Ego is the trickster, for me... the masks we wear, the postures we assume.

How to know when coming closer to one's authenticity?

It is uncomfortable at first... all of these cloaks we adorn, all these masks...we feel naked without them.

"The good woman."

'The good wife'

'The good daughter'

'The good mother'

All of them, someone else's perception of the 'who' of you, and it can be quite seductive to be that person...the old 'fake it till you make it'...

However, this person you take on as you, never fits quite right, it pinches here, and tugs a little there...your psyche is strangling, the authentic self stifled...that restlessness, that 'knowing' there is more.

To strip all these 'roles', 'cloaks' away, and be one's authentic self, is one ready to 'call out' the trickster ego, when it tries to coerce us into be something we are not.

How often do people sit quietly within themselves, and ask, 'Who am I?' "Which IS the 'Who' of me?"

Hi Jess, thanks for stopin by.



So you think the ego manipulates from behind the scenes? Is it a need to cover the ego that forces us to adopt a personality?

Do you think that people have the ability to see and adjust their own personality 'flaws'? And by whose standards do we judge what those flaws might be?

What purpose do you attribute to the ego? Something to think about. The 'ego' was coined and defined by Sigmund Freud. The definition and the 'attributes' assigned by Freud are all we know of this thing called ego. But what if Freud was wrong. What if we have working under the wrong assumptions for all this time?

To prove that the ego is not as it was protrayd would also serve to prove how much 'language' controls our thougts and perceptions and even how much it affects our personalities.

That would be interesting.

Very lateral thinking.....I think laterally too.......He believes that once you believe, there is no point into believing because once you believe......it is so......it just is.

Once again I'm going to have to be the different side of the coin on this.

Scholasticism. the complete person comprising both body and soul. This is how I would look at myself. Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ always puts your ego in check.

In order to live as God intended you must be humble, giving, caring, and above all else do for others because you heart is in it....not for anything else. This is my authenic self, Now this doesn't mean that I am not human and I falter....I sure do.......But I know the instant I do and I try and rectify the situation.

Most importantly I truly know thy self....I know my purpose, I know the reason I am........And this is not said on conceit it just is....just as much as I am who I am because of the Savior and my relationship with him.

^^^^ Good post Deb. I do not have the time to get deep here, but suffice it to say.

This good earth? This wonderful life? It's not about 'US' ..

The purpose is far greater than we could possibly imagine.


And the precious woman above me, she lives this day in and out

Thank you sweets.....You know your always the truest friend any gal could ever have....and I am so thankful to God for putting us in each others paths.....


and you tell em girl....lol

it appears Sarte was trying to induce self-hyponosis or what is commonly known as faith

you only "believe" because you don't "know"

My understanding of 'ego', is neither good nor bad, but rather the dimension of representation, or conscience of 'our self'. This conscious representation that the 'I' in each of us, exists in time and space. With it comes the first undistinguished lie of 'separation. The 'I' separate from all other 'I's, ‘fearing most other ‘I’s, and longing to get back to unthreatening ‘I’s through this complex invention of salvation, all based on the illusion of ego.

The ego is an essential component of our experience of life as we know it. Ego give us access to whom we know ourselves to be, separate and distinct from everything else.

Without ego, we would have no access to Neo-Cortex functions of representation, logical thought, and rationalization FOR ourselves.

By providing only a representation of what occurs to each one of us, an image, an impression, an interpretation always of what occurs to our senses, ego is never giving us access to 'reality', what is true, what is absolute.

And since ego is the only dimension humans have of being conscious of their existence, humans relying exclusively on ego, are only in contact with their individual representation or interpretation of life, and not life itself.

Thus the paradox inside which humans live. The impression, or image of life is made to seem more real than life itself. That is the only functional purpose of ego. That’s the ‘trick' I understand ‘Jess, is referring to.

As for the masks, and layers of protection from the ‘outside’, is made necessary from the belief of the illusion from ego tat we are separate from everyone and everything else. One, we need to ‘get back’ : salvation, and two, we need to protect and defend ourselves from other ‘I’s in the meantime. A self-fulfilling ‘fear’ instilled EGO prophecy.

