to use to someone other than me,, it helped me just to write it
I was inspired to finally write it the past 2 months,, but its been floating in my head for quite a while.  Theres more ill keep cutting and pasting until were caught up to the present.

Jaosn

HUMAN NATURE NOT SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Survival of the fittest never has been the nature of man. I think it is a sickness to believe that

our nature is to think for ourselves and not care for other people to the point of letting them die

because they are not as fit as us to survive. In the animal kingdom I suppose it is survival of

the fittest as far as species are concerned. The danger however is people like to carry this

belief into human affiars. It is a scapegoat to all kinds of selfish actions we

all do and it is time this damaging belief came to an end. Lets go back to grade school,

remember not everything we were taught in class was a fact. Even though we rarely question

the things we learn growing up its a sad fact. If it was our nature to not care for those weaker than

us then we would just let the people caught in the recently tsunami die. Obviously because

they were unfit to survive, they have poorer technology no early warning detection, not enough

emergency service personnel, not enough clean water, hey they can all die then. To the millions

of people who were displaced and facing starvation and thirst, the world came together out of

compassion to help them out, expecting nothing in return. If human instinct was actually

survival of the fittest we would have have let those people all die because they are weak and

unfit to survive in this harsh world, no water? Tough luck, no food? Too bad not my problem

thats nature, its their time to die cause they are weak. Thankfull it didnt happen that way and

human nature came in and took over. If a small child fell out of a tree, you would without thinking

automatically react to try and catch and save it. That is our real instinct,.. If our instinct was survival of the

fittest, then I guess you would notice it fall and casually walk by. The idea of survival of the fittest

being our human nature has its draw backs in people having become conditioned to be cold and

feeling like we owe nothing to our fellow man. For example there is a video of a woman being

kidnapped from a parking lot of a shopping center. Two men jump out of the car and grab her

as people stand by and watch. What was going through their minds? You can bet their first

automatic response was to run and save the poor girl. Sadly however, our social mental conditioning

sets it. And we tell ourselves...its survival of the fittest. We can't be responsible for her, what if

we get hurt? We don't want to get hurt or involved in other people's problems, the risk is too great.

If that werent enough, in a parking lot full of witnesses no one even bothered to report it to police!

This is certainly human contioning at its lowest point. Heres the measure of nature vs conditioning.

Human nature is automatic, and occurs without thinking...that is compassion. Conditioning is when

your brain(ego) kicks in and says...."hey..whats in it for me? I have a lot to lose here I could get kidnapped too.

I don't want those scary people after me too." Though I am not advocating that people should try to

overpower those men who might have guns, they could have at least called the police!

You speak about unconditional forgiveness, how about the worst type of people who committed inhumane atrocities against humanity like Hitler? Should those people be forgiven too, don't they deserve their just punishment?

All fear and anger is a cry for help.

There is no one in this world, regardless of what they have done to each other who does not deserve forgiveness. The very idea of forgiving some people and not others, or drawing an arbitrary line where forgiveness ends is not Unconditional love but an act of fear that they are bad creations. A perfect being does not create bad creations nor does it make mistakes. Hitler's punishment may be the guilt he feels over the millions he killed from a false feeling of superiority rather than a divine punishment from God.

Hitler's punishmet would be in congruity to Universal Law, he will experience and equal and opposite reaction to what he has done,  and this may be a psychological reparation, he will be made fully aware of what his actions have done to so many and how he has hurt so many, he will not be punished as an arbitrary act from God nor will he be punished forever. Hitler acted out from fear, his fears like any human are rooted in the lack of self love and this lack of self love and acceptance manifests itself with a protective layer of ego, his ideas of personal superiority was a manifestation of his fearful ego. Once we become fully aware and responsible souls the hardest thing we can do is recognize that we hurt another person. Hurting others is easy when we have blinders on to impair the hurt we cause from our actions, but in the world beyond these blinders(our ego) doesnt exist, hence he will realize what he has done with full awareness of how much pain he has caused each individual persecuted,..if anything the pain of knowing he has inflicted so much pain on others is worse than a hell of fire and brimestone, it is a hell of knowning how far he has failed to come close to expressing unconditional love, which is our creators will for us on earth. How we go about it, or whether we even choose to go about it is up to us.. We are like kids in a preschool, we make mistakes, some people make BIG spiritual mistakes, some make smaller mistakes, but a loving parent will always forgive the mistakes with the wisdom that mistakes are what causes us to grow. We all make mistakes, we all do bad things, some a lot worse than others, but without this experience, without the experience of relativity,love and fear, hot and cold, left and right, large and small, here and there, we would have no opportunity to make mistakes, with no place to go and nothing to do, existence would be a single, static, motionless awareness. But it is my belief that we do have mistakes, and we do have the choice to learn from  them, whether we choose to learn and change is up to us, the Universal law of reaction will always show us when we are going astray with our fearful mistakes it is an automatic nudge for us to put us back into the right direction. However I would urge everyone to take piece of mind in knowing that in the end an Unconditionally Loving Creator forgives even the worst of mistakes made by his creation because the creator sees the big picture of evolution and knows that mistakes are part of the experience to building an evolving soul. Just as we as a world evolved greatly as a result of the devestations caused by World War 2, so does a fearful soul like Hitler evolve by acknowledging and coming to grips with his  personal devestations. Perhaps perfection is not always doing the right thing, perhaps in the smaller picture thats what perfection appears to be.

