What is Ego? please clarify!

[sailu]

Hi all

Read so much and heard so much yet feel like I am at loss of basic knowledge. please clarify oh divine souls....!

 

I know that I am not body.I know that I am not this fabric of thoughts.

My questions are: what is ego? Is ego and mind are same? Does ego exist during stillness of thoughts?

 

Thank you all.

-S.

[Guest Melvin1]

 

Hi all

Read so much and heard so much yet feel like I am at loss of basic knowledge. please clarify oh divine souls....!

 

I know that I am not body.I know that I am not this fabric of thoughts.

My questions are: what is ego? Is ego and mind are same? Does ego exist during stillness of thoughts?

 

Thank you all.

-S.

 

Ego is identity. Mind is your memory. ( What`s in your mind? What were you thinking?). There are many with inflated egos because they are rich, powerful, intelligent, learned, etc.

[rajasanthi]

"I" suggest you to read sri Ramana maharshi's book.

[theist]

 

Hi all

Read so much and heard so much yet feel like I am at loss of basic knowledge. please clarify oh divine souls....!

 

I know that I am not body.I know that I am not this fabric of thoughts.

My questions are: what is ego? Is ego and mind are same? Does ego exist during stillness of thoughts?

 

Thank you all.

-S.

 

Actually to ask such a questions shows you are nor berefit of basic knowledge.

 

You understand that you are not the body nor the passing of thoughts and sensations (mind). Now the question is who is it that is aware of not being the body or mind? That aware particle is you, the real I, the soul or sometimes called the ego.

 

Yes you exist during stillness of thoughts just as you exist when thoughts are raging like a storm. No difference. An analogus thing is seen in deep sleep. We may not remember the nature of deep sleep but yet we can carry an awareness of having experienced it back to the waking state with us as well as some vivid dream material.

 

We always exist as eternal beings but we have pointed our consciousness outward onto the darkened temporary field of maya. If we refocus our consciousness onto the ever-shining eternal field of the spiritual world we will see our own trueselves as we really are in relationship to Krishna.

 

Hare Krishna

[Sonic Yogi]

 

"I" suggest you to read sri Ramana maharshi's book.

 

If you followed the Maharshi there would be no "I" to post your message.

[rajasanthi]

 

If you followed the Maharshi there would be no "I" to post your message.

 

 

 

Yes,but it is necessary to post this for whose who really wanted to know abt "ego",its origin and its dissolution.

[gHari]

Excerpt from "The Quest for Enlightenment":

“Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego—all together these eight constitute My separated material energies”

[

Bg. 7.4

]

 

 

One may ask why KRSNa calls the material elements--earth, water, fire, air, and so on--His "separated" energies. That He explains in a different verse [

Bg. 9.4

]: mayA tatam idaM sarvaM jagad avyakta-mUrtinA. The material energies are called "separated" because in this material world you cannot directly perceive the presence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead (jagad avyakta-mUrtinA). And then KRSNa says, na cAhaM teSv avasthitaH: "I am not present there. Although the material world is made up of My energy, still I am not present there." This is the philosophy of acintya-bhedAbheda, that KRSNa is simultaneously one with and different from His energies.

 

 

Now, each of these eight material elements is finer than the last one. Water is finer than earth. Earth does not move, but water can move. Therefore water is finer. But finer than water is fire, and finer than fire is air, and finer than air is ether, and finer than ether is mind, and finer than mind is intelligence,

and finer than intelligence is ahaGkAra, the ego, or identity. But even finer than the ego is the soul

. The soul is of a very small magnitude, one ten-thousandth the tip of a hair (kezAgra-zata-bhAgasya zatAMzaH sAdRzAtmakaH [

Cc. Madhya 19.140]

).

 

 

Everything is explained in SrImad Bhagavad-gItA. If we accept it, we get full knowledge. In the

first verse of this chapter [7.1]

KRSNa says, asaMzayaM samagraM mAM yathA jJAsyasi tac chRNu: "Just hear Me. Then without any doubt you will understand Me in full."

 

 

Now, as we have mentioned, out of the eight material elements, the finest is ahaGkAra, the ego.

Ego cannot be abolished; it will always be there. But the ego has to be cleansed.

Therefore the bhakti-mArga, the path of devotional service, is a cleansing process, a clearing process (ceto-darpana-mArjanam [

Cc. Antya 20.12

]). The mind, the intelligence, the ego--everything remains, but they have to be cleansed. That is Caitanya MahAprabhu's mission.

 

[gHari]

There are two egos. One is the false ego (ahankara), with which we are only too familiar - the one that thinks itself as this body. The other is the true ego - the one that is in an eternal loving relationship with God.

 

Where spirit meets matter, that is ahankara, the false ego, the knot which binds us to the temporary world. That knot must be undone. Then one is liberated from the bondage, the burden of material life. Free from ahankara, we identify solely with the eternal soul and its desires to serve God, the Supreme Eternal.

 

That is who we really are. That is the Reality for which we all thirst.

[gHari]

Good words from "The Topmost Yoga System":

 

 

So, simply understanding ahankara means no more than understanding the false identification. Simply understanding that I am not matter, I am soul, is not perfection. The impersonalist, the void philosopher, simply thinks of the negative, that I am not this matter, I am not this body. This will not stay. You have to not only realize that you are not matter, but you have to engage yourself in the spiritual world. And that spiritual world means to be working in Krsna consciousness. That spiritual world, that functioning of our real life, is Krsna consciousness.

 

False ego I have already explained. It is neither matter nor spirit, but the junction—where the spirit soul comes into contact with matter and forgets himself. It is just as, in delirium, a man is diseased and his brain becomes puzzled, and gradually he forgets himself and becomes a madman. He is gradually forgetting. So there is the beginning of loss, and there is one point where he forgets. That beginning point is called ahankara, or false ego.

