The ego

[postmodernennui]

This is a complicated question that I am having a struggle articulating, but will try anyway. It is not directed simply towards Daniel, but the entire board.

Much of the eastern philosophy I have read (as well as Ouspensky) often discusses the need for ego loss. Intellectually and ideologically, I understand the need for transcendce of the ego.

However, when receiving positive feedback for ideas I share with others I feel "proud" of or attached to, or other positive feedback for a job well done, I feel the ego swelling, telling me I am somehow "special" when I know that we are all connected and I simply grabbed the idea floating around out of the unconscious.

So my question for Daniel as well as others in public spheres is, how do you avoid getting a "swollen" head or enlarged ego with all the positive feedback you are constantly receiving?

[tesseract]

Hi ennui,

So which is it now: are you being proud, or feeling special? There's certainly a difference.

You are special, and you are loved, so don't be afraid to let yourself experience that. This popular practice of 'ego-hating' gets us nowhere...it is still the ego doing the hating...it is still egotism. Lose, dissolve, destroy, transcend...why? Know it/yourself, and allow the ego to become congruent, true, and accurate.

Don't get down on yourself because you're not at the frontier of new thinking, or that you've yet to reinvent the wheel; "There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, That all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, That all novelty is but oblivion." Rejoice in the fact that you have opened yourself up to those 'new' ideas...your knuckles are now that much further off the ground! ;) Be happy that you are evolving. And be happy that you have people around you who listen to what you have to say, because there are those out there who will not be impressed with your thoughts and choose rather to tear you apart than attempt to understand.

There are wonderful artists and thinkers out there, and when we discover one in the making, we venerate them and invest them with our energies, our praise, and in turn push them to new heights of creativity from which we are all inspired (ideally...). The 'ego' is the channel through which we deliver our tribute to one another.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people won't feel insecure around you. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others!"

-Nelson Mandella

[Halfglass]

Tesseract "...knuckles that much higher off the ground..." LOL! (Can I have that line?) Postmodern: Hey. Egoloss, in my opinion (based on psychedelic "research") is a state more close to the death state, (which I don't believe--again through experience in closed-eye trips--is a blank nothing). This near-deathness is a returing/glimps at The Source...this source, this Origin Behind the soup of atoms in which we find ourselves/ego. The Thing behind is the blind groping hand of "god" and it cannot know itself as the thing pushing from Behind. In order to have an experience like the adventures we find ourselves in Here, it must send out "probes" (organisms). Finally, at least on this planet, it has gotten the letter in the mail it has sent itself eons ago--US! (Although time is illusory...but that's another story.) Maybe the "probes" who discover their It-ness are special enough to gain their Me-ness and so begin their ascent up the hierarchical chain that ultimately ends with Creators and various runners-of-the-show! The It either could't or didn't want to know itself prior. It is, in the end Alone. We are It. Enjoy the Now as it would have you do. I don't fret about dieing to this "Dan" that I find myself as. I go to what I was. If I am so lucky as to be allowed (allow myself!) to "be" as "Dan" well thats the icing then isn't it? Expression in the face of danger is the only way for It to be in any sort of nonbordness. Can't fight the ego. It'll remain as something even if its in the bardo's memory. Peace Dan C.

[ April 14, 2004, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[daniel]

Dear postmodernennui,

Thanks for the nice post and the good question. My personal finding is that life continues to be, as Swami Yogananda said, a continual choice between humiliation and humility. Given the choice, one should strive to pick humility.

I don't think one wants to reach a state of "egolessness" as that would be a kind of reversion to a collective level which would sort of annul human evolution up to this point. I agree with Jean Gebser that one should seek "supercession of the ego," or conscious sacrifice of the ego. As I think Gurdjieff said, "Want what 'it' doesn't want."

My finding lately is that part of the current transition is the "karmic elastic band" seems to be snapping back with incredible speed. If I get puffed up about something I just did, a pidgeon will immediately come along and shit on my face (as happened recently). If I act in a way that seems more fitting and remain humble, good things seem to come my way.

[Halfglass]

Nice stuff Daniel. That "humiliation/humility" thing is something I'm gonna have to dwell on! Peace. Dan .................can you elaborate on that a bit?

[ April 16, 2004, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Halfglass]

(bump) That is...I could use a bit of the latter, but I've had this thing, this notion where, embarrassment is as close to the It as "we" can "feel"....

[willoweyes]

I think one must beware of demonizing pride. Pride is a necessary ingredient of beauty and creation. Lucifer used to be God's favorite angel, and I'll bet he was a prideful fellow, even back then. Pride is an emotion that wells up in all; these things must be ridden, like the waves or a wild horse--not in control, but (through skill, effort, and discipline--prideful words!), not smashed up against the rocks either.

Pride "controlled" can be the most dangerous pride of all.

[Buzz]

I think a good example of ego in our society is reflected by the reality show, Survivor . It is pretty much a show about the person with the strongest (most selfish) ego, winning it all. Of course, in the event of a catastrophy (as in world wide, end of civilization) these big egos would probably be the first to be exiled as not having the group interest at heart. Though it may appear that the ones who are cohesive with the group survive each week, in the end it is the most deceitful. Anyway, from the 15 minutes I've seen of the show that seems to be the case. In the real survivor game, it is the people who unselfishly learn to work together, for the benefit of the group, who will make it through. Be proud of that.
I think a better title for that show would be Dog eat Dog. It would be a wonderful "in your face tv land" if all of an original cast decided to not vote anyone off and pull together, sharing the spoils at the end. But our lousy society does not encourage that sort of thinking.

"These rocks I'm climbin' down, have already left the ground, we're reeling thru space" N.Y.

"Just remember underneath you, is just a sea of air" C.B.

[willoweyes]

Beautiful, Buzz. Thank you.

[wildwood]

hello
During my own study of the ego i have found that it is always protecting a part of itself (a self defence mechanism). any attempt to disolve the ego will not work. ego is a pathology (sickness) and therefore finding what the ego is protecting (childhood issues, enneagram stuff) is the only way to cure the sickness of the ego.

[Halfglass]

abija: Yes, the ego is absolutly entrenched in its cavern. But the fact that the ego can be flattened out of existence in the high dose psychedelic state, and the "person" who remembers the experience (of there not being an ego)is not that thing that's gone (the ego)--what does that say?--about what one really IS?

[jezebelle]

I'd like to jump in on this topic of the ego. The big revelation that I obtained from Alice Bailey and Steiner, stems from the idea that there is a little ego that helps us navigate through the trials of the physical, and the eternal ego that is waiting for the little ego to recognize its immutable presence.
This may be egoless state that postmodernennui speaks of, what I call the big ego or god ego. Divied out, your original part of the cosmic pie carries you through all vechicles and worlds that you travel in. An unhealthy little ego would display all the characteristics of the reality show, Survivor. Certainly maintaining a humble attitute portends the right frame of mind, that allows for the union of the bigger ego to infiltrate our present consciousness.
A healthy ego recognizes its' inherent connection to everyone and (either consciously or unconsciously) and can adjust to balancing the needs of the present now. No need to manifest the monkey-brain attitude of "I'm better than you," it can pull from a higher center in your brain and love you for your differences.
Now I know bringing in this word of love is like blowing smoke on the wrong issue. But love to me is like a union. What seemed to be seperate from me, is really another manisfestation of my own self that I could not see until now or until you.
So the trick is to allow a bigger union to manifest; but fear stalks us all. If you want your higher self to come more into your daily life, you've got to punch the hole in first, by taking the moment to help someone that has crossed your path.
Acts of mercy or forgiveness, help bridge that gap so that your higher self can filter down and aid you in your daily existence. Like everything it is an ongoing process where you are on . . . and sometimes not.

