There are probably inumerable ways to look at this, Bets, and I'm glad you brought it up. I will simply revisit the one which was presented to me last night in my real life, as a friend was talking about his self.

I believe there is a story about this, but it was presented to me as a reality.

I don't really understand it yet.

Perhaps the place of true "selflessness" is the hollow part of each of us, the emptiness inside, around which swirl all of our emotions, hopes, dreams, thoughts, beliefs. The center is like the eye of a hurricane. It is the calm within the storm.

Perhaps "selflessness" is not the loss of "self" or the surrender of self, but simply this space, from which all "things" spring. So, when we rest inside of this space, we are resting at the source of our creativity, at the source of all that exists in the heart.

This self says, "I want to be comforted." Because, even in its emptiness, it knows it wants to be filled, like a bowl may be filled with a cup of life-bringing tea.

So it knows what we need, all the time.

We can see more clearly there.

Just my thoughts this morning.

love, blink

Hi Bets,
Once again… good topic!  I’m probably in the minority here, but I personally think the ego has gotten a bad rap over the years.  I don’t think it is so much that we should try to set aside our ego, thereby denying the desires of self, but that we could rather strive for the integration of our ego with our higher self.  In this we would not be letting go of, or attempting to suppress the ego or our personality.  We would maintain our personal individuality and the freedom to choose what we desire to create in our life.  What we would be transforming or letting go of is the portions of the ego that has separated from the divine.  Or in other words, we are striving to reconcile the separated ego that has been “lost” because of fearful beliefs we’ve acquired.

I really like something Don said on another thread and I think this fits in with this topic so I’ve quoted him below and then I’ll try to give my perspective of how our personal guidance within each of us helps us to reconcile the separated ego by bringing the values from the higher levels of consciousness down into the lower levels of our being.

Quote:


We each brought into this incarnation all of the “tools” we need to help heal our separated ego.  To me this is the “planning” part of incarnation that may pertain to your other thread where each of us comes with both a personal task and a worldly task to accomplish.  Many choices are made to set up our energetic makeup for accomplishing our purposes and we carry this higher energy (our personal life plan) in the spiritual levels of our energy field.  Each of our spiritual energy bodies of divine will, divine inspiration or love, and divine mind directly relates to the lower vibrations of our physical energy bodies of will, emotion, and mental reasoning.  As we move more and more into a spiritually centered life we automatically begin to have experiences involving the higher levels of consciousness and energy.  Eventually we can encounter whole worlds of spiritual beings that exist.  Retrievals are one example but I’m getting off track, so back to inner guidance.

Inner guidance is always available to each of us and the more we practice the conscious use of it, the more available it is to us.  At its highest vibration within our core it is in direct connection with the alpha and the omega or all that there is within our universe and perhaps other worlds as well.  In its simplest form guidance comes in the form of physical pain or discomfort.  When we pay attention to the discomforts we feel and attend to them we help put ourselves back into balance, which makes it easier for the natural balancing/healing system contained in the consciousness of our physical body to heal itself.

Much of the time it is the separated ego that lies beneath the discomforts we feel.  Following this form of guidance means to eat when hungry, rest when tired, resolve an issue that is bothering us, etc.  The ways in which we live our lives these days certainly doesn’t make it easy for us to meet these personal needs, but if we are to become healthier and more balanced and clear, we must do this.  As we practice “listening in” to our internal messages and become more balanced and clear we also gain experiences where we start to receive messages not only from our five physical senses, but also from our expanded or higher senses.

As others have mentioned in other threads, articulating what receiving higher guidance feels like is difficult.  Each of us has differences or strengths where one sense may be easier to expand than another.  I’d say my main sense perception is in direct knowing, seeing, and occasionally hearing.  For me I’ve noticed that I am in a state of centeredness where I go fully into whatever is at hand.  It’s like thinking deeper from the center of my being.  If I close my eyes my focus is brought up to my forehead where instead of seeing from my physical eyes location I begin to see from my third eye location while my main focus remains centered or at the “thinking deeper” level.  Entering into this receptive state of consciousness to intentionally connect with guidance on higher vibrations takes practice, trust and faith.  At first directives from guidance may seem very simple and unimportant, however, following it no matter how trivial is important because it is a learning process that will help filter out what is true useful guidance and what is not by the verifications received or not received.

It takes a lot of faith to follow guidance, yet following guidance builds faith because it is designed to take us through all of the areas of our personal psyche where we have previously refused to go but must go in order to heal the separated ego.  Be prepared for it to take you into your deepest fears as well as into your deepest faith.  Faith is what connects the separated ego part of us to the greater part of us.  As we openly and humbly surrender to the greater part of our being we let go of our separated ego and trust is developed.  Surrendering to guidance… surrendering the separated ego to the greater divinity within automatically and systematically clears the way for our involuntary life force to be released.

The involuntary life force is what comes out of us when we don’t block our energy flow and this can be either positive or negative.  Following guidance systematically clears the negative, separated ego so that more and more positive life force is released and the goodness within us flows of its own accord and our reason becomes truth, emotions become love and will becomes courage.  As we continue this transcendent process, our truth becomes wisdom, our love becomes unconditional and our courage becomes power and we find God within.  We find that we are surrendering to a deeper inner power and in this surrender we find the power of God and we become an instrument of God with all the power, wisdom and love of God within.

Love, Kathy

  Is ego the same thing as Creator given individuality?   If the latter is Creator given from the beginning of individual self awareness, then perhaps it has an important and potentially eternal purpose?