Trying to live by a standard far above what we are currently capable of and being punished if we fail. But I would argue that in the bigger picture, that perfection is accepting the neccessity of Good and Bad, and knowing they are vital to each other. Perfection is blessing the good and bad. Perfection is unconditional love, unconditional love is knowing that the bad is neccessary for the good to know itself and blessing the bad for giving the good that opportunity. In the end everything and everyone is good and perfect created in the likeness of our creator. But perhaps like Shakespeare says "All the lifes a stage, and we are merely actors" Perhaps this time around we cast ourselves as the good guys because last time  we played the bad guys. And in coming onto the stage of life we caused ourselves to forget all the good we know in each other, so that we may fully experience the dynamics of the 2 polar differences of Love and Fear in their fullest expression. Perhaps all the Bad guys ever needed was for some good guy to remind them of all the good they had in them.  In the end, it is in the nature of our creator to forgive all his creation, . The only question is will the creation overcome all he has done and choose to accept respnsibility for how much hurt he has caused and then learn to forgive himself of it? When we come to full awareness of the hurt we have caused it is the most difficult thing in the world to forgive ourselves.

We must realize that some bad events are intended to happen not by God but by humanity. Since we are given a free will are are free to do what we choose without interference. Hitler for example was a reflection of what was going on in our world at the time, it revealed to the world in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS how Spiritually unevolved we still were, while being very technologically evolved with ehough weapons to destroy our world. Hitler could not have existed in a world where humanity found its peaceful nature. Hitler words could only be taken to heart by individuals and a nation who harbored incredible hatred, anger, resentment, fear ,jealously and racism towards others. Hitler's words could only be heeded by a world where racial superiority was not only accepted by commended by the masses. The heartless massacre of 20 million people was in short a wake up call to the world to let us all know just how far we had actually evolved. It challeneged our status quo in which we were at the time too content with. It challenged our currently morale beliefs at the time (especially racism in the United States) our cultural stories (survival of the fittest) and our religious beliefs( many nazis including the SS also believed in Jesus Christ). Sometimes an individual like Hitler will come along and give the world a wake up call, that is what Hitler did, not intentionally but nonetheless it was a wakeup call to the rest of the World.

It was a wake up call to African Americans who were still second class citizens with no voting priveledges and went to fight and die in the white man's war.

It was a wake up call to the Women in the United States who realized they could take over the factory jobs their men held before the war and do an equal job.

It was a wake up call to Japan to show that their brand of fanatic Nationalism, racism and inhumanity towards fellow humans would not be accepted by the world at large.

It was a wake up call the the Germans that said Racism, and Anti Semetism would no longer be accepted in this world.

It was a wake up call to Chinese Americans who were herded into gathering posts(Santa Anita Race Track) and internment carmps  along with the Japanese because all us Asians looked alike to the white Americans.

It was a wake up call to all Patriotic Japanese Americans including the 442nd who fought valiantly for a country that considered their kind not only 2nd class citizens but possible spies for the enemy.  Interestingly enough the Neisei 442nd was the most decorated Unit of all American Units fighting in World War 2, for bravery valour and courage under fire.  

It was a wake up call to the Scientists at Los Alimos who created the first nuclear bomb not knowing if the fission chain reaction might continue forever and destroy our entire world.

