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

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%3a18.34...

Jason

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,

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

Aside of that, nice ideas.

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

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.

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.


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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

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,.