Ego and Egotism (Egocentrism)

[Denis]

Um, correction of one sentence in my previous post: It helped me to stop demonizing the word Ego because in my past I mostly associated this word to self interest, self indulgent behavior and self importance coupled with disregard for other beings around one.

I apologize for any inconvenience (I know I've said I will refrain from posting here for the time being but I just had to correct this sentence).

In Lak'ech Ala K'in ;)

 

[Buddy]

OK. I understand your position much better since you answered my question, and fwiw, so far I follow you. Yes, I did flag out the word 'understanding' because I was curious about the seeming dissonance between the following two statements:

I answered in ARARITA's words because I resonate with his understanding of the terms Ego and Egotism.

I'm not sure what do you mean by stating in my own words why this topic is of any concern to me.

...which made me wonder about your contextual understanding (which you have cleared up as far as I'm concerned at this point).

Anyway, due perhaps to the nature of this Work and the particular material that serves as the basic psychology recommended reading, I consider egotism as the expression of the egocentric individual who acts as if the world revolves around him or that every issue concerns him personally. I think we can also call it narcissistic self-indulgence.

What is most important about a discussion involving 'ego' seems to be to simply communicate with clarity. Ego can have at least two meanings depending on context and it's not really necessary to even use the word since we can also refer to the two contexts as the 'false self, or false personality' and the 'Real self', or we can simply say 'sense of self' in relation to something else, OSIT.

Hope this is not confusing. Others might be able to say it better.

 

[cubbex]

Hey there I'm back (obviously :))!

Whooa, too many replies to this thread! Since I don't really have that much spare/free time on my hands to answer to everyone individually, I will try to be as concise as possible in this post.

:P I think you have. Others are in the same position as you, without so much time to read.

And, have you read all the quotes and posted them in a way to make understand the point? or just post them quckly because you had not time maybe?

 

[Iron]

@anart I do not consider the info I have posted to be rather obtuse, in fact I consider it to be very concise. But ok, you choose to label it as such- I don't consider this statement to be very wise- at least from my current perspective and understanding (please don't take this personally- I'm just pointing out to your choice of words). Can you please explain to me, if you will, why do you find this information rather obtuse? Perhaps I will understand why you've used those words if you clarify it for me. After all, you have more than 10000 posts here, this indicates to me that you have a broad knowledge base.

My state of development? I wouldn't know really... the more I learn the more I am amazed at how little I actually know. :)

I will listen to your advice and use the search engine and for the time being I will refrain from posting here.

Obtuse - dense: slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity; Indirect or circuitous.
Concise - expressing much in few words; gets to the point quickly

Denis, you took more than three long posts to make a point, each of those posts with many words but not much information.
Another point is the phrase "you choose to label it as such". Here in this forum, we practice external consideration, meaning that we try to put ourselves in another shoes, thinking if we are expressing ourselves in a clear and understandable manner among other behaviours.
If people are having a hard time understanding what you wrote, and considering that most here have high levels of formal education, and those who do not hang here in the forum , exposed to dificult concepts and little used words at times, perhaps that means that you are not expressing yourself in a clear manner isn't it?
This is why anart wrote that to you.
See, its not a subjective thing, in that she "choose to interpret your post as obtuse". Its a objective assessment backed by other posters, me included, that found it hard to understand your point. Because of lack of clarity, not because of difficulty in grasping the concept.

 

[Denis]

Euhm... As I was reading luke wilson's thread on Ben Stewart's movies, I've stumbled upon these earlier posts of mine. This provided me with an opportunity to reflect back on my past behavior and see if I made some improvements on myself thus far.
Yep, I've made some progress, but I am not pleased with it- it's just minor improvement imho. Nevertheless, I will not allow myself to fall into the trap of self-judgement or worse- self pity, for example- as I realize this is counterproductive for my personal development and spiritual evolution. Instead, I have decided I will be gentle with myself and take everything one step at a time.
I've learned a lot here on this forum, but there is far too little that I have actually applied. I am working on becoming more externally considering, this is something that I am currently struggling myself with. Similar to this thread, when I realize something or find something of value, I have a burning and almost irresistable urge to "tell it to the whole world" without taking into account others' level of beingness/understanding/personal development and I am excited cos of my new realizations and understandings and this excitement usually lasts for days, sometimes even a few weeks. That is why I have been venting here on this board about my "profound" realizations and findings on the ego and egotism as if I were some kind of sage teaching his wisdom to the rest of pupils. Of course, now I understand that people here have a firm grasp on these topics. There's not much I can add here, is there? Well, the future is still open and unknown, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see... :)

Well, I would suggest others to add their own flavor to this topic, that is, only if you are inclined and willing to do so. I believe we are growing and evolving through this networking, so similar thing can happen to this discussion too- it can continue to evolve in accordance with the questions raised...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtfNM4f2-iQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G9zr5Rnokw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaQXJmpwM4

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" Interesting line... (whoops, it's 1 past midnight already where I am, and I need to get up early in the morning in order to go to work- yep, I'm one of billions of other "wage slaves", what can I do? :))

Best regards, good people!