It was a wake up call to the world to know that man now possed the technology to create weapons that could detroy the world many times over.



We all know Hitler was a brutal dictator who killed tens of millions in inhumane ways. The more important question is what was the world like before Hitler came along and shook things up?

In 1939 - 80 Years after the Civil war, blacks were still little better than slaves in the United States. Blacks had no voting rights, separate faucilities for restrooms, restaurants, schooling, and countless every day activities.

In 1939 and in WW2 black soldiers who inlisted in the Army were generally not allowed to fight, with few exceptions, they were given jobs as truck drivers, and cooks.  They were only given jobs as engineers when they could prove that they were "intellegent" enough to operate "complicated" machinery.

In 1939- Although Jesus preached about being brothers to everyone, the popular majority of Christians and Catholics still treated blacks, chinese, jews, and any non whites with racism and prejudice and disregarded that portion of Jesus's message.  Interestingly enough, even though it was accepted for white cathlolics to feel superior to blacks, jews, and chinese, Catholics themselves were looked upon by the majority Protestants as being lower class citizens and people in the eyes of God as well.

In 1939 Racism and Anti Semetism was a common household thing to the majority of white families in the US, in both the North and South.

In 1939 Women were also treated somewhat as second class citizens, they were not found in professional jobs such as Doctors, Lawyers, or even factory work. Women were far from being seen as equal to men in every respect.- Without world war 2 and women proving themselves in the munitions factory that armed the Allied soldiers, how much longer would it have taken women to enter the work force?

In 1939 Racism towards asians Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans caused them to be placed into Concentration camps. The Japanese were thought of as spies for the Rising Sun while the Chinese people were also tossed in because the white people couldnt really tell the difference between the two and didnt care much to find out. The German Americans however were free to go about their daily business including many German Americans sympathetic to the Nazi cause,because racism went by the color of your skin not nationality or allegiance to country.  

In 1939 Germany and Europe Hating Jews was nothing new or extra ordinary it was a customary thing for the past millenium. It was popular to hate Jews, Gypsies, Gays and Handicapped people.

In 1939 Germans held an belief in the superiority of their blood, they believed they were a master race because.

In 1939 Western World blonde hair and blue eyes was thought to be superior to all other variations. This belief is still somewhat held today but we have come a long way since then.

In 1939 Japanese held a fanatical sense of superiority over the other asian races and even white races, they believed they were better than Chinese, Korean, Phillippino,Thai or any other western race.

These are just a few choice examples of what the world was like before World War 2 brought these issues to the attention of the world. People lived their

lives accepting the status quo as ok and never gave a second thought that there should be any change to their system of living. Then Hitler came along

and shook things up and as a result of his henious actions and World War 2....

Woman soon knew that they were the equal of men in the work force, this started the trend of women working and stepping away from the housewife role.

African Americans and Japanese Americans who fought Valiantly in World War 2 demanded their equal respect from the white majority for having fought bravely and died for their country.

Anti Semetism in the US ceased to become common place among the whites. A greater Tolerance for all races and religions was then taught to children.

Genocide of a race was agreed to no longer be tolerated in the world community.

A new nation Israel was created in Palestine which gave the Jews of the world a place to call home.

Japan gained a new found respect and admiration for the west. It was the doctrine of an American General during occupation and recovery

that guided Japans automotive industry into becoming a dominating factor in the worlds automotive industry.

It makes me think, without world war 2 would antisemetism be more prevailant today? Would blacks even have the right to vote? How much

longer would it have taken for women to enter the work force? Would racism towards asians living in the US still be commonplace? Would I

even be allowed to live in the United States, or would I even want to live in a country that is racist towards non whites? My conclusions is

sometimes the fastest way for the world to evolve as a whole is through war. This is because War brings up issues that the individual nations

like to keep quiet. War forces a nations dark secrets into the lime light, where peacetime forces the underpriveledged memebers of a nation

to go on living their daily lives and enduring spiritual injustice.

In history people like Hitler are sometimes needed to give the world a wake up call and show what evil can possess mens hearts. While

revealing Hitler's evil war causes our own evils and prejudices to surface into national and world attention that we previously ignored. Just like our character can only be forged through difficult

circumstances, the character of the human race can quickly be fine tuned through world wide calamity. How far have we come as a nation since

Hitler? How far have we spiritually evolved as a world? Sadly,for reasons of racial superiority, even today we don't live up to our word to stop Genocide.