Halfglass: I felt a big presence today doing my taichi, feeling my "turtles all the way down."
Truely love for all on this foreum,
jez

[Halfglass]

Jez: Where you been darlin'? "Punch a hole in it..." you say, like "Break on through, break on through, break on through, break! break! break! break! break! break! break!" (?) Hey...why isn't there a musical notation on computers? (Like little dots and flags...notes or something.... Hmmm.) Yes I was a'chi/in' meself just Wed. night. Little old man is Master--great guy! I shook my arms out in front of me (after class) to ask and show, the way it happened tripping (all that chi came spewing out my hands moving faster than an electric fan blade or more horrid (I didn't show 'em) the way I can flap my whole hand around yogi-like as if they are not mine, all the while chi oooooozing form, dripping). The Master seemed surprised and said: "What is that arobic?"

"Nah I think it's shamanism man, or what you're doing! I can feel it though."

Curious look in his eye. I'm the animated one in a class of about 20. Peace Dan.

[daniel]

abijah writes: "any attempt to disolve the ego will not work. ego is a pathology (sickness)..."

I don't know if I agree with this perspective. I think we need the ego, the individuated perspective, but we also need to achieve supersession of the ego, to reach what Gebser calls "ego-freedom." Egolessness would be a reversion to previous states of consciousness, and a disaster for any human.

I think the ring in the Lord of the Rings films represents the ego, which must be entrusted to the humblest aspects of ourselves (the hobbit) and then tossed into the fire, sacrificed, to escape delusions of power. The trilogy makes clear the dangers inherent in this effort. Jung: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."

As for "little ego" and "big "ego," that is what the Jungians call "the Ego" and "the Self." 2012 = "the coming of the Self," the God-image, incarnating in the collective body of humanity.

[egret]

We tend to talk about ego as if we’re talking about the same thing; as if we’re talking ourselves about the same thing one moment to the next. not to be totally relativistic, but ‘ego’, has become a ‘term’, rather than a description, searching description of experience it really is (even for the masters; bc they know words can only describe, describe, describe, can never ‘say the truth’)

I mean, ego, in the moment, is where the I is.

and this flips and swims and shifts and drops and swoops from moment to moment. its really more about pushing our I up or down
(maybe we oughta drop the too-many meanings ego word; that would be my suggestion anyway.

I mean, the momentary experience (even if its spread out over seconds, days..) is all there is; there is nothing (for us) nothing exists, (for us – or for other-than-us too), outside the moment. and this is true of all conscious, sentient (same thing) existence: life.

but we have those spider legs, those daddy-long-leg legs, thinner than a moment, extending out into all manner of personal ‘behaviour’;
potential

and we sometimes get stuck in our own web in places, and call it ‘ego’.

our ‘ego’ follows a net; and “our” net can be shaped. but we cant get caught;
we have to build a bit, a scaffolding, (to egolessness direction), but we cant get stuck. (and that’s also where the union and love come in that jez was talking about, I think)

[Halfglass]

Egret: I'm with you there I think. Too many ideas of what we're talking about. "Ego" for me is the thing that stops experiencing in the high dose trip. That thing is the Petty Survivor. The more contemplative side of the "Ego" where we seem to get a split (little ego/big whatever) is probably valid, being kind, planning for the future, thinking about god--all these unanimal-like traits may yet turn out to have purpose. Then there's the Green River killer too. The It likes when we ponder this mystery!

[Buzz]

These ideas about the ego are the meat on my platter of contemplation these days.

I'd like to address some of the things that jezebelle, daniel, halfglass and egret have brought up.

jezebelle talks about the big ego, little ego and to my knowledge what she says is accurate. daniel says the ego is necessary, agreed. Halfglass says ego is the petty survivor, given he speaks of the little ego, I agree. egret says we are all talking about different things, but to this I disagree. Only in that we are using different words to address some rather consistent (in my experience) attributes of ego(s). It is a rather complicated knowledge so please bear with me.

We as human beings have two (2) souls, egos, or spirits. These are only words and I will introduce even more below. But the important thing to accept here is that we have a body, an eternal spirit, and a soul that is going to die when our spirit leaves the body and gives up the ghost (soul). A great transformation takes place if we integrate soul and spirit prior to death but that is another can of worms.

The problem with the little ego (soul in Christian theology) is that it's actual purpose was to protect the spirit. The spirit rests in the heart (or should if one is sane) but it wants to come out to play. Like the guards who forbade the Chinese Emperor to leave the Forbidden City, the soul has gone crazy, misunderstood it's role and forbides the spirit to interact in its very own kingdom. One may also use the analogy of the Master Control Program in the movie TRON as an example of how the soul has gone nuts with over-controlling. A true human being in a culture that is not crazy (like ours) is allowed to integrate soul and spirit, it would even be expected. In Toltec theology the soul is the tonal, the spirit is the nagual. According to Castenada's mentor when one does psychedelic drugs the spirit (nagual) explodes out of its confined postion (as it does upon death, if one is not integrated). The soul, used to thinking that it is the only game in town, can shrink in fear so greatly that the spirit may leave the physical body entirely, causing a very real death.
The rule here is that if spirit leaves the body, you die, finis. Here we come to one of the primary functions of the soul. Before it went nuts, as in when we were still small children, the soul interacted with the spirit. The soul and spirit shared body and experience. The soul was supposed to retain the spirit within our energy cocoons (or body if you can't buy that) so that it would not flee and we would die. At some point the soul began to so guard the spirit from leaving the body as to contain it in our assemblage point, which I think now is the heart, in a sane, rational person.
Another point to make here is that the soul is our dreaming body, it can leave the body without harm to the physical body.

Now for a list of attributes/characteristics of soul, little ego, petty survivor, tonal:
1. mortal
2. justice
3. morality
4. unconscious mind
5. self
6. ability to percieve objects, make out what is
what
7. subjective
8. moldable, programable
9. the double
10.memories
11.database of one's psychological disposition
12.feminine
13.form & image (w/o it, no body, nowhere for the
spirit to manifest)
14. emotional

List of Atributes of the spirit, big ego, nagual:
1. immortal
2. conscious mind
3. the "god" within us
4. detached from emotion
5. free will
6. focused awareness
7. rational intelligence
8. ability to communicate
9. volition
10.objective perspective
11.masculine
12.creative
13.alone in the sense of not being aware of the
collective

Soul: Spirit: Author/Culture:

little ego big ego Steiner?
tonal nagual Toltec
Ka Ba Egyptians
hanan hurin Inca
po hun Chinese
unconscious conscious Freud
psuche thumus Greeks
manas asu India (Veda)
jiva atman India (Hindu)
unihipili uhane Hawaiian
daena urvan Zoraster(Persia
nefesh ruah Hebrew

Jesus: "making the two one" to achieve eternal life
-from Gospel of Thomas

Castenada's Don Juan said that integrating the tonal and nagual was the key to surviving death, "and living damned near forever".

[ April 24, 2004, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: Buzz ]

[jezebelle]

egret says: but we have those spider legs, those daddy-long-leg legs, thinner than a moment, extending out into all manner of personal ‘behaviour’; potential . . . and we sometimes get stuck in our own web in places, and call it ‘ego’.