 

[Denis]

Um, I've decided to reopen this thread because my conscience is telling me to do so.

Friends, I admit I was being dishonest in presenting myself here in this thread- I am referring to the initial post that started this thread. Most of the words that I wrote there (in the opening post) is my translation from the book "Creative Use of Emotion" written by Swami Rama and Swami Ajaya, from Chapter 2 ("Transformation of identity"), section: "Expansion of unity", with a few added words of my own.

I realize now that if I am to Work on myself honestly, I simply must not allow to present myself with other people's words, all the while pretending that they are my own in order to feed my self-importance and boost my ego/false personality.
I thought about writing this post for the past couple months, but I always gave up due to the fear of being exposed and of being ashamed. Now I don't fear of my insincerity being exposed, but I do feel embarrassed.

There, that's one burden less that I need to carry, now that I have opened myself up to you and admitted my insincerity. I still have a looooong way to go, for my journey has just begun and I'm not the only one... :)

 

[Palinurus]

I realize now that if I am to Work on myself honestly, I simply must not allow to present myself with other people's words, all the while pretending that they are my own in order to feed my self-importance and boost my ego/false personality.
I thought about writing this post for the past couple months, but I always gave up due to the fear of being exposed and of being ashamed. Now I don't fear of my insincerity being exposed, but I do feel embarrassed.

Hi Denis,

Interesting development. Thank you for reporting back and coming clean on this one. Congratulations as well ! The embarrassment is part of the learning curve I can tell you from experience. It anchors the lesson learned. Just process it adequately (self observation) for maximum gain.

A sentence from Mme Jeanne de Salzmann's First Initiation came to mind:

You must understand that all the other measures - talent, education, culture, genius - are changing measures, measures of detail. The only exact measure, the only unchanging, objective real measure is the measure of inner vision. I see - I see myself - by this, you have measured. With one higher real part, you have measured another lower part, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the role of each part, will lead you to respect for yourself.

See: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28065.0.html

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Buddy]

Hi Denis.

I guess this is why sincerity is valued so highly on here--it's at a level of honesty where we all connect with each other.

For instance, I've also presented words of others as my own, so I can relate to what you've realized and may be feeling now. I don't think I've ever "confessed" this before although I know that some people are aware of it. Anyway, trying to Work out reasons why has helped uncover at least one of those reasons. I'd like to share it with you:

When I was a child, I couldn't be honest or sincere simply because that would, at the very least, 'earn' me a backhand. I still had to grow and get smart, though, so sometimes it became easier to acquire and use other smart people's knowledge. The very process of doing that seems also to have helped build the structure of false ego (false personality) as Gurdjieff mentions.

Even when I realized what I had been doing and why it was 'wrong', it was hard for me to return to "just me". The main reason, I think, is because I've had many experiences of just being myself, having people agree with me to my face and then talk about me behind my back, 'putting me down' and planning how next to deal with me--mostly in condescending ways. I even brought those fears and other programming on here.

Interestingly, sometimes I just couldn't bear the feeling that somebody was smiling to themselves and feeling so much smarter than me, while lying to my face telling me how much they valued my 'honesty'.

Having tried to resolve all this in my head *only* doesn't work well for me. Emotional processing has definitely helped, since emotions of fear and maybe even of 'revenge' or such seems to have kept crazy thinking processes going in so many cases. For instance, my dad yelling at me one day: "...you'll never know as much as I do...!!!" sent me into some kind of "I'll show you!" mode. Disgusting how I continued to let myself be controlled, even that way.

Has the EE and meditation been instrumental for helping you to this point? It has for me along with a bit of self-initiated level four regressive therapy. Basically I'm outside the house, sort of 're-living' some strong emotional tornados and performing multiple introductions between a mat and a plastic bat.

Thanks for that post.

 

[Denis]

Thank you for your replies, Palinurus and Buddy.