Are we overdue for another calamity or world war that shakes up the earth in order to bring us closer together? Or do we now choose to evolve

willingly and take our past mistakes more seriously.


7:24 PM - add eprops - add comments - email it


We can only love our neighbor to the extent we love our self. We are already extending to our neighbor how we feel about our self -- that is the problem to having no peace on earth. Most people are so filled with fear, low self esteem, anger, anxiety, lack and separation — that this is what we are giving to each other and perpetuating in this world we co-create.


7:21 PM - add eprops - add comments - email it


Friday, March 25, 2005

 
A Promise is never Forever

I propose that the human race stop making promises they can't keep. People somehow feel obligated to make false promises or don't understand themselves well enough to not make certain types of promises.  Promises are potentially dangerous because they set up an expectation that the words will be carried through.

All long term promises are trouble regardless of what the topic is love or business, contracts are broken  licenses are enulled. The biggest problem with making promises far into the future is that people are constantly changing their minds! Yep...the mind is a tricky thing we are swayed from one moment to the next by emotions, situations, circumstances that sometimes seem entirely out of our control. Call it the tides of life, chance, luck, fate whatever...we don't know how they will think or react from one moment to the next. Inevitably people end up changing their minds as new circumstances come along an old love from the past, the tragic loss of a partner, a new job opportunity across seas, or even something as simple as a stupid argument that sparks anger and frustration can cause an end to a promise. I think there is a more important question to ask ourselves in regards to promises. If someone has made you a promise and fails to keep it,...Why would you want them to keep it? Take the example of the relationship you have been in.that a promise was made and not lived up to. Perhaps your love interest found interest  elsewhere but months before had promised you a long loving future together. Why would you want your ex to live up to that promise if that is no longer their desire? What fun would it be to have someone who no longer shares the same feelings for you live up to a promise out of duty

Often I have heard friends and people everywhere on tv or in books talk about finding your "One True Love" anyone who has been even in 1 relationship taking the time to reflect on it with open eyes knows there is no such thing. Anyone who has open eyes and sees the appalling statistics of 50%+ divorce rates knows that is just  an illusion that is bound to cause more hurt than good in the long run.  Sorry friends, but we are not here on this earth to find our "one true loves" in the end our purpose has more to do with learning to like then love ourselves more and more. Only to the degree that we like/love ourselves can we unselfishly like/love to others. Only to the degree that we accept our faults, shortcomings, mistakes own up to them and eventually learn to forgive, accept and possibly one day laugh at them can we overlook the faults, shortcomings and mistakes of our friends and peers. There is a lot of danger in labels because each label we have we associate with an unconscious expectation.

For instance...many people associate a promise of "forever:" with emotional security. They think...well my boyfriend or girlfriend has promised me we will be together forever., then they feel safe to imagine about a future marriage, kids, pets, and a house. Soon the words "forever" take greater effect over the mind and we start getting a false sense of security on our relationships. There is really nore real security in relationships, even if you are married...just look at the statistics of how many married people cheat on their spouses, that on top of divorce will paint you a realistic picture about security even in our most sanctified of practices, marriage. The only security there is, is in knowing that relationships are inseure by HUMAN NATURE,.

But why are relationships by nature insecure? It all has to do again with the real reasons relationships exist.  By now I hope you have the courage to see them for what they are...opportunities. Yes thats right, relationships give us opportunities to experience preconceived ideas we had about ourselves that we would not have a way to experience without experiencing. Also it is about learning to love yourself. Think of how hard it drives home a lesson about self acceptance when the one person you trust and love the most leaves you because they found someone better. Wow, what damage it would do to the ego. Many people however miss this lesson, in fact the vast majority of people miss this lesson or opportunity to learn to like and love themselves and accept themselves to a greater degree. This is because they want a quick fix to the pain or they want to slowly drown out the pain by other methods,...other love interests, alcohol, drugs, tv, movies, books, friends, anything that will take their minds off a situation that makes no sense, anything to take their minds of the hurt. When we do this..sadly we miss a golden opportunity to accept and love ourselves to a greater degree. Then shortly after that we quickly seek to rebuild our bruised and battered egos,. our fragile egos once again gets broken! Again we sadly miss another golden opportunity to realize what damage our large egos do to us,. The observer of life's truth knows that all the pain we have from a failed relationship is caused solely by one thing....our own EGO, AKA our Pride.