I like this analogy. Perhaps its our "overmind" intent that navigates the "where" we are, stuck on the cluster - in our common web. Since all of us have the same twin dragon/helix of biomolecular information; DNA-the-4-letter-alphabet-(A,G,C,T) (4x4x4 64 possible words) ala-proteins (I am reminded of the I-Ching) - we have a common language even with our earth (our mother). I bet a few of you psychonaughts have some pretty interesting ties or spider legs with many turtles-all-the way-down (lovely-tree-beings, and wizards) - clumping in.

I love daniel's analogy of the ring. Our ring must be sacrificed into the fire, perhaps not to be destroyed, but in the fire - it finds itself reshaped; into an even bigger sequence with higher octaves. The HUMBLE little self will help it arrive sooner, to the cauldron of transformation. (Daniel, thanks also for the jungian perspective, it is rooted in our western thought - I like your tie-in.)

Funny "fire" in astrology is difficut to define. The quatraplicities (earth, air, water, fire) exist in all the triplicities (cardinal, fixed, mutable) and take their expressions in each. But fire is tough to pigeon. Often left simply as "divine expression," zest, or inner motivation. We all have fire in us, but how it expresses itself is determined by an ancient-symbolic-system using earthtime with the heavens. In away, the first breath you take in this world, is the seed pattern of your cluster. That seed is programed to unfold with change, along with galactic events, hence evolution.

Perhaps because we have traveled here to witness "the coming of the Self," "the God-image, incarnating in the collective body of humanity." We are creating new-spider-clumps that have never been so prolific, doing our part to create new clusters on the web.

Sweet halfglass you are full of the fire. You get what I mean about effort-first, on our-part, to surrender to the turtles-all-the-way-down. I feel you too.
Not to divide but LOVE especially to the foreum,
jez

[Halfglass]

Jez: Awww shucks! BTW, that Narby book's someting huh? 64 in the I Ching and the DNA sequence-- what the hell? I gotta read on the I Ching one of these days if I can just get my head out of physics books. (Julian Barbour's "The End of Time" it is now...massive and heavy and deep--I like! (There are no moments in the flow of time, but the illusion of time in moments...mind warping stuff I really dig.)

[Buzz]

Well, here's your chance to hang with Narby:
Jeremy Narby in Costa Rica (http://www.guaria.com/events.html)

[Halfglass]

Buzz: That's a very nice piece you put up there...I've been meaning to say. (Can I steal some of it!) I can come in with something along those lines. Dissociates have a real cleaver attack in the mind--probably why alot of people don't like 'em. It takes some getting used to hearing stored voices skipping through the chambers, filtering out the delayed reasoning: "I think I'll drink some water now.... I think I'll drink some water now...." "I'm talking behind time again huh?" "Yes...but get on with it, we'll hold the flow 'till you're settled in again." "Danger Will Robinson!"

[jezebelle]

Hi halfglass, sweetie. It took me several reads before I could get-you on that last passage.

So the big ego for you is the continuous watcher even without a framework, "danger will robinson" is the fear of being annhilated, little by the big ?

[Halfglass]

Hey Jez: Right the wat5cher, whatever is there is well, I call it the Anti-Ego. Nah just goofing 'round wid dat "Will Robinson" stuff. Big ego, real ego? I keep doing or saying the wrong things all the time due to big ego, then saying to me self later: "Your f'n being selfish there, unconcerned here...always I see the trail of my ego fall-out.

[ May 02, 2004, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Buzz]

Halfglass,

I've been away at my cabin in the Appalachians for a few days. Walking along the Buffalo Cove, it could have been a thousand years ago.

Thanks for the praise above, but I pretty much stole that stuff myself, so steal away. After reading Peter Novak's Lost Secret of Death I re-read Castenada's Tales of Powerand got a lot more out of it that ever before. Much of what I wrote came from those two sources. Novak's book is research and he cites a number of good sources to check out. My problem with him is that he does not seem to have experienced this stuff in any direct manner. His book is full of Near-Death experiences, but he seems to discount the drug experience. And frankly, I have really given him hellish grief over this at a yahoo discussion group he moderates. His interest in death (thus the soul and spirit split or integration) seems to have arisen when his wife committed suicide in the late 80's. Still, all in all,he has accumulated a great deal of ancient and contempory sources of information, and I am grateful for his contribution.

[Halfglass]

Buzz: Interesting. What part of the Appalachains? I go to middle Pennsylvania Big Woods, Berks county, Potter county my fav--Tioga county--no big towns for a hudred miles...going in three weeks, fossil hunting, leaping in streams wid me naked girlfriend etc. Funny the Castanedea part. I read the whole thing, all 11 books, was strung out on it for two years, drifted away from it. Then on a trip about two months ago I heard Indian chanting coming to me as I meditated in the woods by my house "...heyya! heya! heyya! hey!"...coming in from Above, no shit. Then I started dancing, flapping my arms for what seemed my very life--something strange going on--right outta Castaneda books. I think I'm gonna read 'em again now.

[ May 02, 2004, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Buzz]

Halfglass,
My cabin is in the southern Apps, near Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
If memory serves me well you turned me on to Daniel's book when I frequented Sustained Reaction. And in return I told you about this forum after buying his book and finding this website in the inner jacket. Does Crazy Parrot ring any bells?

I think many folks have thrown the baby out with the bathwater as concerns Castenada. There are some real gems in that reading. I was not one to ever go searching for him or his workshops, however.

I've been wondering about lucid dreaming and OBE's lately, where one leaves the body but has conscious volition. Ever heard of the "silver tightrope" or "silver thread"? I'm thinking this is perhaps the connection and how the dreaming body can be lucid.

[Halfglass]

Yes the silver chord. I've never seen it. I was having great luck in the mid to late ninties with lucid dreams and oobes. The obbes dried up and the lucids come and go. That was you? Crazy Parrot right I had the book but never noticed the website. Cool. Ever go to "astralforum.com" ? That's a good site. With Castaneda I think The Eagle may be The Overmind that I was getting maybe. The assemblege point seems valid, but what about the way h(Castaneda) keep introducing what The "shadow flappers" (?)(lol I think) in the last one? It changes so much one has to wonder.

[ May 03, 2004, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Buzz]

I've never seen the silver rope, either. It is common knowledge in Eastern religions. I do believe that Robert Monroe wrote about it and have read other accounts by westerners.
Though I've had lucid dreams since childhood I had a very dry period of late. The only OBE's I can recall happened while on psychedelics.

The way Castenada talked about the Eagle was pretty much the way I think of God. It's interesting that the Greeks had this image of the Eagle as well.
Castenada is a puzzle isn't he. I suppose the way I see the shadows is like the little ego that has gone nuts.I'm not so sure that CC didn't go a little nuts towards the end. Sometimes I think he was a bit like the young Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of Black Sabbath. Growing up in Birmingham during the peace and love days of the late 60's they were weirded out living in the redneck milltown, so they decided to "scare everybody".

[jezebelle]

Buzz I have to agree with your thoughts about the eagle.
I knew someone that knew carlos c. (when younger) and said he was just like in his early books, a sort of stupid nerd, but later changed. Also I know many young people consider him a fake but how has this been proved? He had such a positive impact on my life, and I found his books informative. I don't know, crazy how? I just thought it was all good.

