An Egoless state
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Four months in...
I have been struggling with ego for a long time now, or at least what feels like a long time. More importantly, I've been struggling to get my best friend to snap out of his egoism, which had seemed to have spun out of control. Why did the ego arise? (Not just for my friend, but for myself, for others).
The process of consciousness associating with a body of some sort--identification--is the process that becomes the foundation of the ego, the isolated, separate “I.”
How can we know the answer? Not by the usual intellectual processes. If you think you can understand your ego than you're egotistical. Why do I say that? Our brains exist in the physical universe which is based on cause and effect, and the progression of events through time. Our thinking mind is an agent of our physical brain, and as such, cannot grasp concepts that lie outside of space and time. Things like ego, eternity, no-time, infinity, etc. These notions are purely abstractions that the mind on the surface can accept but in no way understands.
However, knowing that our minds think within a the box of conditioning - understanding things in terms of spatial and linear dimensions (height, width, depth - begininning, middle, end) is a step in the right direction. So to understand ego we have to focus our minds on what lies outside of the universe, or what came before Creation.
A step in the right direction I now realize is to first gaze at myself in the mirror...actually I think everyone should do this - and say, "You cannot understand."
As the intellect is, it cannot understand. As I am —me identified with intellect - you (meaning us, anyone), cannot understand.
The key to this problem lies in a change of state on behalf of the subject itself, the one who is trying to understand the problem--you. The object--in this case, the problem of ego cannot be understood as long as it remains separate from the subject (you) who is trying to figure the problem out.
Maybe that's what Crossing the Abyss is, and building your own Watchtower in the Supernal Realms, your body doesn't have to die. But your identification with thinking has to “die,” even if only momentarily, in order to directly know these things. Now I have to say that the state I am speaking of reminds me of the clear light... where I saw everything for what it truly is. and you can see the conspiracy against you in everything. you realize this existence isn't really real, because for something to be physically tangible, it cannot present itself in the manner that it does in the clear light. it sounds very similar to me. although as horrifying as the clear light is, i think this method can take you there without the fear and loathing.
When we investigate the nature of our apparent ego-identity, we will gradually begin to see into its basic emptiness—its fabricated nature. As this awareness deepens, so too does the basic understanding that this “emptiness” is also an indescribable vastness.
Maybe that is what Chronzon (sorry for the spelling) is...yourself - But he all your thinking, your identification, your projections—and all limited understanding confined within space and time self, as these latter two are functions of separation. It's you after Creation effected you—whether this Creation is understood as God’s Creation, or the Big Bang of science, or whatever.
Once you've overcome this demon, and sacrified your ego on the Altar of Elohim (your True self), think of how grand it would be. In a sense you could "travel" anywhere in the universe instantaneously because the original matrix of all thought—consciousness itself—is even faster than thought. It is, strictly speaking, beyond all speed as it is already beyond all space. It is everywhere. It is ultimately understood to be the one fundamental essence of Reality itself, and you would have realized yourself as pure consciousness. It would also mean the dissolution of the question of Self.
You'd not only think you know (as we think we know now), but experience that the universe is not actually there. What is there is something much simpler, much greater, completely harmonious, and much more intimate - precisely because it's our actual very nature - it's us as we really are simply pure consciousness itself.
For anti-system people, I apologize, I believe this is why these systems are here, to see how deeply flawed your thinking and point of view ultimately is, so that maybe you don't have to die and be recycled back into the same rotting compost heap. To lead you to that Emptiness beyond what we are currently able to comprehend.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
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I have always associated the ego with "Me" not "I."
Without I there would be no planets, stars or creation.
Without Me, well, there is just no Me. -
try aligning yourself with lucifer & babalon. examination of the seal of the AA in Ch. 49 of Crowley's Book of Lies may reveal the significance.
Lucifer, chief of all
Babalon, all
-wanderlust
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Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"....the clear light... where I saw everything for what it truly is. and you can see the conspiracy against you in everything. you realize this existence isn't really real...." I've often thought to myself, "from whence arose these conspirators?" "I can change only one thing with Magick-myself (Duquette)." "I recognize the manifestation of the undeviating justice in all the circumstances of my life (Case)." There seems to be a trend here. Im not sure whether there's a conspiracy against me or whether I've unwittingly secluded myself in a tower of sorts. Something tells me the latter is much more likely. -cody warren Love is the Law, Love under Will. -
Pramudita,
You answer your own question but it is unclear to me whether or not you are accepting the answer you found.
You have plumbed the depths of the ego and found it to be far more shallow than the expanses surrounding it.