Maybe ego is that which we give to ourselves, in forgetting the Creator's ways?   Maybe it is only partially important and necessary within this dimension, until enough of it has been transcended and enough inner strength cultivated?  For ego helps one to initially deal with the din, the cacophony that is range of of vibratory patterns we call, "physicality".   When the world within is completely transcended, then one doesn't need the barrier for the world without, and then these merge.

Interesting, and I find it helpful to hear you talk of elightenment as something some contemporaries are acknowledged to have achieved (with a reasonable degree of reason to accept this, presumably), and that is not just some unattainable goal that is talked of airily as possibly conferring omniscience etc (but that no one ever seem to actually attain).

I do find the idea of being completely selfless odd though. I don;t see how we can - having a body we experience things through, which experiences pain and pleasure, and a sense of seperate self , with a history and certain traits etc (even  those of us who remember many lifetimes!), how can we not be somewhat selfish, in terms of attempting to act to procure positive, peasurable results for our self (though I must say i go about this in an odd way sometimes and some of the ways I have acted have not been in my best interest at all), and taking a keen interest in what happens to this self? Or is it more that we care about self, but care equally about all others too? Is that feasible though - if we really cared as much about everyone else in the world as much as ourselves we would be in a constant state of misery and worry about wars and famine and disease etc etc and would never feel at peace. Even if we limit it to people we come across in daily life, we would, for example, not pass a beggar in the street without giving him half of our worldy wealth or something to help him out. It wouldn;t be very practical..  Or does elightenment also come with a level of detachment and lofty perspective of the big picture that helps you to act less impulsively and emotionally? Also, the average person is quite needy and wants signs that people love them, value them, affirm them etc.. Perhaps the enlightened person is finally above all that being in more or less constant contact with a universal feeling on onenes/affirmation/love . The unenlightened person also judges themselves to some degree and feels they should be achieving certain things in their lives that they perhaps lack at the moment in order to be happy - perhaps the enlightened person feels truly 'in the moment" and does not feel they need to prove anything, but just to "be"?

Good point, about how many people perhaps "make it"without us knowing - it would hardly seem the kind of thing you would go around bragging about.

Thanks for the explanations, but I have already looked into BUddhism a fair bit and am pretty familiar with most of what you say.

As you say, I guess at the end of the day it must be about a ind of experience that is not really an intellectual one.

I still find the idea of complete selflessness hard to grasp, as I say, because despite the points you make, we all unavoidably operate from inside a physical body, and have to look after it, and relate to others from it (and are treated by others as an indivudual person with certain characteristics as well).

Alysia, I love what you write here.  To be healthy in body, mind and spirit is how I would describe enlightenment because this would incorporate all of the bodies that we exist in from the highest spiritual levels of our being expressed through the physical levels of our being.

In this we enjoy our physical body senses, we love and honor ourselves and all living things, rational thought and intuition is in harmony, we understand that we are a part of a great evolutionary plan that is constantly unfolding, we experience spiritual ecstasy as we have wondrous feelings of divine love in feeling connected to all that there is.  All this can only be experienced within the self.

A question that I’ve been pondering as I read through this thread is…

If each of us were to allow the other complete freedom to live their life as they so chose, would selfishness even exist?

Love, Kathy

Interesting thread, Bets-
I wonder if I might suggest a way to experience "selflessness", rather than trying to analyze it to death.

As a simple meditative example, some quiet night, when it's late (Alysia seems good at doing things during the wee hours, for example), sit and listen. Listen to the sound of the city, or to the creaking of the woodwork, or to the wind passing.  Listen so intently that all your senses are outward directed - and in that moment there will be silence within. The "ego-thought" ceases, and is replaced by the natural state of the mind, simple awareness. There is no "ego-self" in the awareness. This is the essence of jnana yoga.

As another example, next time you're at the gym, pick a nice heavy weight and lift it. As you lift, focus on the feeling of lifting. If it's heavy enough, you'll use all your effort and attention, and the inner world will be silent as everything focusses on the lifting. In that state there is no "ego-self", but only action. This is the essence of karma yoga.

Or perhaps it would be nice to relax in the evening and look up at the sky, the stars, the sweep of millions of stars scattered through the Milky Way. As your awareness directs your attention to them, notice that you and they are all one, and that you can sense a continuity by which everything is connected. There is no "ego-self" in that realization, but simply a sense of universal unity. This is the essence of bhakta yoga.

Of course there's more to yoga than a momentary experience. To live in a selfless state means that awareness, actions and identity stay permanently pointed in a non-ego direction. Then, the ultimate end state of this sequence is to share existence at the core of all reality, to be aware without caring who it is that is aware, and to sense everything as an undifferentiated experience of oneness. This is sarvastarka samadhi (more or less). The state of living in this manner is called satchitananda,

Having said all that, the point is that we all have had these expriences. There's nothing new here. That's why all the preceeding remarks are essentially valid. It is only because we have stopped being selfless and instead have become interested in this or that because of how we relate to it, how it makes us feel, what it seems to mean etc, that has brought us back to an egocentric state of attachment. In that sense, to be selfless simply means to not be attached - including not to be attached to one's own internal soap opera.

Because everyone seems to basically have this understanding, I'm struck by the degree of enlightenment of the folks on the forum - as well as the degree to which a lot of folks seem to be unaware of how spiritually advanced they actually are.  But that's a good selfless state of mind.

d