Ego Death

[fairbanks]

Well said Beezle. A lot of this (ego)self talk is uncalled for, but being immersed in the hyper-reality of the postmodern world it makes it hard to avoid; we lack community and altruism. This is why I believe for the most part, primitive peoples were/are egoless, it's more or less a phenomena of the civilized or domesticated mind.

Why? B/c if you go by Freudian terms. The ID, is instinctual impulses or primitive needs. The Ego represents what seems subjectively to be reason and common sense as conditioned by society. It is that part of the personality which is experienced as being oneself - that which one recognizes as 'I', one's face to the world, at a particular point in time. Freud's original belief was that the job of society is to suppress the ID, which he thought irrational, making room for the ego. This dominated the first half of 20th century popular psychology.

Until the counterculture emerged with Wilhem Reich being the largest psychoanalyst influence on them. The belief was reverse of Freud - stop suppressing the ID for the ego, start suppressing the ego for the ID! Hence their affinity for Hinduism, Buddhism, Native tradition, transcendental meditation, music, art, psychedelics, etc etc.

Creativity research has traditionally regarded the creative process as involving a full or partial regression of the Ego to a more primitive state of consciousness (ID).

Primitive peoples weren't effected as much by the sense of ego b/c their outlook on reality was animistic and interconnected. All my relations. No separation. When we take psychedelics, it's like we go back to that mind set. When we are creative, we go back to that mind set. When we meditate, dance, listen to music, trance, we go back to that mind set. The ID is all we need.

Here's another great article about Ego Autonomy.

 

[Global]

Well said Beezle. A lot of this (ego)self talk is uncalled for, but being immersed in the hyper-reality of the postmodern world it makes it hard to avoid; we lack community and altruism. This is why I believe most primitive peoples were/are egoless, it's more or less a phenomena of the civilized or domesticated mind.

To be specific, I think it's a product of the specialized (and possibly dysfunctional) left brain. It is responsible for the linear, analytical, "either/or" mode of thought processing that is embodied by the ego.

 

[fairbanks]

Most definitely man! There's a reason why our ego-centric society has a 1:10 ratio of left handed people. We're a right hand(left brain) dominant society, we're out of whack, lost in the analytical ego. I wonder if there's a study out there about left handedness (right brain) or ambidexterity in primitive people... There is of course Tony Wright's book Left in the Dark for those who wanna learn more about primitive diet in relation to brain hemisphere dominance.

But who am I to call them primitive people? With their abundance and richness of life! I would use the word primitive to refer to contemporary society, with our progressive poverty of life in techno-industrial civilization.

 

[SWIMfriend]

Abraz, I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss Swimfriend's koan, especially with such derision. There wouldn't be such a deep ancient tradition of meditation if there wasn't some kind of concrete reward. The idea is that, under enough examination, many aspects of the self reveal themselves to be, in very real ways, illusory. It's way more than just a mindless Moebius strip of who/me.

Right. It's specifically NOT a word game. It's an attempt to DISASSEMBLE a "word" game we seem locked into playing--more than a word game, a game of falsely "defining" a thing.

 

[Abrazaderas]

Abraz, I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss Swimfriend's koan, especially with such derision. There wouldn't be such a deep ancient tradition of meditation if there wasn't some kind of concrete reward. The idea is that, under enough examination, many aspects of the self reveal themselves to be, in very real ways, illusory. It's way more than just a mindless Moebius strip of who/me.

Right. It's specifically NOT a word game. It's an attempt to DISASSEMBLE a "word" game we seem locked into playing--more than a word game, a game of falsely "defining" a thing.

how do we get from a state of not questioning who we are, just knowing, to questioning it? i define my task, at this point, as ceasing to question who i am. clearly i'm just a moving-around-making-noise object, and my identity - nothing and noone, everything and everyone, a drop of atoms and energy in a sea of the same. an amalgamation of biological drives and a chaos of thoughts. i've gone as far as possible down the route of denying the voice that sounds when i move from the deepest place of desire. right from the desire to breathe.

i could sit there completely happy on a park bench for years and just be what salvia shows me. egoless. and yes, its a necessity to see through ego and be able to understand its virtual nature. personally ego is weak in me - strongly literal religious and stuff. for me, growth requires that ego becomes strong enough to present myself.

what am i? who am i? another instance of human. seeks food, water, sex, power, exercise of body and mind. as that adapts to circumstance, character develops. the role i play on the stage of life becomes clear as life goes on. reacting to stimulis, act on objects, people, formations that can yield positive effects. hit on girl, be assertive with boss, play my guotar the way i like and sounds great, relax into social charisma. ego organizes the entire multifarious task of life into a consistent front. there's time to let it off and times to turn it up. what/who, is it that reigns ego in, or sics it on something? surely not ego. self. the glowing point inside. is Congruency, the number one building block of right interaction with the human world, bringing the ego more and more in line with that glowing point? perhaps.