Which brings us to, freeing our 'selves' from ego momentarily, 'detachment' from knowing or what we know (our interpretation of what is) which allows for life, universe, spirit, etc., to be revealed in that moment of 'detachment'.

Ego is likened to a restaurant menu who's job it is to make you believe (delusion of ego) that the item on the menu, is the meal!!!

Ultimately, undistinguished for what it is, ego makes us live in the illusion of life, thus a lie.

Ego undistinguished is also a lot like a superstition:

' for someone whom believes that bad luck comes from a black cat walking under a ladder, do not tell that it is a superstition, it is real!!!'.

In other words, a superstition is only a superstition, when it isn't one for someone!

For someone whom 'believes' that HIS interpretations of how things are, is actually how things are, there is no use arguing that it simply is a personal interpretation of the ego, one of a limitless possible number of personal ‘interpretations’, not real!!!

To those people, the collapse between representation and reality, causes them to experience the interpretation as the real thing !

Ego: can't 'live' with it, can't 'exist' without it !!!

N.B.: Language a whole other 'conversation' !!!

:)

I would have to disagree with this. Freud may have coined the term ‘ego’ but the idea of viewing ourselves as an individual self has been recognized in pantheistic philosophies and religions for many millennia.

The ‘ego’ in general terms (not necessarily in Freudian terms) is the perspective taken that we are all individuals. This perspective can be overcome. This is the basis of things like Zen Buddhism and Taoism. The idea behind these religions is to recognize that we are not individuals as we are led to believe.

For many this idea may seem absurd because it clearly appears at first glance that everything is indeed separate. However, when we contemplate our physical existence in more depth it becomes apparent that this is just an illusion and the Buddhists and Taoists are, in fact, correct. There can be no individual things that are completely separate from all others. But there can be the illusion of individuality, and this illusion is what we call the ‘ego’.

There is a very strong desire to preserve the ego. We simply can’t imagine existing without an individual self. To try to imagine this is beyond our human comprehension. We fall in love with ourselves and want to preserve ourselves forever, thus the egotistical religions are born.

These are religions that imagine an egotistical godhead, an all-powerful, all-knowing, entity that is the king ego. It controls everything and has the ultimate egotistical properties. It demands to be worshiped and recognized as the head honcho and it gets extremely pissed off if it isn’t the focus of all other egoistical beings. All must bow down and serve the big eGo which is always spelled with a capital “G”.

The big eGo will protect, reward and preserve all other little egos that worship it. Any pathetic egos who dare not to worship it will be tortured for all of eternity while all the little preserved egos point and laugh at the egos who didn’t believe in the big eGo.

These kinds of egotistical religions are the epitome of the ego gone wild. People who believe in these egotistical philosophies believe that they will be preserved and cared for whilst everyone who doesn’t believe like them will pay for their transgressions.

The religions that see the flaw in this realize that true enlighten is to realize that there is no individual ‘self’ as our physical existence creates for us. The self is merely an illusion of the physical condition. It certainly has reality within this realm of the physical world, but beyond this physical world our true nature is spirit and spirit has no ‘self’. This is a concept that humans cannot comprehend so they cling to the illusion of the physical self in the hope that it will be preserved in the spiritual world.

It’s a totally bogus idea. And it’s clear that people who believe this way do indeed think of the spiritual world as some sort of ‘ghostly’ continuation of the physical world we live in. In another thread someone asked if Jesus was black or white, and someone else responded with “I’ll let you know when I see him”.

They seem to imagine that Jesus will still appear in the spiritual world to be the same as he did in the physical world.

In fact, everyone often talks about meeting their friends in heaven (or hell), but what would they look like? Would they be recognizable by physical traits in a spiritual world? That hardly makes any sense at all.

Even the Bible itself speaks of heaven as a place with pearly gates and roads paved with gold. These are all physical ideas. Who would want to walk on metal roads anyway? Obviously there must be gravity in heaven, and if angels have wings there must be air for them to fly around in. Sure sounds like a physical world to me.

The illusion of a self is brought about by our physical state. Remove that physical state and there is no self. There are no longer any physical properties to define and separate us. There may even be limited comprehension, perhaps in pure spiritual form all that exists is pure bliss without any knowing.