Great link Palinurus, just what I needed on my current point of development! I am currently on the 2nd page of the thread, and it's right up my alley. ;)

Hi Denis.

I guess this is why sincerity is valued so highly on here--it's at a level of honesty where we all connect with each other.

For instance, I've also presented words of others as my own, so I can relate to what you've realized and may be feeling now. I don't think I've ever "confessed" this before although I know that some people are aware of it. Anyway, trying to Work out reasons why has helped uncover at least one of those reasons. I'd like to share it with you:

When I was a child, I couldn't be honest or sincere simply because that would, at the very least, 'earn' me a backhand. I still had to grow and get smart, though, so sometimes it became easier to acquire and use other smart people's knowledge. The very process of doing that seems also to have helped build the structure of false ego (false personality) as Gurdjieff mentions.

Even when I realized what I had been doing and why it was 'wrong', it was hard for me to return to "just me". The main reason, I think, is because I've had many experiences of just being myself, having people agree with me to my face and then talk about me behind my back, 'putting me down' and planning how next to deal with me--mostly in condescending ways. I even brought those fears and other programming on here.

Interestingly, sometimes I just couldn't bear the feeling that somebody was smiling to themselves and feeling so much smarter than me, while lying to my face telling me how much they valued my 'honesty'.

Having tried to resolve all this in my head *only* doesn't work well for me. Emotional processing has definitely helped, since emotions of fear and maybe even of 'revenge' or such seems to have kept crazy thinking processes going in so many cases. For instance, my dad yelling at me one day: "...you'll never know as much as I do...!!!" sent me into some kind of "I'll show you!" mode. Disgusting how I continued to let myself be controlled, even that way.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Buddy.

Whenever we worry about how others are seeing us, or worry if some people really like us or accept us, that's a clear sign that "it" (the Predator) has taken control of our lives, and hence of our thinking process and then naturally "it" starts dominating our experiences. The Predator in us feeds on the positive attention of others, and by that I mean excessive attention, constantly in need of other people praising it and giving it compliments, and when the "supply" gets low, it reverses and starts drawing negative attention to itself- well, as long as it is in the center of attention it thrives, because ego is very poor at listening to others, unless they confirm its prejudices, beliefs and so on...
In short, ego is a tough beast to beat... Only with great effort, true love and understanding are we able to minimize or neutralize its negative influence on our lives and the lives of others as well.

Basically, as I have heard our Croatian scientist, physicist and innovator Davor Pavuna saying on the recent radio interview: "there are three types of love- love of self, love of neighbor and love of God". IMO, if any of those three is missing, ego takes control and it starts dominating our lives. So we always have to pay attention, be vigilant...

Has the EE and meditation been instrumental for helping you to this point? It has for me along with a bit of self-initiated level four regressive therapy. Basically I'm outside the house, sort of 're-living' some strong emotional tornados and performing multiple introductions between a mat and a plastic bat.

Thanks for that post.

I have to admit that I didn't try EE program yet. But meditation and breathwork really helped me to establish more clarity within myself. I think that Mrs. Laura said somewhere (I may be wrong on that one, though) that once you learn how to breathe properly, you will have learned self-mastery. I'm still perfecting my breathing skills though, currently I'm just a beginner. I used to train Tai Chi (for a very short time, though), and that has helped me in focusing my mind on the heartbeat while I am doing the breathwork.

 

[obyvatel]

I have to admit that I didn't try EE program yet. But meditation and breathwork really helped me to establish more clarity within myself. I think that Mrs. Laura said somewhere (I may be wrong on that one, though) that once you learn how to breathe properly, you will have learned self-mastery.

Can you find out Laura's quote in this matter? I do not remember her writing that. However, I have heard similar idea to what you have written above being promoted by teachers of Yoga and eastern spirituality.

 

[Denis]

I have to admit that I didn't try EE program yet. But meditation and breathwork really helped me to establish more clarity within myself. I think that Mrs. Laura said somewhere (I may be wrong on that one, though) that once you learn how to breathe properly, you will have learned self-mastery.

Can you find out Laura's quote in this matter? I do not remember her writing that. However, I have heard similar idea to what you have written above being promoted by teachers of Yoga and eastern spirituality.

Nope, I can't find the quote- that is why I wrote in the bracket that I may be wrong on that one, and as it turned out, I *was* wrong. I think I misremembered when I heard Mrs. Laura saying in the video Introduction to Éiriú Eolas that "without mastering breath, nothing can be mastered", it is around 01:55 in the video when she says that.