i know that detachment from ego is required to use ego accurately. but ego's use in life is utterly invaluable! as far as chicks go, the last time i just sat with a girl and ran my mouth,gouged ego hard, she kissed me passionately out of the blue... eckheart tolle has 0 animal magnetism and either has brain damage or no force of will squirting from his spine.

as far as the tradition of meditation... well people noticed that some people who had what they wanted would sit still, relaxed, and quiet for long periods. so through imitation the practice turned into a teaching... only the error and commercialism snowballs and builds. if you really, really question anything you can disintegrate its reality. is this conducive to survival? note that a eastern chakra system is the inverse of a western equivalent... what a hindu means by going from root red to crown violet would be more like getting ones mind back to the physical, down the rabbit hole, into the abyss, the unconscious. not a further abstraction. traction, instead.

just my 2 cents. everything is illusion to me, everything, right down any preference about whether or not to end this existence out of curiosity. to touch what is real, like the taste of salt, the sensation of bare skin, the feel of pain, the joy of victory and desperate struggle. Ecstasy.

the very concept and word 'ego' stands for an unreal entity in my thought, but its the best word for my condensed representation i have. self is to expansive to de-lineate what is me and what is not-me.

 

[SWIMfriend]

...everything is illusion to me, everything, right down any preference about whether or not to end this existence out of curiosity...

LOL...I'm typing that at an...interesting time (hehe, drawn to the Nexus).

I would like to say that many of the very WORDS you use suggest the many IDEAS you have, like "everything" "illusion" "preference" "this existence."

If you have ideas--and attach varying levels of importance to them--and think "this and that" (too much to list, LOL), then you may not be AWARE of all the illusions you actually HAVE.

Stating "everything is illusion to me" is the expression of an IDEA, and not--AT ALL--a direct expression of the experience and understanding that "everything is illusion."

Which doesn't mean I'm trying to say anything in particular about YOU--whom I don't know. I'm just saying...LOLOLOLOL

HA! And I'm not loling toward you...my mind is sort dissolving! LOL.

 

[Abrazaderas]

...everything is illusion to me, everything, right down any preference about whether or not to end this existence out of curiosity...

LOL...I'm typing that at an...interesting time (hehe, drawn to the Nexus).

I would like to say that many of the very WORDS you use suggest the many IDEAS you have, like "everything" "illusion" "preference" "this existence."

.my mind is sort dissolving! LOL.

i could always abandon all distinctions, go limp, lie still, stay silent, don't move eyes. just soar into catatonia... have my diapers changed for me... eat through tubes... be one!

 

[fairbanks]

"i could always abandon all distinctions, go limp, lie still, stay silent, don't move eyes. just soar into catatonia... have my diapers changed for me... eat through tubes... be one!"

That's not loosing your ego, that's just being an unconscious douche.

Integration is key. Transcend, don't forget. Be above, not beyond.

 

[Beelzebozo]

SWIMfriend hits the nail on the head yet again.

"Everything is an illusion" is also just a concept.

"Nothing" is a concept. "Everything" is a concept.

What does that leave?

:lol: [Laughter]

 

[SWIMfriend]

i could always abandon all distinctions, go limp, lie still, stay silent, don't move eyes. just soar into catatonia... have my diapers changed for me... eat through tubes... be one!

Sorry. I'm back (lol).

I just think you have so much to SAY--and seem to have the NEED to say it so forcefully--that I have trouble reconciling that with your assertion that "everything is illusion."


EDIT: The impression your statements give is that everything is illusion EXCEPT your ego...

...and I think the "truth" may be EXACTLY the opposite.

 

[jamie]

meh..to be honest ego death is somewhat overrated within the psych community IMO. There is much more to the pyschedelic experience than just ego death. Ego death in this sense is a projection of eastern philosophies onto experiences that have occured for a long time within Native American cultures who did not necessarily care one bit about ego death.

It is interesting when it happens and can be a useful experience to have, but it has not been the most facinating part of my relation to tryptamine bearing plants.

It is just sort of one more hang up..why should an ego death experience mean more than many of the other experiences we have on these things? For me I have learned the most while interacting with other beings/levels/ideas w/e while my own ego is still somewhat intact.

It is hard to really learn much from ego death, other than it can humble you and you *can* experience unity(though many just dont remember anything)..I have had complete unitive experienes with my ego still intact..that is probly what I have gotten the most out of.

The ego needs to be kept in check though, no doubt. I just feel like so much ego death talk is just more babbling ego's.

 

[Global]

I agree with you 100% jamie. Most of my most meaningful experiences have been when my ego has been intact so I can interact and take note of my surroundings and circumstance as well as unitary experiences with the ego intact. If "I" hadn't been there, it couldn't have been the same or have had as significant an impact.