Quote:
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Originally Posted by Still_Waters
One must be able to shift between the two.
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We are already the two that is one, the one that is two.
I've never understood the reason Spiritual people use the word 'ego', and especially since it's a word from psychology and talking of the ego 'technically' is psychoanalysis. Unless what they're doing is to make ancient religion/philosophy more mainstream, but the result of that is only confusion because 'ego' is already a translation of Eastern language and culture into Western-speak. Also, the popular understanding of the ego is not the understanding of the ego itself, people mistake its 'contents' for the ego and that's where the Spiritual understanding also goes sideways. People aren't talking about the ego, what they are talking about is its 'contents'.
How our own egos 'operate' and that the words we use are reflections of our consciousness is a basic part of Self Awareness. Like the word 'little', for instance. That implies a hierarchy and something is 'bigger' than the ego and so is more important. The ego differentiates and attaches importance because one's ego is seeking status. And that's not a criticism, by the way. Ego is also 'responsible' for our sense of time, us being Spiritual and Duality amongst many other things.
The ego does not create separation, the ego is differentiated consciousness and we learn and come to realisations because of differences or dichotomies. The ego makes a difference between psychology and Spirituality, but actually there is none.
The understanding of the Self within Spirituality is a mess, frankly, and that doesn't help. The self is another word from psychology that has been redefined so that people can dissociate with their false definitions of the ego and associate with their false definitions of self. No, it doesn't make sense, does it?
Jung based his model of the ego on the Ahamkara and his model of the self on the Atman. If you Google Citta/Chitta you'll find psychology in Sanskrit.
The ego is "A sense of I am" according to Jung and is the 'sum total' of our individual perceptual reality. It gives us a perceptual point of reference from which to have a perspective and provides an interface between internal and external realities. 'Ego' is Latin for 'I'.
In Ahamkara, Aham is Sanskrit for 'I' and a kara is an 'invented thing'. Ahamkara is "The 'I' of invented things," the 'things' of perceptual/relative reality that are created. Like beliefs and how we perceive ourselves. Time, Duality...
So really, ego and Ahamkara are one and the same and both are differentiated consciousness.
The unconscious or roughly Chitta/Citta, etc. provides the 'framework' for our perceptual/relative realities.
The self has no sense of self of its own, and it's this understanding that opens up the understanding for us being Atman and by extension Brahman. The self 'contains' both the unconscious and its 'contents' and the conscious and its 'contents', and the sense of self comes from the ego and not the self.
There was a documentary of Life in a monastery that put it all into perspective, and here's what the ideology doesn't tell you. There was a group of monks who has successfully, transcended their egos, the only problem was that they needed to be spoon-fed and their nappies changed. As to whether they could experience a perception of "I am transcendent of my ego," since the sense of it comes from the ego.... In severe trauma the ego 'collapses' into the self and it leaves the person floating around in their own skulls like a spaceman with no sense of up or left.
The importance or not of the ego is ego and the ego attaches importance because an individual ego can seek status. Most people's "Sense of I am" is important to them, along with their beliefs, knowledge and everything they think makes them who and what they perceive themselves to be.
The ego remains and regardless of how the 'contents' of one's ego changes there is still 'I am'. Even in dissolution there is still a singularity of consciousness, but the understanding is that it's the 'contents' that are 'dissolved' and not the ego itself.
Th self 'contains' both the unconscious and its contents, and the ego and its 'contents'. It is undifferentiated consciousness and has solved the paradox between differentiated and undifferentiated consciousness by not creating one in the first place. Duality is the mind's inability to do the same. That is the consciousness of the self/Atman. The self is both Absolute and relative reality.
With respect to your Sufi Mystic and having come from the understanding of a trainer/assessor by trade, sometimes a popularised and 'truncated' understanding is what is needed at that time.
that quote ! I had never heard it before but it resonates well. 
) so we can go one step further.
Linear Mode