[Buzz]

jezebelle,
Crazy how? Maybe I'm not the one to judge as I'm a little crazy myself. I do know that in his books DJ used to tell him that he was not a good thinker. Halfglass brought up the "shadow/flyers" and there were other strange things he seemed to come up with in the last 10 to 15 years of his life. I do wonder if DJ wasn't right about his thinking. But overall I still feel grateful to him and enjoyed his books immensely. If he took a few liberties at embellishing his stories I can certainly forgive him. We seem to be in an era of people being sooo outraged at "certain" people lying and letting others off the hook. Think Clinton vs. Bush. I think most of CC's critics are very conservative people who feel threatened by the strangeness he surfaced, outraged at the lies, yet to my knowledge no one hasever "proved" that he was wrong or lying. They also have failed to prove that they are right. The findings of quantum physics certainly seem to tell us that this is a much stranger place than most of us would have imagined. But some of us see or imagine some strange things indeed, don't we.
Ditto on the positive impact!

[Humming]

I recently smoked some Salvia divinorem extract with my friend, knowing that he would halucinate intensely.

After I helped him to focus and concentrate, he was able to channel out the exterior and enter into the planes of non-consensual (singular) reality.

He found himself in a spirit tunnel, capable of exiting through any door into any parallel reality which he could construct with his will. He told me that he had been looking for such a place for a long time, and was glad to have finally found it.

In one of the play realities he was floating in space with an orca whale beside him. Attached to the orca's dorsal fin was a stringy silver substance that somewhat resembled Spiderman's webbing, a sticky cord that strectched all the way in front of him and all the way behind him.

My friend tried to touch the orca and it sped out infinitely quickly in front of him, but he was able to catch up to it by moving behind it in a certain way.

Interesting visions. I have yet to experience such a cord, but I'm not too good with projection yet....

The idea of an astral cord recalls to mind the film "Donnie Darko" in which the main character Donnie watches people move and make temporal decisions according to the way that their metaphysical "time travelling" astral body manifests, as a projection of water-like substance extruding for their chests.

The silver cord image also calls to mind Castaneda's/don Juan's descriptions of the manifestation of a sorceror's will, which extends as "luminous fibers" from the chest.

EDIT: this has nothing to do with the ego, but I'd like to discuss that as well. To understand the ego process as an ontological definition of time, read "The Ending of Time" which is a dialogue between David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti. A must read in my opinion....

[ June 29, 2004, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Humming]

Ok, so my conception of the ego is that its more of a habituated psychological construction than anything else. It is a cycle of fragmentation caused by overstimulation from conflicting cerebral electrical impulses.

The cortex (major part of the brain, latest to develop evolutionarily, and the cause of our ability to create illusory images within our internal mental landscapes) sends messages to the thalmus (the somatic center for libido and hunger impulses, regulation of growth, and various other functions) which gets confused and bounces them back, creating an intense overstimulation cycle of waveform impulses and a mentation that creates an illusory "past" through the formation of perceived memory--when in actuality, there is no past or future, only the omniscient now.

The ego is the barrier to unity, the psychological scrambling process that allows people to remain largely unconscious. The social ego game is what American society is all about--competition for primarily the sake of individual pride. The ego consumes for "me" and "mine" without considering any consquences (beyond those pragamatically relevant for survival purposes). Hence, the success of Capitalism.

The death of the ego, the true significance of the psychedelic experience's introduction into modern society, is an adequate metaphor to describe the passing from the individual consciousness to the cosmic.

Is it possible to live in America society and be free of the ego construction? I don't think so. Only a few people in the history of the world have permanently left their egos behind. This is what disciplined meditation is for; as Krishnamurti says, "Meditation is both a means an an end." Cultivated thoughtlessness: engaging reality with an empty, open mind, is the necessary requisite for ego-loss.

Properly understood, the strong psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin can initiate the same state as achieved by years of meditation. However, internalizing and fully grasping the state of ego-loss permanently, transcendance, is much more difficult, as I said perhaps even impossible in this society.

I understand 2012 as a collective release of the ego structure, the end of psychological time, the re-evaluation and probable dissolution of "civilized" society, and the subsequent embrace of a state of post-ego universal consciousness as the dominant and perhaps final evolution of the human mind. I disagree with Daniel that a state of ego-loss is a state of reversion. In some sense it is, but I believe that reversion away from a wholly individuated perspective is both the future and the past manifestation of our biological consciousness.

Thought is currently the dominant modal structure of our reality. Beyond thought, beyond the ego, the infinite can be experientially internalized as the Self.

You can see this philosophically expressed in the creedo of "Love is the answer"--the ancient wisdom which was re-discovered in the 60's, in tandem with the ego-loss experienced induced by the unprecedented proliferation of psychedelic drugs. Love and compassion are naturally self-emptying, ego-dissolution experiences. Literally, when you lose yourself totally in something by immersing yourself in it, you move beyond everything that you've been and achieve true unity in a way that wasn't possible before.

This is also the Zen practice of transcending subjective reality by "being" something else; i.e. the Zen archer who "is" the target, and thusly achieves perfection.

That's the way I understand it anyway. Anyone looking to learn about their ego should read Vedic philosophy or Buddhism, which both describe the ego process in detail, and to my understanding attribute suffering to ignorance and conflict, both created by the ego. David Bohm has also been integral in my understanding of the ego process. As I posted earlier, his dialogue with Krishnamurti, printed as "The Ending of Time" is an EXCELLENT comparative (Bohm as the Western scientific view and Krishnamurti as the Eastern spiritual view) analysis of the ego process, and the methodology and importance of moving beyond it.

Or, if you really want to FEEL and EXPERIENCE ego-loss for yourself, I highly recommend eating 5 dried grams of mushrooms.

Nothing will ever be the same....

[ June 29, 2004, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[daniel]

I believe language is very important, and I recommend thinking of "ego freedom" over "ego loss," as well as "consciousnesss intensification" over "mind-expansion."

[Humming]

Yes, "ego freedom" is definately a better term for the experience of non-self.

"Ego loss" calls to mind a hapless soul floudering lost in the uncharted depths...

[primus23]

Egyptian mysticism paints a really amazing picture of the full metaphor of ego freedom or making peace with your ego, at the level of spirit. When I walked through the temple in Abu Simbal, on your right side (always the material world, egoic depiction for the path of the initiate) you see a tiny man with a whip and a huge lion. On the left side (which depicts man merged with spirit in the earth plane represented by Horus) you see the individual riding a chariot pulled majestically by horses with the lion walking in stride, side by side with the chariot (notice the depiction of the lion representing the ego is not gone, or slain, but TAMED).
In my personal experience, the ego seems to be a learning device for discernment between the material, illusory realm and spirt/divine energy/God. Which side of the wall we want to make our 'reality' is our choice. The duality of understanding the spirit realm and the material realm creates trinity (that's why I love the number 23 introduced to me by Robert Anton Wilson, two leads to three -- once you're conscious of it, it shows up EVERYWHERE, so beware!), or a new and higher level of consciousness and vibration which, to me is this period of transformation culminating in 2012. It's the ascension back to 'the garden' to realize our full potential as hu(god)-mans. The return of the King, spirit in the earth plane.

[toppersbazaar]

.....Arent we eventually going to want to shed that last vestige of ego allowing that "drop of water" to become the "Ocean". Also in the meantime. Caring for others seems to get lost in this pschodelic journey when in fact it is more important than the highest of highs. There exists such an Ego trap with all of this because of the "siddhis" given by the psychodelics. The sense of power that comes with them cannot but feed the ego...also the sense of "knowledge" that others DON'T have is an ego high for a bit....double edge swords are the most useful though aren't they.

