On killing the ego

[ararat]

browsing forums like these, one often reads about killing the ego, smashing it, maiming it, crucify it or what have you.

why? what is it that wants to kill the ego? what shines forth when the ego disappeared spontaneously during a psychedelic experience? isn't this that shines forth nothing but pure love and peace? sorry if that sounds cliché but it seems to fit. love and peace don't kill or smash, however "bad" someting might be, there just is no need to.

why not just bypass the ego? surrender the identification with it and let it babble on, it will get silent when one pulls away the interest in it. one might think that one isn't interested in the ego, but one obviously is. when one goes deep inside one finds that one is secretely enamored with it.
this gets me to the point I was talking about in another thread, the morbid enjoyment of resentment, anger, vanity, EGOTISM etc. anything negative, really. these ego juices are what it lives off. emotions are juiced out, and for what? hollow and unsubstantial enjoyment.

the ego is what brought us to where we are now, without it, we wouldn't have survived when we still were animals. notice the animal qualities of the ego. the people in the subway and the cities seem to FIGHT for survival, all the fucking time. look at the boss howling at his employees, which in turn pull up their shoulders and get away with a whine. look at yourself, there are people you take/took a masochist stance at, and people you take/took a sadist stance at. Bottom dogs and Top dogs, some are higher in the pecking order, some lower. territoriality did make sense evolutionary, otherwise it wouldn't be here.



compassionate understanding is where it's at!
all you need is love, love does not come from the ego. the ego fears it actually, but in the end it is all it wants. if you understand the nature of love you understand the nature of god.

 

[Jeniger]

what is it that wants to kill the ego?

Yes indeed, thats a nice question....What comes up in mind is that using words like smashing and killing ect. sounds like the ego wanting to get rid of the ego but in a dualistic approach, as in either this or that, to think that only the formless is right... While the whole point of getting rid of the ego is not to be attached by any form and transcend both form and formless, there is nowhere to stand, and love and compassion become the base for transcending the ego.

 

[figment]

I think in tripping you lose your identity to an extent (depending on dose). And they say you don't know how much you love something until you loose it. Well, having lost my identity several times to different extents in different trips I can say I now realize that truly loving yourself is the key to universal love and supreme confidence.

I think it has nothing to do with killing the 'ego' but loving the 'ego'. If you equate your identity with your ego that is. I never use this word 'ego'. It doesn't have much meaning to me.


Well, at least I think egodeath is state of depression. The rebirth part is the fun part of a trip.


Just some thoughts

 

[IJesusChrist]

What wants to kill the ego -
The ego.

What shows when the ego dies -
equality.

What happens after the ego dies (once) -
The ego realizes equality, compassion, openess. Intelligence and empathy take over.

Atleast thats a poetic version of what happens...

I don't think anyone who has not taken a psychodelic wants to smash his or her ego without seeing equality first, meaning, you must get rid of it and see whats there before you actually want to get rid of it.

 

[EndlessEntity]

i always figured "kill your ego" or "resurrection of the soul" is just when you can differentiate between you as awareness and you as a person (with a body, attatchments, emotions) what the gnostics call awakening, the highest state of mind, living lucidly.

 

[maxfreakout]

ego death isnt something that a person 'does', as in "i want to kill my ego, im going to kill my ego" etc

rather ego death is something that just happens, unavoidably, when you trip too hard

 

[EndlessEntity]

... you dont have to "trip" too hard to experience ego death, if you trip to hard you probably will experience ego death

some people experience ego death every day. not on drugs, or religious vigor, or entheogenic substance.

 

[maxfreakout]

... you dont have to "trip" too hard to experience ego death, if you trip to hard you probably will experience ego death

some people experience ego death every day. not on drugs, or religious vigor, or entheogenic substance.

yes those unfortunate people are called 'schizophrenics'

 

[ZephX]

You're merging lifestyles.

One can kill the ego and live as they do, or retain parts or their ego and live slightly more "normal" lives.
Not both.

You can change your mind and mental status any way you wish, but you can't have it all. (unless by all, you mean having all the possible traits, and not having the lack of traits)

 

[EndlessEntity]

Ego death is a metaphor for awakening.
you kill your ego meaning you detatch yourself from your needs and your body and your ego and you look at things objectively and from the perspective of what everyone else is which is awareness.
consciousness is more than just awareness.