And I was always taught pride was a good thing.

There are many reasons for why we have relationships, NONE of them have to do with finding our "ONE TRUE LOVE" or our "SOUL MATE" regardless of what prime time tv, pop music and movies have taught you.  Another purpose for relationships is to allow both parties to experience Forgiveness as illustrated in one of my favorite Children's fable about life, I hope you find it as insightful as I have.

LOVE IS RESPECT

We can't disrespect someone and also love them at the same time. The idea is a contradictory. A sure sign that we have love for someone is if we have respect for that individual. When we treat an object or a person disrespectfully we have shown them fear. Some people think love and respect are two different things, and I have often heard it say in long relationships between a couple married for decades that the more important thing that kept them together all those years was mutual respect rather than love. They say love is important but without a healthy respect for your siginficant other your relationship will fail. This is a great observation offered by those who have managed such long lasting relationships. I agree completely with their idea of the importance of respect. However, I believe that respect is an aspect of love not something

different. The mistake we make is to associate those butterfly feelings of nervousness, and excitenment with love. When we meet someone new we feel a sense of excitement, we get nervous around the individual and wonder if they share the same feelings for us. We call all this being bitten by the love bug. That is why we're so confused by love when eventually it leads us atray and to do fearful insecure things. The truth is we were never in love, we were infatuated by a new person, and a new excitement. Excitement is not love, excitement is excitement and when we associate excitment with love and happiness we will always end up with depression. That is

the mistake we make in misunderstanding what love is, we think it is associated with excitement. Love CAN cause excitement but Love is NOT excitment. Fear can also

cause exitement but Fear is also NOT excitement. Once we get definitions straight in our head we will have less confusion and heartache over love.

Monday, April 04, 2005

So a few people have asked me about the Ego paper,..not so much any questions but more like "Did you write it?"  Yes I did,   These are ideas I've had from observing my life experiences, the life experiences of friends, family, books, internet articles, movies, song lyrics  etc from the past 6 years.    I'm writing it partially for myself too, to get these thoughts and ideas out of my head and on to paper so I can examine them.  In some cases Im learning more about these ideas as I write them., and after I write them more ideas connect to make sense and I get ideas for more articles.  Many of these articles are posted the day they were written.  There is no single idea that speaks to everyone so if you can take something from what is being written, great, if not I urge everyone to find their own truth, fearlessly, with the courage to question and abandon your preconditioned beliefs if they no longer hold a high enough loving truth for you.  The hardest part is having courage to search truth out for ourselves, very few people find the time, or have the courage to go against what they are told either from society or religion.  All people who set out to become self aware and challenge their limited beliefs end up with the same truths along the way.  I know as we dig more and more for truth lovingly we begin to abandon fear,   fear of death, fear of loneliness fear of rejection, fear of punishment from an angry creator.  This is because fear and love by nature can not coexist at the same time.  We are always motivated by one or the other in all the thoughts, words and actions we will ever express in life.  If we choose to believe in a fearful creator who will punish his beings for his sins if not forgiven,...then I think we have actually "missed the mark" of appreciating how infinitely greater and more loving and more forgiving our creator actually is.  In the end we always have only 2 choices, to love life or to fear what life may bring.  To love God or to fear God.  You can't love God and Fear God in the same breath and if the true meaning of love is to be fearless then how much have you actually loved God?  If life is best lived emotionally fearlessly then how much has our fear kept us from experiencing life?  

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

I have written a lot about recognizing our Ego as the first step to eliminating it, but up until now I haven't written about how to get rid of the ego. The reason why I never wrote about this is because I had no idea know to do it! Haha...I only knew that it was important to recognize my ego as the first step and I assumed that honest recognition would eliminate ego. But thats not true, it hasn't. Being aware of my ego did however, have its obvious benefits. It weaken the ego's control over me because I was now more aware of my motivation behind each of my actions and thoughts. My new awareness forced me to become very honest about what was really motivating my thoughts and actions. Many of the things I used to think,say and do,..were selfish and self aggrandizing. After I became consciously aware of my ego, I was able to monitor the true motives behind the words that came out of my mouth and the actions that I took. This very act of recognizing ego forced me to automatically ditch my "fake niceness layer" I soon realized that part was even more fake than the false ego. It was the most unreal part of me...the part I used to cloak my ego with false good intentions to fool others.  Sometimes hoping and being afraid others don't see right through the fakeness and see my true intentions or my selfish ego intentions.