[Wio]

just some short thoughts..

HU_MILITY is part of the sound of the OWL.. and HU

im not certain is any of you are family with Robert Morning Sky's books.. and the HU.. which is worshipped throughout the U..

the breath of.... U= of

as to Gurdjieff saying.. do not DO what IT wants..

very often the IT.. refers to the REPTILIAN FLYERS LINE>> and in the HUMAN BRAIN refers therefore to the lowest chakras and first brain.. need i say anymore?

ah ho WIO

[toppersbazaar]

Funny about lucid dreaming when i concentrated on it (Partialy because of casteneda books) I had excellent results for about 5 years 22-27...now 38...i think it's a matter of focus.....The silver chord is referenced practicaly everywhere through all time.....Casteneda served a real beautiful purpose in my life when i was needing a belief system to support my new realities....I was thouroughly shattered when i read a 1000 page book debunking him....showing all of the contrasts and dates proving fiction...I was very shocked...I never hear "Jane roberts" and Seth spoken of here...I read those 15 books 3 times each and have never found anything that didn't ring true...in fact reading while on a high dose high focus trip is like having the words spring from some eternal imformation library...really wild...it's like the world you are in is talking to you when seth Speaks..Is anyone familier with W=Seth..if so thoughts? again i felt betrayed by castenada in the end...it is wrong to become part of someones belief system especialy when you are pretty much isolated in the intense knowledge bestowed by high dose experiences....to have one of your "foundation collumns" pulled out from under you is not right. Period....if part was true and part embellished he should have stated it...i don't agree that "all is fair in love and metaphysics" at all. These realms and belief systems that we are involved in are delicate and sensitive. The idea that some would help with the construct with fiction is a sin. If he met "Don Juan" and learned what was purported in the first few books...then fine...to go on synthesizing generalized philosophies into castenadas fictional reality is just being a huckster looking to make money...i see no real rightiousness about it....he knew he would get cought with the fictional parts

[Bodi]

"The bird or insect that stumbles into a room and cannot find the window. Because they know no "windows". - Jim Morrison

"A man sees his wife as a broomstick" - Chinese Proverb

How do you avoid getting a "swollen" head or enlarged ego with all the positive feedback you are constantly receiving? - Postmodernennui

To me, there is no such thing as 'ego'. It is an illusion. When you are a child, before the ego (sic) really develops you look at the world with a fresh eye. Everything is bright and new. As you begin to get older, you begin to look at things, events, people, even youself, in the context of equipment, as Heidegger would say. Or as Kasuki Sekida would say - the habitual way of consciousness. This way of looking at things, looking at things in the world as so many tools, or means to ends, is the origin of the 'mechanical' way of thinking that has led to so many problems in the world. It is what has led you to your pride. Your view of the quality of yourself as a tool, if you will, as a means to an end. You have lost sight of your own 'true nature', your Original Face. So, having realized this in a conceptual sort of way, that we have a pattern of delusive thought, are we free from it? No. The mere realization that we are thinking incorrectly does not release us from it. So, how do we free ourselves from this chain of our own making? Understand, too, that language presents a problem. Unconsciously, we think that if we have a name for something, we understand and have control over it. Words can come to take the place of the things they are symbolizing in our minds and this leads to a veil between ourselves and reality (read 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards for a great study of how symbols prevent seeing).

Enter Zen. Enter Yoga. Enter mind altering substances and means of endless variety and effect. Enter anything that can shake off the habitual way of consciousness, can release us from our verbal hold on the world. This is the way to begin. Be patient, study, and do. You are already OK, you just need to remember that you are.

Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. - Machiavelli

[willoweyes]

Wonderful post Bodi--I wonder if you have read The Spell of the Sensuous--re the written word and our divorce from the living breathing flesh of the world.

I have just been reading "The Hidden Face of God" wonderfully evocative title. Who has hidden His face here, I wonder? How many rely on the tired words of long-ago men, and fail eternally to seek a more personal acquaintance with the Holy?

Groupthink--lies. I love the Word. The Word is the Name--it is power. I am ensorcelled. The word is ego.

[Bodi]

Thanks, Willow. ;) No, I don't recall ever hearing of it, but I will certainly look for it, it sounds like a very interesting metephorical look at John 1:1, yes? The Word, (being the ego) was with God (saw the world in its suchness) in the beginning. Sounds a little like some of the apocriphal works of St. Thomas, too. I love epistemology and metephorical thinking. I seem to recall The Hidden Face of God, but not specifically. I've read a lot of books, not that that means anything.

Primus 23, I meant to tell you that there is something very deep to the 2 to 3 structure. I think its facinating, and I think I will start a new line to explore it. (At the top of the topic).

Also, to Humming, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, however, I very strongly disagree about the following -

"Properly understood, the strong psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin can initiate the same state as achieved by years of meditation. However, internalizing and fully grasping the state of ego-loss permanently, transcendance, is much more difficult, as I said perhaps even impossible in this society". - Humming

Strong psychedelics can be a wonderful tool, even an indispensable one. However, I believe the mind must have a form of disipline in itself before it can truly benefit from the use of them. Look at all the ceremonies and rituals associated with their use. There is a reason for their use. Meditation can take you anywhere the substances can, too. They are just a lot easier. I think of drugs of any kind as a sort of 'training wheels'. They can help you get to some places it is harder to get to without them, if they are used properly, and you synergize it with the meditation.

About it being impossible to have permenant ego-loss, this is clearly not the case, it is simply difficult. I would strongly suggest (once again) the work of Katsuki Sekida, Especially, Zen Training. Zen calls the art of living egolessly in today's world (whenever that happens to be for you) Cultivating the Art of Holy Buddhahood. This is recognized as being something that comes after enlightenment. It is the next step - get enlightenment, then learn how to live with it, lol.

1st Zen Monk - "I hear you attained enlightenment yesterday.
2nd Zen Monk - "Yes. It is so".
1st Zen Monk - "How do you feel"?
2nd Zen Monk - "As miserable as before'

Zen Monk to the hotdog vender - "Make me One with everything".

Sorry, just a little Zen humor ...

[Bodi]

Oh, yeah,

David Bohm and Krishnamurti both ROCK!

And if you like Bohm, have you read The Holographic Universe? Great read!

[Humming]

Bodi: "Strong psychedelics can be a wonderful tool, even an indispensable one. However, I believe the mind must have a form of disipline in itself before it can truly benefit from the use of them. Look at all the ceremonies and rituals associated with their use. There is a reason for their use. Meditation can take you anywhere the substances can, too. They are just a lot easier. I think of drugs of any kind as a sort of 'training wheels'. They can help you get to some places it is harder to get to without them, if they are used properly, and you synergize it with the meditation."

This is, in fact, my opinion as well as yours. I don't engage in psychedelics with people who have no sense of mystery and no capacity to fully actualize the experience. I used the words "states" to indicate a temporary level of consciousness, as opposed to a more permanent "stage" of consciousness which is sculpted through practice and willful intent. Ken Wilbur the spiritualist makes this distinction in his writings, and I think that it is a valid one.

I don't think there is anywhere that I could go with meditation that I couldn't go with a properly intentional psychedelic "trip". For me, psychedelics ARE meditation.

When I trip, I usually just sit in trance state trying to focus on whatever I have been involved with lately, and trying to deepen my understanding of the relativities of it. A mental preparation and actualization of conscious energy is necessary before ingestion of organic compounds, otherwise the cosmic view will be nothing more than useless nonsensicalities.

