Is the ego really separate from anything?

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Kioma

Jyotir's point is proven with a simple mental experiment.

Imagine that you have psychic powers. Imagine that you are able to tap into another's awareness, and that with effort you can tap into the awareness of anything, sentient or not.

We will start small. Imagine that you meet someone on the street. You start concentrating, and his thoughts become your thoughts. His memories become your memories. His consciousness becomes your consciousness.

Are you still in there? Of course! You are still you - or are you? The human consciousness is pretty crowded with the awareness of one life, but now you have two. At that level of awareness, you now feel split. Are you you, or are you him? Actual complete awareness of this other consciousness has doubled your consciousness - but now your self identity is only half, because you have two lives in your consciousness.

But we don't stop there. You see another person, and again you concentrate. Suddenly you have tripled your consciousness - and your self identity is cut down to one third.

But you keep going. Your consciousness, your openness, your awareness is soaring! You've never felt anything like it! It's incredible! A sudden understanding of humanity pours through you as your consciousness expands without bounds! It is incredibly freeing! But at the same time, with every new consciousness that enters yours, you feel less and less personal thoughts about it all - you feel reflections from every consciousness, from the synthesis as a whole.

And still you go on, until you have tapped into every life on earth - and still you go on. You tap into the consciousness of the animals of the land and of the sea, and the plants and the trees and the clouds and finally the very planet itself, thinking it's rocky thoughts as it spirals round and round the sun, and then the sun, and the planets, and the void, and the entire universe.

Now you have total omniscience - and there is no individuality. How could there be? There is only... everything.

This is the trade-off. This is the price - - and the reward.

No separation!

Indeedy..how can you perceive, imagine or think your way to such a place.

Everything?

I am everything?


����=love heart and smiley face

Originally Posted by JustBe

No separation!

Indeedy..how can you perceive, imagine or think your way to such a place.

Everything?

I am everything?


����=love heart and smiley face

Surrender.

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Kioma

Surrender.

Surrender everything!

Absolutely!


The point of no return returns, but nothing like it was ..

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Ego is the identification with name/form/body. How can that be merged with God-consciousness, if it is inherently separative from God-consciousness, as it represents the exclusive cognition of name/form/body? Same answer applies. It isn’t that ego is “associated with” limited name/form/body - IT IS the very cognition of those as the exclusive being.
No , not true since as a cognition it doesn’t remain, but is annihilated or surpassed as a requisite to realization. Otherwise please tell me how or what transformation takes place that maintains ego-cognition and at the same time changes it into the awareness of Self as One Being, since it is by nature incapable of that awareness.
Association implies connection of different “things”. Removing the ego cognition allows the gnostic cognition to be more available. This is why people meditate.
Nirvana is the extinction of the entire human being, the focal consciousness withdraws fully, is extracted and no longer participates in Life. Nirvikalpa samadhi is a precursor to that finality where the person “returns” from Nirvana consciousness, but the Nirvana consciousness is then not operative in the life - it is a temporary state in meditation.
It may look similar if there is a conflation of ego with soul/jivatman/purusha which seems to be the common error. But in that case ego doesn’t remain.
Rejuvenation? Does the ego go to a spa and get massages and herbal remedies?
In the case of the prescriptions of the Gita, the differentiated individual is consciously one with the all and experiences consciousness as an instrumental aspect of the Self as One Being which it IS as Identity - which is how God see ego in its qualified conditional status - as simply aspect of Self. It knows all differentiations in any multiplicity as Self. That is why Krishna said, “ Oh Arjuna, become a mere instrument.”, meaning a conscious instrument of the All One Supreme Being.
If ego persisted it would simply be the maintenance of the false instrument of self, as divided from - not AS God-Self - thereby exercising the ignorant limitation of the ego as a separate being with a “personal will”, an ignorant limited separative cognition which is a falsehood. Otherwise we would be born realized that we are God.


~ J

Yeah, what this dude said

(supposed to be a pointing icon)

Originally Posted by Jyotir

It may look similar if there is a conflation of ego with soul/jivatman/purusha which seems to be the common error. But in that case ego doesn’t remain.
Rejuvenation? Does the ego go to a spa and get massages and herbal remedies?

Geez, Jyotir, please stop talking about me. I'll do many things for a massage. Almost.

JL

Originally Posted by God-Like

As discussed a thousand times, it ALL MIND

You can laugh with your buddy Greenslade, but the Spiritual Teachers have a different perspective, thank God


Mind, intellect, and ego are in flux. One must learn to transcend them. Go beyond, and live as the witness! In the relative plane one, who has knowledge, also has ignorance; one, who is good, also is evil. One must transcend both ignorance and knowledge.