Even if someone has mental illness an ego is required for conscioussness or you would just be the awareness all the time.

i've read that schizophrenics have more DMT 5-meo-dmt, and bufotenin in their blood perhaps this has something to do with it?

people who think of ego death in a purely literal way are missing the point completely

 

[ZephX]

Ego death is a metaphor for awakening.
you kill your ego meaning you detatch yourself from your needs and your body and your ego and you look at things objectively and from the perspective of what everyone else is which is awareness.
consciousness is more than just awareness.

Even if someone has mental illness an ego is required for conscioussness or you would just be the awareness all the time.

i've read that schizophrenics have more DMT 5-meo-dmt, and bufotenin in their blood perhaps this has something to do with it?

people who think of ego death in a purely literal way are missing the point completely

Is it the general consensus that psychonauts are schizo's?

EDIT: i don't mean this negatively. I believe i am at LEAST schizotypal.

 

[EndlessEntity]

maybe while under influence of those drugs but not like others that are like that all the time.
we're all kinda crazy, but theres people out there with serious mental problems (chemical imbalance)

 

[HeartCore]

Why do you want to kill my ego?

 

[ararat]

I don't. changed the title now that I realised that it works just as well with "the ego"..


had a nice thought yesterday; calling the ego ego is a mean to realize that there is none.

 

[maxfreakout]

Ego death is a metaphor for awakening.
you kill your ego meaning you detatch yourself from your needs and your body and your ego and you look at things objectively and from the perspective of what everyone else is which is awareness.

You are talking about something different by suggesting that you can kill your own ego, ie by suggesting that you can control the process of ego death. That is a self-defeating definition of 'ego death' since 'ego' just is 'the controller'.

sometimes when people trip too hard, they have the experience of dying then being reborn when the trip ends, THAT is what 'ego death' is, it is an experience frequently undergone by psychonauts, it isnt something you can 'do', rather it is something that just 'happens to you' when you take drugs

 

[IJesusChrist]

... you dont have to "trip" too hard to experience ego death, if you trip to hard you probably will experience ego death

some people experience ego death every day. not on drugs, or religious vigor, or entheogenic substance.

yes those unfortunate people are called 'schizophrenics'

schizophrenics have nothing to do with this...

 

[EndlessEntity]

exactly their irrelevant to what ego loss means for everyone else

 

[maxfreakout]

'ego death' means the same thing for everyone, it's an experience of mystical death and rebirth in the psychedelic altered state of consciousness

schizophrenic people experience the same state of consciousness, broadly speaking, as trippers do, it's just that schizophrenics cant control entry into the altered state, whereas trippers can. This enables trippers to integrate their experiences with daily life, schizophrenics find it much harder to do this because they arent firmly grounded in the normal state of consciousness

As a result, schizophrenics commonly report the same exact kind of 'ego death' type experiences as psychonauts do, such as feeling that they are dead, feeling as if time has stopped etc

Screber's memoirs are very informative about this (he is probably the most famous schizophrenic person, about whom the most has been written)

 

[EndlessEntity]

hellll no ego death doesnt mean the same for everyone. generally speaking it has similar meaning to everyone.
psychedelics do NOT have to have ANYTHING to do with ego death, ever heard of Buddhism? gnosticism? even Christianity preaching their "christ's body being crucified".


tripping and being in those altered states can and usually will lead you to ego "death" eventually. but what your saying is that any psychedelic causes ego death and that for schizo's it just never goes away....
a schizo might have periods of extremeness where his ego does get lost in his mind's maelstrom
your saying to experience ego death you must be "tripping" and that szhizos are Perpetually tripping. while this could possibly have SOMETHING to do with the raised psychedelic levels in schizo's blood, it has NOTHING to do with Ego death in general.

thats kinda silly, sorry but think about it
the ego, identity and awareness aren't just altered states of mind. they are ALSO the building blocks that create our dualistic consciousness. you wouldnt be THINKING without an ego, you would just be observing.

 

[IJesusChrist]

max freakout, schizophrenics don't just fall into this group of people tripping all the time.

My mother works with them all the time, and they are NOT experiencing any kind of ego death when they have an episode. I wouldn't speak for schizophrenics as mystical shamans or constantly enlightened, or even continuously experiencing ego death. Sure, there are some very intelligent schizo's, but the majority are not. The majority are very ill people who lose a great amount of touch with reality. You cannot label all schizophrenics like this.