Of course we need ego to go about our everyday business of conscious life, to mobilse our psychic energy to move towards our goals with some form of consistency and continuity. But we need to be constantly aware in order to loosen the egos grip. Without awareness, the ego will control us rather than the other way round. Many Buddhist retreats are silent retreats. I've never attended one, but often thought a silent retreat would, to a large degree, help to keep the ego in check.
I know, no flights came up for San Javier on skyscanner for some reason. It's not the best of airports, no bus or train service. Last time I flew there is had to get someone to pick me up from the airport. On my return (I always fly out to Spain on a one way ticket as I never know how long my stay will be) I found it easier and cheaper to catch a train from Cartagena to Alicanti, then a bus from the station to the airport. I've always found getting about in Spain cheep and easy.
The ego is our conscious sense of who we are, the central complex of consciousness. It seeks complete autonomy over the self and commonly, from its narrow view of the world, it's task is, security and dominance. It's real purpose is to create a dialogue between the Self and the perceived world, although the ego likes to rule the roost in its frantic search for individualisaction.
I quite like this quote below from James Hollis, it seems quite apt on here.
"The ego is like a petty tyrant who must fulminate on the rightness of its position as a compensation for the swamp of doubt upon which it's castle is built."
Well one good thing about it right now is you can get flights almost anywhere around Europe from the uk for just the price of the airport tax, around £13.
You probably remember the time on here when the site was overrun with trolls. I don't mean the kind of troll that just disrupts and is generally disagreeable. These trolls had multiple profiles and would use them to back each other up. They were, in fact quite clever in the way they operated. Their posts and threads had little to do with their personal feelings, they saw this place as somewhere they could be the centre of attention. The more outrageous and insulting they were, the more attention they would get, and they revelled in it, regardless of whether the attention was hostile or not. In fact that was their sole purpose, to create an hostile environment. It was just a game to them and the more that people tried to reason with them, them more they stirred the pot.
They cerainy knew. The aircraft uses a new ant-stall system which requires retraining of the pilots. This was done in a rushed manner so as not to concern any would be buyers. Many pilots claimed the training was not thorough enough saying in many instances it was not much more than one hour. Boeing of course deny this, saying all pilots received the appropriate training, but, it does make you wonder.
"Just as the biorhythms of diurnal life, the fluxes and reflux of hormonal shifts, and even that huge regression of energy we call sleep are normal, so, too, may we expect periodic fluctuations of mood. Could we even imagine the possibility of joy if we could not contrast it with its opposite? One thinks of Jung's concept of the shadow as the necessary dark side to every light. Such shadow encounters bring richness to a reality which otherwise would remain superficial, and therein is an invitation to the enlargement of consciousness. Accordingly, we may even say, in a culture which has the infantile fantasy of unmitigated happiness as it's goal, depression can become a manifestation of the shadow."
"We can only be deceived by those we trust. Yet we have to believe. A person who won't have faith and refuses to love for fear of betrayal will certainly be exempt from these torments, but who knows from how much else he or she will be exempt?"
A friend of mine is an expert on the work of Zappa. There's very little, anything he doesn't know about him. Every year he goes to Zappanale, a four day festival in Northern Germany dedicated to Zappa and his music. It has a big impact on the town, there's even a bronze Zappa statue in the town square. But what was really amazing about my friends 'obsession' with Zappa was when he phoned me one day to tell he had 'a Mother' in his bathroom. It turned out that Jimmy Carl Black, one of the original members of Zappa's band, The Mothers of Invention was staying at his house. He was on tour with his band, The Muffin Men and was playing a gig in the town. Jimmy knew about my friends absolute knowledge on Zappa and they soon became friends. Little did me and my friend think back in the day when we were listening to, We're Only In it For the Money, that Jimmy Carl Black, (the Indian of the Group,) would many years later would actually be staying overnight at my friends house. Jimmy is sadly missed, but the Muffin Men continue withe a mixture of Zappa's songs and their own stuff.
I've heard the consciousness came before us theory a few times and I believe that's entirely possible. I like to think of consciousness as similar to radio waves. We are surrounded by radio signals all the time, but without a radio receiver we wouldn't be aware of them. Similarly, it could be that consciousness works the same, only in this instance the brain becomes the receiver. I really do believe in universal consciousness and that's how it works. That would explain the many mysteries of recalling past lives, or people for no apparent reason after an accident or similar, suddenly being able to speak a foreign language. It could even explain why, as documented many times a three year old can play a musical instrument to a very high standard. Incidents like this are not uncommon. Could it be that certain individuals are able, perhaps without their knowledge, to connect to a wider range of universal consciousness than most of us?
bodleing2 Forum Posts (6,132)
RE: EGO - How comfortable are You with it?
Of course we need ego to go about our everyday business of conscious life, to mobilse our psychic energy to move towards our goals with some form of consistency and continuity.But we need to be constantly aware in order to loosen the egos grip. Without awareness, the ego will control us rather than the other way round.
Many Buddhist retreats are silent retreats. I've never attended one, but often thought a silent retreat would, to a large degree, help to keep the ego in check.