Ego and self hater

[charly233]

It seems to me that the ego gets a really bad press in spiritual circles. Anything unloving or unspiritual is blamed on the ego. There are even teachings that tell us to kill the ego in order.to get enlightened.

But for me ego is good. My ego consciousness and my God consciousness are One. The ego needs to be loved not treated as a problem to be got rid of. It needs to be integrated as being part of the higher self.

The issue for me is not the ego but what I call the self hater. This is the part that seeks to undermine our true selves. It is the self blamer. The part that is so busy blaming itself that it fails to take responsibility .

This self hater above all hates the ego. It hates it so much that it cons the ego into seeing itself as separate from the higher self.

No wonder this estranged ego sometimes behaves erritically and unintelligenty. To make it into our friend we need to love it unconditionally.

We need to transform the self hater, the ego hater, into.a self lover.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by charly233

Ego is good.
The issue for me is not the ego but what I call the self hater. This is the part that seeks to undermine our true selves.

It's subtle because firstly one has to be honest when discerning if there is a problem, and agreed hatred and blame are problematic (whereas love is good), but then, if you become adverse to these tendencies and want to get rid of them, that is a bit of a trap because it's hatred of hatred, so one has to come to a deeper understanding because the problem can't be solved at the same level as it exists.

[charly233]

That's a very good point, Gem, about hating the hater.

For me the best approach is to allow oneself to love the self hater and to transform it into a self lover.

This may be easier said than done. This is one of the great challenges of spirituality.

[Miss Hepburn]

Fascinating and deep subject! Good thread!

[AngelBlue]

Crikey Charley, as Miss H says, very deep, but interesting.
I agree though that we all DO have to love ourselves first and foremost. They say don't they, that if we don't love ourselves how can we love anyone else.

Its a bit like when anything bad happens some people blame it on God.
I've always found that concept a bit ridiculous to be honest.

We are here on earth living in a human body , experiencing a "human " existence.
We have an ego that we have to respect , but for those of us that are religious or spiritual we need to accommodate those aspects of our existence too.
In many respects it's almost like living a double life .

[Native spirit]

Freud says the Ego and the id are art of the super ego this is what I was taught doing my counselling.
to put it in lay mans terms the Ego gives you a sense of self importance
look at the Leaders of every country there Ego is through the roof


Namaste

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

look at the Leaders of every country there Ego is through the roof

so i think I heard somewhere, one of the things admired by people at large is when someone has confidence in themselves. It can be a real turn-on apparently.

If you have a big ego it is easy to have confidence, even when it isn't rationally justified if you get called on it you just make up a sales pitch as to why it is either a good thing that happened next and you were ready for it and maybe even planned for it (even when you didn't at all see it coming lol), or it is someone else's fault that your own will got denied. All this expressed with guess what more confidence. And of course to the level you can be confident in what you are saying everyone buys into even the most awful ideas?

[weareunity]

Hello all.

We may ponder the possibility that the "ego" does not exist separately from mind--such is my belief.

Certainly we have the ability to be conscious of what we call "egotistic behaviour". That description being used as a label for behaviour characterised by a great desire and effort of --usually-- individuals to be noticed, stand out, from others, and crucially by relative measure against others--greater than, more than etc. etc.

This does not itself--imo-- make such behaviour "wrong"-- but like any behaviour it has consequences which reach and affect beyond those who behave in this manner.

If this is so it makes sense imo to attempt to understand what such behaviour is actually trying to achieve.

In various sections of this forum we have contributed to posts on this topic over a number of years.

Repeating here some personal thoughts on the topic:--imo.

The basis of "why" is because the mind seeks to compensate for a perceived absence of some important element of early development---to feel valued unconditionally. A feeling which I believe contributes greatly toward a psychologically necessary confirmation of actually being.

The way the mind attempts to do make this compensation is through the mechanism of establishing a sense of value within the individual which depends upon comparative value measured against others, a comparative value attempting to be unconditional--and so actually never satisfactory but instead generating a constant and insatiable need---until?

Until what?

Until this is understood by those exhibiting such behaviour, and at the same time help is offered by those around in the form of valuing the person for what they are and always have been.

Not easy but loving is capable.imo.

Loving is capable of helping the transition from feeling the need to place personal interest above other relationship considerations and replacing that with a sense of feeling valued. Imo.

Cheers. X.

[Altair]

It's an abstraction. What is actually meant? And what characteristics or experiences are so troublesome to people?

You need a sense of self to function in this world, you have goals, ambitions, likes and dislikes, also based on experiences, physical, mental. If you think you are to be ''beyond it'' then why be here in the first place? Another abstraction. Another rabbit hole. It was two people that made sure you came here. The rest is theoretical. Your experiences in life and your fascinatingly creative mind will create a story. I've yet to find a single person who believes in the ''no self'' story that didn't read and listened to a lot of ''no self'' books and guru's. Their mind creates the story. The ''no self'' is yet another story, yet another enchantment. The enchantment that tells itself it is no enchantment. We are all storytellers. I've listened to hundreds of NDEs and lost count of the people's predictions as well as experiences and ''images'' of an afterlife. Seems everything is just intensely personalized, which just further stresses the validity of a sense of self. That is creation itself.