This is why the pantheistic religions typically imagine reincarnation. The primordial spirit (which is all of us) simply continues to reincarnate in the physical world to take on the illusion of being a separate from itself. It’s really a beautiful picture but requires giving up the ego which most people won’t even dare to think of. They want to keep their egos at all cost.

It just goes to show how fun it is to have an ego, and why the spirit of the universe does this! It does it because it’s FUN!

No heaven or hell required. All is one, one is all, for all of eternity. No little egos pointing at each other in the after life laughing saying “I told you so!”. That idea is a purely egotistical idea and not a spiritual one.

My thought about the ego is: it reigns in a human life until superceded.

Religions for the most part wait on God or think on God or

relate to God as though God is a casual observer.

For the most part that is producing delusion and evading personality.

Christianity at its purpose as a way of life is completely different in only one regard.

That the indwelling of the Holy Spirit enters and guides and directs the individual soul to its eternal habitation fit and prepared to be there at the completion of the perfection. The perfection is not found in self-righteousness, but in the receiving of the indwelling itself. The personal development and enrichment is seen by others and others have faith to believe the same for themselves.

But this is the uniqueness of the authentic christian life.

Anything less is incomplete and incoherent and shows to the world the inescapable evidence of false practice.

Get the Holy Spirit or figure out the best life you can for yourself and live it.

Whatever it is for you IS. choices abound.

"I know because I have faith"

faith is for those that don't know...why else would you need it

because not having faith shows me how small your world really is.

and needing faith show how small your mind is

MAGNIFICENT MY FRIEND..........This sums up it all in all of religion threads.....we should now be able to close the religions threads and move on

You’re on this planet for a purpose. Find it.

You can fool yourself. You can never fool God

All suffering can be traced back to people disobeying God

Don’t give up. Moses was once a basket case.

Give satan an inch and he’ll be your ruler

If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right

Faith is 'knowing God and trusting him with your life, not trusting the unknown. that would be called stupidity, trusting somthing you don't know anything about. Knowlege originating only from the mind is just feeding your ego, like the pharisees who killed Jesus.

'I' don't need faith. I choose to trust and 'have' faith because I've experienced his wealth of love and goodness.

You're stuck funches, many have stopped with the jumper cables but you want someone to drive their car and yours at the same time. There's the road, it's one worth traveling,but you need to venture out and see for yourself.

Lash out, wait for a response, get a reponse, lash out again. You feed off this negative energy while waiting on the side of the road. One day you will get tired, one day you will get caught in a storm and feel the lonliness. You will come to the end of yourself and realize He was there all along. Then he will send a messenger one more time, jumper cables in hand. maybe, just maybe, you'll see it for what it is.

meathead

Forigive my lack of formal education on this matter my friends, as I have yet to open a philosophy book of any kind... so I can only speak of what relates to my own experience... explained within my own ability...

Ego, to me is just one part of the "learned self", a coping mechanism which facilitates the division within one's self required for the ability to accept and apply an uncomfortable foreign idealogue taught by "thief teachers"... The learning of how to think in an unfamiliar way and practicing it accordingly which results in the becoming of who one is not in order to fit in and belong... hence, the "thief teachings"...

"Thief teachings" steal one from themself by necessary means of survival in a world not of their own choosing, and are accepted by means of ego...

Early on this acceptance is problematic within one, and requires the "unborn self" to relinquish conscious control to the "learned self", with developing ego leading the way... all the while compromising one's judgemental ability by simultaneously accepting and applying the "thief teachings" with a given regularity. All of which can eventually result in the "unborn self" being forgotten through years of submissiveness and/or supression... while the ego is bolstered by itself and furthered "thief teachings" resulting in a near complete losing of one's self... a walking paradox... subconscious known against conscious acceptance...

Your the bomb Mr......and said beautifully I might add.....

And funches I will not stop praying for you to find those cables and take the jump...

oh you mean when God said unto Moses to "stone all unruly children to death" ..so feralcatlady do you stone those unruly little monsters to death or do you choose to disobey God