- Swami Vivekananda


One of the first things I learned as a Buddhist was that the fundamental nature of the mind is so vast that it completely transcends intellectual understanding. It can’t be described in words or reduced to tidy concepts. For someone like me, who likes words and feels very comfortable with conceptual explanations, this was a problem.

In Sanskrit, the language in which the Buddha’s teachings were originally recorded, the fundamental nature of the mind is called tathagatagarbha, which is a very subtle and tricky description. Literally, it means “the nature of those who have gone that way.” “Those who have gone that way” are the people who have attained complete enlightenment—in other words, people whose minds have completely surpassed ordinary limitations that can be described in words.

- Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
https://www.lionsroar.com/rest-in-th...-natural-mind/


“Presence is the arising of a dimension of consciousness from where you can become aware that there is a voice in the head.

“That awareness is beyond thinking. It’s a space of consciousness where you can be the observer of your own mind—the awareness behind the thought processes.

“For human beings to discover this dimension is extraordinarily important. It is in fact, as I see it, the next step in the evolution of humanity.”

Presence allows a deeper sense of identity and improved living

“When you no longer look to the mind to provide you with your sense of identity — because your sense of identity now comes now from a deeper place — that’s the shift that changes everything, dramatically.

“It is the most important thing that can happen in your lifetime."

- Eckhart Tolle


The nature of the Mind when understood,
No human speech can compass or disclose.
Enlightenment is naught to be attained,
And he that gains it does not say he knows.

– Huang Po


Meditation empowers us to transcend our material mind-set and touch the Infinite and Eternal.

“True meditation transforms the way we see reality.... It touches the place inside us where a spark of the Eternal dwells. Meditation unites us with our true Self.”

-Rabbi Yoel Glick

And given that this is a spiritual forum, and not a psychology one, it seems to be fitting to express the differences between your perspective(s) and those of the spiritual Masters.

Yes, there is genuinely such a thing as Mastery in this endeavor,

JL

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Only what one defines as the ego can be gone, and the mainstream ego is little more than a scapegoat to point a finger at to make people feel better, and the objectification of one's judgements and prejudices. Often what is supposed to be the ego-death that is talked about in here is even more egotistical.

I beg to differ; moreso that the one who can't conceive of what egoless-ness is, uses this as a tool of projection.

How dare he/she challenge me! is the light inference

Just because you don't grok it, don't make it untrue. Just like just because the frog can't conceive of the ocean, doesn't make it untrue. I love frogs, they are so sweet.

JL

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Don't you see though that that's contradictory? If the ego can be gone completely how can one still be oneself? Or are you saying the self isn't individual?

Your statement assumes that you are the ego. Your statement also infers that you have not seen the difference between the true Lorelyen, and the ego.

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

And you see you've done it again. How can one sense the changes without an ego or at best a self? What's doing the sensing? Are you suggesting the dominant force itself is sensing the change? (Pse correct me if so.)

Again I think you are assuming that you are only the ego (refer to Jyotir's post for a more accurate explanation)

https://www.poetseers.org/spiritual-...ego-from-self/

And Kabir, for encouragement:

The bhakti path

The bhakti path winds in a delicate way.
On this path there is no asking and no not asking.
The ego simply disappears the moment you touch
him.
The joy of looking for him is so immense that you
just dive in,
and coast around like a fish in the water.
If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offer
his.

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

She's there already. Truth is unique to us individually. Whether there are many paths to it I don't know. I suspect there are several.
.

Meister Eckhart — 'Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.'

jl

Originally Posted by Kioma

This is the trade-off. This is the price - - and the reward.

That's awesome, can't say I'm not jealous

Originally Posted by God-Like

As discussed a thousand times, it ALL MIND - Psychologically speaking . Spirituality as a concept derives through MINDFULNESS .

Then this mindfulness through psychological analysis and interpretation negates the very same process to elevate a spiritual understanding of the ego

You literally can't make it up and the irony cannot be anymore present than it is in these instances .


x daz x

There are some things you just can't change regardless of how Spiritual you think of yourself as. What you can't change - unless you make the effort to 'reprogramme' - is your unconscious. Most of the processing - which for the most part Spirituality is - takes place in the unconscious and depending on the study, the conscious mind is then conscious of it some 90ms or more later. Sometimes the unconscious can 'register' things that you never become conscious of. The 'Spiritual brain' works just the same way as a regular brain and if it thinks it doesn't then there's something wrong with it.


As Einstein said - "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." What we're seeing here is not Spirituality that's 'awake' and 'aware', it's intentionally blind and separative.