I agree with Daniel's perspective of the Left Hand Path as I understand it: that synthetics are to Western consciousness what psycho-somatic (in Bohm's terminology, signa-somatic) meditative practice is to Eastern consciousness. The Western methods are far easier and less time-consuming to actualize because our need for gnosis is much greater. An untrained, unprepared, unconscious, unquestioning person who takes psychedelics will most likely not come to a higher level of awareness, BUT they will have a fleeting taste of the divine. This is the signifigance of LSD--the atomic mind bomb--that in a majority of people who take it, (depending of course on what research you're reading...) the experience is transcendental--something beyond the shallow sheen of materialism that is utterly binding to most people's spirits. LSD can give a different perspective to people who would have never, ever questioned the maya as presented to them (as Capitalism does in the form of material fetishes and mental vacuity) if they hadn't taken the drug.

I imagine that the same qualifiers apply to Eastern spiritual practice--that not everyone who follows through with the rituals necessarily comes to a greater understanding. Only some are destined to be shamans and soothsayers...

The intensification of global consciousness comes as the Western and Eastern perspectives can meld, given the global technological network of free information, the New Age of Aquarius. The suffusion of ancient wisdom through technological means (read: synthetic--LSD) to the masses will be the final straw the breaks the back of our current imperialistic slave society.

I think this is the real signifigance of the organic compounds' re-emergence, the re-birth of the plant voice, in our time: the collective dissilution of the ego, the subsequent death of Capitalism and slavery, and the creation of a new society which seeks to achieve collective unity and truth as real values within the community.

[ July 26, 2004, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Halfglass]

Humming bravo! Check out a little book by F.David Peat..."Sychronicity; the bridge between mind and matter." A mad trip into chaos theory, the unliklyhood of there being an "ego" on the scene, and the emerging science that includes a purpose to this soup of atoms i.e. concensus reality. (If old "F." never tripped I'd be amazed.)

[ July 28, 2004, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[jezebelle]

I still got to say the dissolution of the little ego, so that the big may emerge.
A recognition of oneness.
The seperation from the tribal mind/plant consciousness only to be reunited again.
The slicing of the big mind, as it experiences its nowness, now.

[toppersbazaar]

I want to stear this EGO conversation into politics for second i think it's pretty obvious that most of us get the relation between our lower, middle and upper selves. So when you say "subsequent death of Capitalism and slavery"
Humming i'm curious what type of economic system you see replacing capatalism. A society must be governed as per its average ego-nature. To get to the point where someone is going to study medicine for 20 years and do heart surgery on you in exchange for some sage you had growing is the socialist dream. People get offended when they have to take a good hard look at humanity and see just how far we are from a transaction like this happening. When that "point, level of awareness) is reached I'm going to assume our bodies will fall away, useless, as our drops of consciousness become one with the Ocean. Until then. Let's just face it (for the most part) people are out for themselves when it comes to sweat. I ask you at what stage in our evolution and roughly when "timeline wise" do you see this utopian society comming to fruition. The one where someone will literaly sweat for a stranger ON A DAILY BASIS?

[Lowlight]

I dont think that we will actually get to that as i think it likely that there will always be various power structures in competition. But that doesnt mean that a particular society could have such ideals that work within itself. I think it possible to an extent to create something similar to a social utopia but not on a global scale. Difference always turns up and from that such a global society would fracture, and thats if we got to that state in the first place. even the smaller scale utopia would eventually pass away in time. all we can do is try and make the present better, try and heal the wounds of the innocent to what ever extent we can. Utopia is really a symbol of non-being i.e a state of undifferentiated perfection where we are all at peace. The world is not this. Even if we are released into the imagination and become superhuman expansive minds in 2012 we will still be given new problems, new struggles, new wars to fight, they may just be even more expansive than they were in the past. All things end, even a psychedelic society would have to.

[daniel]

toppersbazaar,

I think we are closer to that situation than you can imagine.

Compassion and sacrifice is just as much a part of human nature as greed and miserliness. We live in an artificial social structure that systemizes the negative aspects of the individual, and denies the positive one.

The surgeon probably originally began from the innate or original desire to heal - this innate desire then got twisted through the societal hell into a fixation on rewards. If the current economic structure simply disappeared, that surgeon would have to return to his "original heart," his child heart, and his desire to simply heal, without any necessity of reward.

By the way, as some economists note, the current global economy is a house of cards that could collapse at any time.

I don't think an exchange economy of unequal parts is the future - I think a gift economy is.

[Humming]

Yup, there's really not much that I feel I need to add after those two posts.

I don't think that the post-Capitalism society will be a utopia, but my hope is that it will hold truth as a real consequential human value. Our current society binds people into vacant ideologies, (ie. the "American Dream" of working hard, moving up in the ranks, and eventually being able to get whatever you want whenever you want it) that are VASTLY different from the realities of the social structure.

The reality of our current system is that accumulated wealth is NOT based on merit. The ideologies serve to hide and confuse the truth, and condition people to accept the system in such a way that they never question it.

The idea of a gift economy is delightful to me. True art, given freely without desires and attachment, would finally be able to flourish...

[ August 17, 2004, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Buzz]

Is topperbazaar still around?

Bumped this thread up because of discussions going on about the EGO.

Wanted to reply to some of the comments made by toppers above. I don't see where capitalism is an improvement over the old barter system. Capitalism has led to the destruction of our planets natural resources. As is evidenced by its popularity in communist China, it's easy to see that it is not a natural by-product of a Democracy. It certainly has made things more complicated and I don't see where the extremely rich are really giving back to the community. So what if Sandra Bullock gives a million dollars to aid the Tsunami efforts. She is still very rich and isn't about to sacrifice her comforts to aid anybody. It does make for good press though. Sorry Sandra, there are many others I could pick on as well.

The sickened ego (as opposed to a healthy, integrated ego) is the father of capitalism. Capitalism is about "he who dies with the most toys wins". How selfish, how utterly deplorable. Wonder why Jesus said that "its easier for an elephant to squeeze thru the Eye of the Needle than it is for a rich man to reach Heaven." It's because when they die and realize how much they could have contributed to the common good, they judge themselves to be unworthy of living. The soul splits off from the spirit and wanders alone with its guilt. The spirit suffers as well, though void of guilt, waiting to unite with a new soul in a new body. Another chance to get it right.

Good reply Daniel.

Manning, have you read thru this thread? Would like to hear your comments.

[ January 07, 2005, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: Buzz ]

[nanouk]

You playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people won't feel insecure around you. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela

mmm, me too... smile.gif

[Buzz]

The sickness of the ego is a bit akin to a Library of stored knowledge becoming a Prison Guard in a city with no crime. This happens due to the spirit being run off at an early age (except perhaps in some indigenous folks). The Library forgets who it served (spirit) and begins to believe there is a need to protect itself. We are born into a Western socio-political slave-master economy in which contact with your very own spirit is discouraged. Look at the publics view of artists. Artists are people who, no matter how egocentric they may react to the celebration or rejection of their art (for many of them are sickened souls as well), are able to look into the spirit to create art. Our society wants you to go to a middle man to intercede on behalf of the spirit. And, generally, that Priest/preacher/whatever is a sickened soul as well. This sickness results from the turning away from spirit (or God), what an irony.