On a side note this is the very reason why I have said...once we become more self aware and gain awareness of our false egos, it is very difficult if not impossible for others who have no achieved the same level of self awareness to fool us with lies or "fake good intentions". This is because we now have the ability to see right through people. We now have acquired a gift, the gift to see through the "fake nice layer" and see right into the real motivation behind ones actions and words. Was that person's action motivated by fear(ego) or love?

I must say right now also that NOT ALL of our words and actions and thoughts are motivated by our EGO. Nope probably half to a majority of them but not all of them. The remaining thoughts, words and actions we take are not calculated thoughts or words to achieve our egos desire. These impulses are spontaneous thoughts which becomes words or actions motivated by LOVE. So an "average" person may have 60%-80% of their thoughts, words and deeds motivated by the selfish ego and have the remaning percentage motivated by unselfish love.

It just dawned on me 10 minutes ago how to get rid of the EGO after we realize and admit its influence over us. SELF LOVE! Yep self love/self acceptance,...the whole spiel I was talking about also in another section was the answer all along...Let me prove to you how and why.Have you ever met a person who has a glowing personality, easy to get along with and be around and can easily make fun of themselves? We all have the ability to make fun of ourselves to certain degree and not take life so seriously(I hope). But there are a few people out there small in number that can make fun of themselves about any aspect of their life. It just dawned on me that a person who can make fun of themselves all the time must accept themself to a high defree for who they are and what they have, in short, they must love themself! Because a person who doesn't like him or herself would never make fun of himself or herself, their ego is too fragile to risk it. He or she would actually look for compliments and try to be self aggrandizing. A completely self loving person can find humor in any situation in regards to themselves and has the flexibility to poke fun of anything,own their intellegence, their social status, their education, their looks, their clothing, their car, etc because love does not care about a bruised ego


Let me give you examples....



1a) A completely self loving person can make fun of themselves and has the flexibility to poke fun of anything,

their intellegence, their social status, their education, their looks, their clothing, their car, etc because

love does not care about a bruised ego.

1b) A person who hates the way they look will put themselves down in respect to the way they look in an effort

to get sympathy from others, and have others tell them how silly they are to say such a thing....basically..

its a fish for compliments! A person who hates the way they look to an even more serious degree with say

put themselves down even more in hopes that other people will actually agree with them so they can somehow

justify the anger towards the unjust world and possibly god who created them that way.



2a) A poor person who lives in a shack who is able to poke some humourus fun at the place they live in

is self loving and self accepting! They are okay with where they live and feel no shame to hide it!

2b) A poor person who lives in a shack who never invites guest over because he or she is afraid of what

others might think when they see how he or she lives has not accepted himself or herself and is less

loving of self. This person is living in ego fear and this person's ego is the root of the shame.

3a) A completely self loving person can make fun of their own intellegence, and will not care

if others poke fun also

3b) A person who is not totally accepting of self and has their ego based on their intellegence will

only be able to make fun of their intellect to the degree their ego is not based on it. This person

will also become offended if you criticize their intellegence. ---not a fun person to be around rite--

4a) A person who is completely loving can make fun of their social or economic status. Even if

they are poor they can make fun of their position in society and at the same time work to become

more successful if they so choose.

4b) A person who is less self loving in respect to accepting themselves at their present social

status will try to justify why they are poor, they also have the option of working to bettering their

finances but feel obligated to constantly explain to others why they are poor. They will feel hurt

if others point out to them their lack of wealth.



What benefits come with loving yourself? We'll its pretty much the benefits that I listed in a previous

post.

True self confidence!

Less and less effected by criticism..

Great personality! More charismatic

will receive a lot more attention from opposite sex

receive admiration from collegues

You will become more Humourous and Funny

You will attract a lot of friends- its just more fun to be around someone who is able to make fun

of himself or herself to a great degree...people just can't offend you!

Ok at this point it sounds like Im selling some kind of 19th century coke filled concoction syrum that is a

sure cure all for all symptoms. So if you want to buy into my ideas feel free to send me an envelope with

$20. haha  ;)  :)

I sure enjoy reading your posts bluejasn.  They are very insightful ;D Thanks!