[visnujana]

 

My questions are: what is ego? Is ego and mind are same? Does ego exist during stillness of thoughts?

In my understanding, ego defines a scope for the activity of both the mind and the intelligence.

A conditioned soul has to think of itself in certain well defined terms. For example, if a human thinks of himself to be an animal, this is considered to be anomaly, and is treated as a mental illness.

Off course, not only a condition soul has to have ego. Ego is always there, either 'true' or 'false', and this depends on how the jiva uses his partial independence. If a jiva wants to serve Krishna, he gets the 'true' ego. Otherwise the jiva will need to have a false ego, receive a material body (gross and subtle) and go to the material world.

[jinglebells]

The "I" is the false identification with the body. Once you get rid of this identification, you'll realize that you're Brahman.

[bhaktajan]

Ego is the first manifestation of a BODY develops when a soul inhabits it --it also is the last to fade as death forces the soul out at the time of death.

 

Ego is born of 'motivation' to . . .

[bhaktajan]

The 8 elements that constitute a material body in the material world:

 

The Subtle Body [3 material elements]:

 

Ego -Sense of self [inre: mundane stratum and/or sublime stratum]

intellegence -discernment

mind -accepting and rejecting [per whim and/or per desire]

 

...........................

The Gross Body [5 material elements]:

either

air

fire

water

earth

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

These 8 elements comprise a bodies of all living entities.

Besides these 8 elements is "time, brahman (the void), the spirit soul (atma/param-atma)"

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Beyond these 8 elements and time [hence: karma, samsara & the phantasmagoria of the Cosmos], brahman & the spirit soul --is Bhagavan [which includes His own name, fame, form, personality, paraphenalia, entourage & pastimes known only by his causeless mercy].

[gHari]

PROFOUND HUMOR:

 

" What is Ego"?

"Who's asking"?

[Guest Melvin1]

Ego I think is the self. Isn`t it that an egoistic person is a self-centered individual? If EGo means the self. Then we start from here and find out the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology and dermatology of the self.

[VIVEKANANDA]

i would suggest u to read "raja yoga" written by the "yati raja" Swami Vivekananda. Its the best scientific book ever written abt "raja Yoga". I believe u'll love it.

 

Hope u get what u long for!

have a great day. bye

[Guest Melvin1]

 

i would suggest u to read "raja yoga" written by the "yati raja" Swami Vivekananda. Its the best scientific book ever written abt "raja Yoga". I believe u'll love it.

 

Hope u get what u long for!

have a great day. bye

 

Well, on this forum, my username used to be krsnaraja, the King of Vijayanagara, So. India. I don`t know why the admin won`t allow it anymore to appear on any of her threads here. Maybe krsnaraja was a bad ego to start with? :cool:

[Connie]

 

Does ego exist during stillness of thoughts?

In meditation, I watched my thoughts drop.

 

Is there ego there? I say, no.

 

Is mind there?

 

I will answer this way: unspoiled consciousness is there.

 

Memory is there.

 

The sense "I am experiencing" is there.

 

Relationship is there.

 

It is not a void. It is not nothing. It is not no-thing. However it could be no-thing. I am not certain.

 

It feels good. It feels completely natural.

 

I have looked around, both with so-called "third eye" seeing and "ordinary" seeing, but I do that in waking-state if I want to. There is "vision". There is eyesight.

 

It is not a void.

 

I will say, most meditations are only feeling. Only?

 

I feel completely loved.

 

Nope, not a void.

 

I know my real self, perhaps called my "higher Self"? is there.

[ranjeetmore]

 

Excerpt from "The Quest for Enlightenment":

 

 

 

Now, as we have mentioned, out of the eight material elements, the finest is ahaGkAra, the ego.

Ego cannot be abolished; it will always be there. But the ego has to be cleansed.

Therefore the bhakti-mArga, the path of devotional service, is a cleansing process, a clearing process (ceto-darpana-mArjanam [

Cc. Antya 20.12

]). The mind, the intelligence, the ego--everything remains, but they have to be cleansed. That is Caitanya MahAprabhu's mission.

 

 

 

Excellent.Love you.

 

It is a very glaring observation,this...

 

Whenever a novice is seeking knowledge of the highest truth thru bhakti-marga,even the madhyama-adhikari can tell him - "First cleanse your mind,then just take Hari-nama and see.First Cleanse your mind by the sadhana bhakti."

 

The others will say,"You sit in this posture/you sacrifice this/you do some yogic exercise/you do some meditation."

 

90% of the babajis in india are not even aware of the basic step of 'cleansing the mind'.All nonsense is going on.

Yet there are others who try to provide their expertise and establish the worship of Nirguna Brahm.Even these have no knowlegde of this basic step.They try to use their intelligence.They never arrive at any one conclusion.

 

They read about Vivekanandas,Maharshis and Oshos and Babajis and are in awe of their 'sprititual' descriptions,yet none of them can come at this simple conslusion: "Cleansing of the mind is the basis of all sadhana."

[sant]

Ego Remains piease explain

[ken111]

Every one of us is Hiranyagarbha, if Hiranyagarbha thinks that Hiranyagarbha is something else, then that is ego.

[sant]

You mean everything is brahm aham brahmasi right?

[primate]

Ego is any perception or consciousness of identity or self and/or (material) difference..

[Guest Melvin1]

Jesus said, " I am what I am."

[ken111]

I'll stick to the Rig Veda and say that Hiranyagarbha is the god of gods and none beside him, but if Brahman is used instead of Hiranyagarbha that is equally good. Hiranyagarbha is the "I am", the first thing that came out of emptiness.