Using your analogy of the geode, Manning, I would say that the geode is the soul itself. Its hard, ugly outer coat is protecting it from Spirit. The jewels inside are the Library of Knowledge and the Center of Perception. Its that crusty hard outer coating that is the problem. It is the disease. It's the sickened part of the soul. When one does psychedelics or has a psychotic episode (or whatever other form the breakthrough comes in) the hard outer coat is smashed, as if by a hammer. Spirit comes rushing in. Some souls are amazingly resilient, however, and that rock can draw itself back together again, though weakened a little. Calm hard work, meditation can gently disassemble the outer coat. If one has a powerful intent. Compare that to the geode being in rushing water or wind filled with sand blasting away, eroding the surface over time. Or allowing spirit to intercede from time to time, gradually reducing the fear of the soul. Because the soul thought it was the immortal one, it now has to ponder its mortality and it is scared. Integration is the only way out and the spirit will gently whisper that into our ears. It wants to join us but is unconcerned.

But the secret is that one can retain the object (Library, Center of Perception) without that hard outer coating. IF you have integrity. Literally integrated soul and spirit. Personally, though one would be immortal at this point, I doubt that the physical body would survive, at least I'm not that ambitious. One survives death with a personality and a place in space/time/infinity.

Soul is the self, the rock, the object. Everywhere else there is spirit.

Another way of putting it. Castenada asked his mentor what were his options at this point. DJ said something to the effect that "one can become kind-hearted or become an asshole."

[ January 07, 2005, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: Buzz ]

[nanouk]

library-libra-freedom

[Halfglass]

Buzz and Manning and Daniel and the rest, (you guys are the f'n Aristotles of our time!). Buzz: Immortality. (I like this subjct, I find myself comming to think of it quietly and alone because people think you're talking about a god that may send one to hell or bla bla....) Anyway yeah, immortality; whatever is the cause behind the Big Bang...the It/Us...is immortal. But what about the personal experiences? Are they stored away in some electric loaves of time (time, as described by some physicists is like a loaf of bread that can be mathmatically sliced up)? Can we revisit the times we had, (like it was all just a movie)...in the afterlife...in some strange (or remembered?) state of existence amid glens of sunshinny etheral bodielessness? And so there conjecture: 'What have we learned?'?

"Who wants to start their own universe?"

Do you suppose it's possible that this place (the Earth plane) is like a sperm wad, where some, or a few out of billions might be of some purpose and the rest just victims of circumstance? For the sake of arguement let's say yeah, there is an afterlife (the psychedelic has revealed this more than anything ever could!). What then might the purpose for being thrown into a body, and raised into a conditioned experience (growing up etc.) with little chance of breaking out and realizing the transient state of things and the poinlessness of owning things etc.,be?

Grooming for some? Grooming I say.

[ January 08, 2005, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[daniel]

No I don't think it is possible that the earth plane is like a "sperm wad," Halfglass.

I think there is ultimately only one unitive consciousness in which everyone participates, in their own way and on their own level, and all of it contributes to the process of growth, creative evolution, and positive change. The most boorish corporate hack as well as the poorest peasant are necessarily aspects of the consciousness seeking itself out, remembering itself, developing itself as the most high-vibe yogi or raw-food-munching New Age philosopher.

Souls develop in their own slant-ways way, for their own purposes, towards goals none of us yet imagine.

my 2 cents...

[Halfglass]

Daniel I agree, but imagine that the It had left some doors open, or left the decision making open ended, so that a piece of Itself was no longer itself. (This is why it's always paradox hu?--if the It is One source, then in the end, is all this existing just something to do? To not be bored? (actually I could live with that idea!).)

We have to remember that humans are still killing each other everyday and this fact doesn't reflect well on the idea of a unified world ideal. Maybe there's alot of action is on the Otherside too...maybe that is our real state.

[Halfglass]

Daniel I agree, but imagine that the It had left some doors open, or left the decision making open ended, so that a piece of Itself was no longer itself. (This is why it's always paradox hu?--if the It is One source, then in the end, is all this existing just something to do? To not be bored? (actually I could live with that idea!).)

We have to remember that humans are still killing each other everyday and this fact doesn't reflect well on the idea for ideals about purpose, kindness etc. but with the happenstance of a blind push of Nature. Maybe there's alot of action is on the Otherside too...maybe that is our real state.

[ January 08, 2005, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[jezebelle]

speaking of this ego stuff, I happen to be reading The 7 Rays Made Visual by Helen Burmester (an illustrated intro to the teaching on the seven rays of djwhal khul and alice bailey. (alice bailey's stuff on astrology really knocked me off my chair one night back in the 70's. I will quote 2 tidbits that seem to fit.

"Individualisation is the transition from animal consciousness to self-consciousness in the human being when all three divine aspects appear in a unit of life in form. To the two already functioning aspects of active intelligence (ray III) and love (ray II) is added ray I of will and power. This higher aspect takes the initiative and, through a stimulation from without, causes a response from the life in form. "A son of god is born."

"The individual being is a living son of god, a soul, occupying an animal body. The secret of the human quality is the power to identify with all other forms of consciousness and awareness, with all forms of unconscious and instinctual response. This includes identification with all forms of the superconscious or divine sense of being."

Remember we were in that soup grooving, giving off pedals or mandalas of light, (before the seperation of the sun from the earth) That is when the big game began and the egyptian myths really express that process best.
It took a very long time to be able to emenate light. (the colors all have deep meaning too) and "humanity as the fourth kingdom of nature, constitutes - like every other kingdom - a totality of lives."
As you may well guess all that individualisation must fade away in that of initiation.
Such are our times the time of initiation.
Love, to my fellow travelers we must be crazy, but as my kid says, "crazy in a good way."

[daniel]

no i really don't agree that individuation "fades away" post-initiation, it just takes on a different form... as Gebser puts it, not ego loss but ego freedom is the goal. Supersession of individuation is not deindividuation. What is individual may become more sharply felt, more universal but at the same time more personal and more unique.

halfglass, i also don't think the "other side" is our "real state." I don't think there is an other side in that way. Check out Goswami, there cannot be a collapse of the quantum wave into a consciously observed or co-created particle without a physical brain in a physical body. All that is the "other side" only manifests, presences, on this side.

[nanouk]

there is an other side alright....*shudder*

[jezebelle]

ok ok indeed you are right. I can't get away with unclarity. (I love how your mind is like a steel trap - Truely valuable)

It is a cumlative thing rather than a replacement to another state. Because of that, forgive me I will quote again because it says it better than I.

First stage: The three types of energy - vital, emotional, and mental - blend in the personality into the Personality Ray. What has so far been a reflection of the higher Triad becomes now transmuted into the energies of the Soul. This Higher Triad consists of spiritual activity, pure reason, and purpose - Atma, Buddhi, Manas.

Second stage: On the higher mental planes of the personality, the activities of intelligence and the spiritual activities of the higher mind, which convey illunination, INTERACT. The energy of pure reason, or the intuitive nature, which confers (deliberates) spiritual perception, transforms the self-centered desires of the personality into soul or group consciousness. Eventually, the first aspect of the Higher Triad, that of Will or Purpose, (whatever ray or mixture you are) which is divine livingness, dominates the entire expression of the human being. Then he or she is a completely soul-infused being, or a Master who can work with facility in the worlds of the personality as well as in the world of Soul. The world of the Higher Triad becomes the world of inspiration, and the other the world of service.

In other words what you just said.

The hierarchy continues, kinda in place fatefully, yet still forming anew.

