Reduction of Ego

This is something I don't see often discussed in this forum.

If there is one enemy of Spiritual Advancement, it is the ego. Ego makes us focus on being 'right' in an online debate instead of becoming enlightened. Ego makes us return any slight in kind instead of understanding that anger and malice is often suffering. Ego makes us focus only on our own needs in lieu of the greater community.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
This is something I don't see often discussed in this forum.

If there is one enemy of Spiritual Advancement, it is the ego. Ego makes us focus on being 'right' in an online debate instead of becoming enlightened. Ego makes us return any slight in kind instead of understanding that anger and malice is often suffering. Ego makes us focus only on our own needs in lieu of the greater community.

Is the ego immortal? It seems that these influences of the ego would be dropped, when we shuffle off.

Some corrections were made to these paragraphs.

Imagine a medicine that has as part of its ingredients an element that kills off certain germs in your body. If you drink it, certain harmful organisms in your body cannot survive. But your good body goes on, healthier, freer, healed.

Satan, a cosmic enemy of God, has a parisitic relationship of evil attachment to man's being. Satan is like a leech attached to its host.

There is something like a medical drink prepared by God. If we take this drink in it will leave our soul intake. But it has an ingredient which will strip away the parasite which is attached to the being of man, as its host.

The "drink" is the life giving Spirit that Christ became in resurrection.

"the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45b)

And the killing ingredient in this "drink" is the cross of Christ. You it will not destroy. But it will stripe away the "leech" of Satan who has attached himself to your humanity rendering the soul independent from God, ego of rebellion and alienation from the life of God.

It is lie a sieve. You will pass through. But Satan will be striped off, eliminated. And he knows that. He knows that he cannot survive the work of the cross which is an ingredient of the Holy Spirit.

Paul pioneered in the drinking in of this divine beverage. He availed himself to the full benefit of the Satan destroying ingredients of this beverage. And here is what he wrote us.

" I [ego] amd crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I [ego] who live; but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I [ego] now live in the flesh I [ego] live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." (Gal .2:20)

Ego has gone through a transformation.
Ego has been liberated from something.
Something malicious and malevolent has been "crossed out" by Jesus Christ.
On the other side, "I" [ego] still exists. But it is joined instead to the Son of God in an "organic" union.

The I continues to live a victorious life in faith that being joined to Christ is the only way to live henceforth.

Originally posted by JS357
Is the ego immortal? It seems that these influences of the ego would be dropped, when we shuffle off.

Dead people don't post.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
This is something I don't see often discussed in this forum.

If there is one enemy of Spiritual Advancement, it is the ego. Ego makes us focus on being 'right' in an online debate instead of becoming enlightened. Ego makes us return any slight in kind instead of understanding that anger and malice is often suffering. Ego makes us focus only on our own needs in lieu of the greater community.

I think ego is too broad a term for the purposes of the kind of discussion you seem to want to have. Are you framing "ego" as a problematic thing in and of itself? If so I think you need to qualify it with some more descriptors.

The invariable existence and nature of each person's unique ego is surely a determinant of their identity/personhood and personality, and how we perceive and deal with other people's egos is a determinant of what our interactions with them are like, as well as how we form bonds of friendship and/or become adversaries, and everything in between.

Your ego is your consciousness of your own identity. I don't see how ego can be fingered for being, inherently, an enemy of spiritual advancement. Just as ego can make someone focus on being right - when perhaps they are not - in an online debate, ego can also make someone focus on standing up for what is right when others reject it and frame their own stances - through the exercise of their egos - as being "enlightened" etc.

The eclecticism of our egos is what creates the differences between us and our each and every individuality. Egos give rise to and propel online debate and, indeed, all interactions in all situations. I don't think reference to generic "ego" works in the context of what you want to talk about because "ego" is essential.

Perhaps, instead of "ego", you actually want to talk about negative debate-affecting interpersonal traits such as overbearingness, insularity, pride, indifference, haughtiness, narrow mindedness, hubris, stubbornness, apathy (as opposed to empathy), disingenuousness and the like, which, if jumbled together and given the label "ego", does the breadth and variety of what "ego" actually is a disservice.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
This is something I don't see often discussed in this forum.

If there is one enemy of Spiritual Advancement, it is the ego. Ego makes us focus on being 'right' in an online debate instead of becoming enlightened. Ego makes us return any slight in kind instead of understanding that anger and malice is often suffering. Ego makes us focus only on our own needs in lieu of the greater community.

Those who seek enlightenment, what would you have them do?

Originally posted by sonship
Some corrections were made to these paragraphs.

Imagine a medicine that has as part of its ingredients an element that kills off certain germs in your body. If you drink it, certain harmful organisms in your body cannot survive. But your good body goes on, healthier, freer, healed.

Satan, a cosmic enemy of God, has a parisitic relationship of evil a ...[text shortened]... live a victorious life in faith that being joined to Christ is the only way to live henceforth.

Bull

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
This is something I don't see often discussed in this forum.

If there is one enemy of Spiritual Advancement, it is the ego. Ego makes us focus on being 'right' in an online debate instead of becoming enlightened. Ego makes us return any slight in kind instead of understanding that anger and malice is often suffering. Ego makes us focus only on our own needs in lieu of the greater community.

What does this say about the Christian god, who demands worship and will torture us for eternity if we refuse? The bible constantly makes references to "his (God's) glory".

Could we argue that God's ego makes him focus on his own needs rather than the needs of humans? A common question from non-believers is about why there's so much suffering in the world; if God is real, does his ego provide an answer?

Originally posted by Suzianne
Dead people don't post.

Or at least, you hope they don't.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Dead people don't post.

Could we say dead people com post?

Originally posted by Rajk999
Bull

You would say that, haivng probably never denied yourself in your entire religious life.

Originally posted by JS357
Is the ego immortal? It seems that these influences of the ego would be dropped, when we shuffle off.

It's a part of us, and we're not immortal, so it can't be.

Originally posted by FMF
I think ego is too broad a term for the purposes of the kind of discussion you seem to want to have. Are you framing "ego" as a problematic thing in and of itself? If so I think you need to qualify it with some more descriptors.

The invariable existence and nature of each person's unique ego is surely a determinant of their identity/personhood and personali ...[text shortened]... and given the label "ego", does the breadth and variety of what "ego" actually is a disservice.

Ego isn't problematic "in and of itself", but it can be hard to put in the back seat at times. It can also be easy to confuse the ego with one's whole self, instead of only a part.

I don't call for the elimination of the ego - if so, the thread title would have been that, instead of "reduction".

Is it really Ego that makes one "stand up for what is right"? I'm not so sure. If considerations such as fairness factor into "what is right", it means that one is not simply promoting their own self-interest by standing up for right, but upholding a broader standard. The focus is outward rather than inward.

Originally posted by apathist
Those who seek enlightenment, what would you have them do?

I would not have them do anything. I don't want to choose a spiritual path for others. I am just sharing some insights from my own path to see what people think about them.

Originally posted by vivify
What does this say about the Christian god, who demands worship and will torture us for eternity if we refuse? The bible constantly makes references to "his (God's) glory".

Could we argue that God's ego makes him focus on his own needs rather than the needs of humans? A common question from non-believers is about why there's so much suffering in the world; if God is real, does his ego provide an answer?

This subject gets discussed ad naseum, so let me put a different spin on it.

Perhaps it is our ego that interprets God as having such exacting standards. Our own ego that assumes that, if we are made in God's image, then HE must be perfect, because WE are pretty damn special. It is inferring backwards, from chip to the block it came from.