One can identify with the expanses and thereby become free of the ego. To struggle with the ego or try to destroy it only reinforces one’s identification with it. One must leap free of the snare.
Which leaves us usually at “ALL=ONE=SELF”. (The reduction of all equations to one)
From which point one should go to the door of Anata and unlock it with the key marked “prajnaparamita”. (The reduction of the equation to none)
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@Frater Pramudita said
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Maybe that's what Crossing the Abyss is, and building your own Watchtower in the Supernal Realms, your body doesn't have to die. "Hi Paramudita, just to say, the above rings warning bells for me. I don't think it's wise to speculate about things like that - well, I wouldn't, anyway. More in the sense of - you've got to reserve some space in your coming experience (if you're going for intitiation), for the unknown. Don't try to understand everything. I mean, you've got to try to understand everything, but don't try and put your own scent on it to make it too familiar, let something be unknown, tactfully, as it were.
"Maybe that is what Chronzon (sorry for the spelling) is..."
Again here, I wouldn't worry about what happens with the Abyss and all that, if you aren't willing to just take the time to make sure you've spelled a name like that properly. Little things build up, best to nip this sort of thing in the bud.
Not saying this from any assumed great height you understand, just sharing what I understand of Thelemic discipline and magick.
To the heart of what you say, the thing is, there is no "you" fighting against anything. You aren't what you think you are, you aren't what you take yourself to be. The thing you take yourself to be doesn't exist, and what you really, really are is beyond comprehension (and yet, amusingly, totally ordinary and familiar).
The ego I think of as being this virtual captain of the crew of brain gadgets that make me up. He doesn't actually exist, but he's a notional reference point for all the energies of the body that go towards self-preservation and (pro-)creation. What you really are is the Universal symphony, and there's a solo part being played right at the moment. (That's the trick, the solo comes out of the orchestra and sinks back into it, just like the traditional image of wave and water). The ego isn't that flowering and dying of energies, the ego is the act of taking "those energies" to be a single thing, a notional point of reference. Even then, it's not such a bad thing (the process of taking things this way does conceptually represent a certain amount of real-world physical independence of the body and its creative energies), but we get stuck in the groove of it.
My heartfelt advice would be don't struggle, there aren't two here to fight, against each other: at the deepest, deepest level, there's nothing wrong with you, with any of it. You (all this) are (is) already free, already THAT.
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@Frater Pramudita said
"Why did the ego arise? (Not just for my friend, but for myself, for others)."
Along gurugeorge's line of thought, I recommend Sri Nisargadatta's I AM THAT. What's great about the nisaraga path is its emphasis on natural evolution. If you have a huge ego, ask yourself how it got there without placing value judgements on it.
To give an extreme example, a study was carried out on people with multiple personality disorders. Under hypnotic regression therapists discovered that people with MPD often had extremely traumatic experiences (e.g. sexual abuse) at an early and impressionable age. What they concluded is that the mind naturally created multiple personalities to help the subject compartmentalize and deal with the trauma on a daily basis. Otherwise the memory would be overwhelming for the subject.
A similar analogy can be drawn for the ego. It's there to protect the psyche. Trauma can also be a premature awakening or insight for which our being is not ready to handle. Once the deeper issues are understood and a stronger awareness develops over time, the ego will eventually (and naturally) lessen and become irrelevant.
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@h2h said
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@Frater Pramudita said
"Why did the ego arise? (Not just for my friend, but for myself, for others)."Along gurugeorge's line of thought, I recommend Sri Nisargadatta's I AM THAT. What's great about the nisaraga path is its emphasis on natural evolution. If you have a huge ego, ask yourself how it got there without placing value judgements on it.
To give an extreme example, a study was carried out on people with multiple personality disorders. Under hypnotic regression therapists discovered that people with MPD often had extremely traumatic experiences (e.g. sexual abuse) at an early and impressionable age. What they concluded is that the mind naturally created multiple personalities to help the subject compartmentalize and deal with the trauma on a daily basis. Otherwise the memory would be overwhelming for the subject.
A similar analogy can be drawn for the ego. It's there to protect the psyche. Trauma can also be a premature awakening or insight for which our being is not ready to handle. Once the deeper issues are understood and a stronger awareness develops over time, the ego will eventually (and naturally) lessen and become irrelevant."
And as most here can probably attest, the state of just about anyone freshly entering the work is not much different. Man is a multiplicity. He says "I", "I", "I". He attributes all his characteristics to a common "I" when actually it's closer akin to a bunch of fragments. Thus is one analogy of the great work "The unification of the self"