[Halfglass]

Daniel; Yes I know. I forget myself sometimes and put out things (like "is the earth plane just a big sperm wad?") to get a rouse sometimes. One thing that I've come to believe is that there is no spirit word per-say just this strange absurd state of finding ones self tethered to a body verses the "other" state--the closest we can describe it might be; experiences of "places" in all that energy...and energy is ALL there is (of course it must be understood that this energy is aware).

BTW a good book find I must tell about: "The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama" by Arthure Zajonc. A facinating talk between a quantum physicist and his holiness on the double slit experiment, nonlocation, correlated photons.

(That's the one where two photons from the same source are in a undescribed position--their "spin" hasn't been determined by a measurement yet. If you seperate them by a foot or by thousands of light years and then measure the "spin" on the one still in the laboratory say, the other one, half way across the universe will instantly have the same "spin"--and this "information" will be there the instant the observer colapses the wave function of the photon on earth...so the speed of light is apparently
"broken.")

This book is right up our alley brother, it's the next best thing since Goswami I'm serious! (Unfortunately it's still in hardback $30.00!--luckily I used my gift card from christmas to but mine!) Much more--there's been a revolution in cosmology in the last few years that has gone under the radar screen of average folk--they're answering some big, old questions in this field.

(For a breakdown of what's on the cutting edge including all known pieces of matter (quarks, neutrinos and all that fun stuff) check out "Alpha and Omega: the search for the beginning and the end of the universe" by Charles Seife (copyright 2003).)

But yeah, the Dalai Lama is VERY smart and he gets it all (when they explain all the paradoxes that Goswami covers etc.) and he asks every question I could hope to ask and then some. And for once the scientist(s) (actually there's a few of them, and a few of the Dalai Lama's holy friends in on the talks) are opening up and comparing what Buddhims is saying etc. and just as we've been saying about these odd findings in quantum physics, they begin to see the two sides (Buddhism and quantum physics) coming closer together--a must read if you dig Goswami as I said.

Also: Jez hi hon. Wondered 'bout you there. This busness of dealing with the oneness and the individual I'm starting to think is maybe happenstance...that to be "here" in the fleesh, by default means one can't know "where" their origin is or rather WHY they are here. Maybe it's not a planned thing. Anyway whatever you want to call it, there is obviously a state we can see here, and the psychedelic has shown that there is a "non-physical" host of awareness Behind--(I know words fail but geesh, they's all we got fer now!)

[ January 10, 2005, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[jezebelle]

Hey halfglass (sweetie) Very interesting book, I will have to read this. I know sort of what you mean, words are bullshit but I can't help but feel that in all this happenstance, a master-self (non-physical to be sure) is waiting for the little me to see a glimpse of the "singlarity" at-one-ment with whatever you can muster.
To get that union, energy must be "upped" so sides can be unified. (maybe like a docking station)

In my personal experience its like a bleed through to the impossible. There is "on-your-own-power" or the jump-start of drugs. With that glimpse the world colapses just like pushing a button. The impossible is discarded and the world is forever different. Principalities, dominions, rulerships, follow the new pathway of the curious, like a warp in gravity. We are the anamonly in the grid.
Anyway in all this yak- adak, I feel there is a pattern yet at the sametime unfolding fresh. My "I" watches waiting again for the unexpected, yet knowing all along.

[egret]

manning, thanx to you or whoever brot this thread up again. it’s a great one. (but I think I’m a few days late in posting this) you said I said everyone was saying different things. maybe I did, I don’t remember, but what I meant was everyone was talking about two or three things. anyway, maybe I’d even take that back, since reading this over, I think I may have gotten confused about people’s terminology. I mean, there’s ego on level of like what you feel gripping up around your neck when you are into selfish behaviour, a greedy clutching kind of thing. there’s freud’s ego, and I don’t even know what that is. there’s ego something more like sense of self, those places you keep returning to, - or for more conscious people, those places you choose to return to (sometimes maybe fooling ourselves about how possible is it for us to really ‘inhabit’ those places, as opposed to just talking about what we saw when we were there).

what I was trying to get at was more that sense of the ‘we’ that inhabit each moment, inhabit each moment no matter where we are (selfish or transcendent) - not so much talk about ‘where we go’ in different moments. which changes, but is always there, everytime we look, and look back.
that convergence point, or points, constellation of points, that cloud or nodal concentration, that is the inhabitor that goes like a roller coaster (or a canoe on a smooth stream) from place to place. did don juan mean this by ‘assemblage point’??

but in a way I think your geode image talks about that. it’s a great one, for the rough and opaque ? exterior, and the crystalline, light-dancing, self-reflective interior.

I’ve had a similar image, though more cloudy and abstract. its based on that feeling that phenomenal awareness of self, that constellation of convergence in each waving moment, changes so drastically from one moment you check in to the next moment (you check in) , so it’s a kind of moving geode, (multi-fractal level wave pulsations)

I see it like a cloud form that back from dissipating condenses in on itself, sometimes creating a geode-sic like contained space, then dissolution of the containment, to a degree, and dissipating back out into cloudy form. back out is ‘apprehensive’ somehow; but it’s a kind of ‘letting go’ of that sense of condensing self-operations.
coming back in is ‘digestive’, turning into knowledge. all kind of focusing on this or that. (daydreaming is a bit cloudier)
but it goes further, it goes to these huge changes possible in consciousness.

its also like a tree cycle. leaves really collect, sap runs back inside.

out in the clouds, we tend to forget ourselves. we remember first the things we saw out there as we go back inside, but also we may remember ourselves. (as this, as that, just ‘as’). but these pulsations are happening on various levels at various intervals, so something is going out as something comes in. still, there is a center towards which ‘we’ can always move, making us ‘we’.

but there’s a whole other dynamic too: these waves are year to year, but also second to second, maybe microsecond to microsecond (on that old shitty ‘thc’ I felt the AC current of life and death I thought, it was at least many times a second)

but like anything, there’s an in-time effect of these waves. we have the piano pedal down, and they are sounding, many at a time, in overflowing harmony (let’s hope), a new chord added every moment (a new constellation of tones, of awareness points.)

and the in-the-moment phenomenal self, that which is there and then converging the incoming data, can see and feel those past reverberations (of self I think, ultimately, but the self that contains the universe)

I’m not sure how this merges, but also, when the cloud sweeps in, it does so ‘towards the center’. the outside of the cloud is gently pulled back but the force of the inward wave is like a whirlpool appearing ‘out of nowhere’. a vortex. a ring that creates a pool, an opening,

and this is the opening across which self-reflection can happen. but it doesn’t mean necessarily a developed sense of self. cats self-organize (the data, as it were). and dogs some awareness that makes them potential neurotics. this is a focusing in on the stuff brought in and still coming in from the outside, from the dispersed but still focusing cloud.

for that is crystalline, too, its all ‘crystalline’, reflecting the light of what’s perceived. its like a cloud of dispersed crystals or a spray of raindrops in the sun (if it becomes truly, and permanently opaque, I think that must mean death, or self-destruction) “information” from the thing perceived, now shattered and reconstructed as delirious colors, jiggling through its nervous passageways. and brought into the self-reflective core, the self-organizing point as chaos theory would say.

in there too the possibilities for this very discussion : the seeing oneself, knowing oneself to be here in the moment. or in time. both lead to a question of what is i. and seeing the many levels of crystalline refractory holograms through which we know the world.
or rather, know “that” the world (any predicate to follow).

a fluid, gaseous, magnificently pulsating geode.