Showing posts with label egotism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label egotism. Show all posts

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Various Beliefs of Ego





Written By Mathew Naismith

I've lost count in how many people I have come across that are disillusioned and confused in regards to the ego, this is after these people have followed various spiritual beliefs and practices. In certain cases, these people are now just as much if not more disillusioned and confused, so many beliefs contradict each other on this matter, which one is absolute?        

It's wise to be a aware that a controlling ego (egotism) will state which one is absolute over all other beliefs, any belief that is egotistically free, won't state which one is absolute over another. It's also wise to be aware that there is a big difference between ego and egotism, egotism being an ego in control, ego is just being. Each belief system is of the ego, it was created by ego, this means each and every belief system is of the ego to start with, basically, everything of creation is of the ego, however, not everything is of egotism.

If your not bias (egotistical) within your own beliefs, you will find the following various views from different beliefs quite interesting. They basically say the same thing even though the interpretation of ego varies in regards to certain beliefs. There seems to be a cohesive view that ego can give us the illusion of separation from, nothingness, God, zero point, oneness, inner self, our truer being and so on.
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Zen

Extract: “The anitya doctrine is, again, not quite the simple assertion that the world is impermanent, but rather that the more one grasps at the world, the more it changes. Reality in itself is neither permanent nor impermanent; it cannot be categorized. But when one tries to hold on to it, change is everywhere apparent, since, like one’s own shadow, the faster one pursues it, the faster it flees. 
Hinduism

Extract: From a spiritual perspective, ego means considering oneself to be distinct from others and God due to identification with the physical body and impressions in various centres of the subtle body. In short ego is leading our life as per the thinking that our existence is limited to our 5 senses, mind, and intellect and identifying with them to various degrees.
As per the science of Spirituality, our true state of existence is identification with the Soul or God-principle within us and living our day to day life with this consciousness. As the one and same God-principle exists within all, from a spiritual perspective there is unity in all Creation.
However, depending on the level of our ego, we identify with the God-principle within us, i.e. the Soul to varying degrees. If our ego is high, we identify less with the Soul or the God-principle within us.
Taoism

Extract: In Taoist practice, when one “sheds the bones” a Taoist will finally fully wash off all the glue that holds the spirit to the bones of our stories. However, until that point of full release, a Taoist allows ego to play a bit, as it’s part of our very nature. Instead at first a Taoist learns how to live their life without that sheep dog in control of our life.

Islam

Extract: [Quran 2:54] Recall that Moses said to his people, "O my people, you have wronged your souls by worshiping the calf. You must repent to your Creator. You shall kill your egos. This is better for you in the sight of your Creator." He did redeem you. He is the Redeemer, Most Merciful.

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The following gives a more collective view, it also shows a Christian and Judaist viewpoint on this topic as well. 

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Extract: Understanding what we call ‘the ego’ will change how you see yourself and the world around you. Your mind has been programmed to believe that the ego is you, but in reality it is just an illusion that we use to help us function in our world. In a sense, the ego is what makes us feel separate from other people.

Even though we play much of our life through the lens of the ego, we are not the ego. We are sitting outside of the ego; a pure and whole individual. We are the observer. Although the ego is in no way the enemy, the ability to see the ego for what it is gives us a lot of power and enlightenment.

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It would seem as soon as a belief system states it's absolutely right over all other beliefs, this belief has become egotistical, considering that ego is a separation from our truer being, how separated is a belief system that believes it's absolutely egotistically right over all other beliefs, it's absolute?

Let's put this in a Godly sense, how much of God is a person who categorically states their belief is absolute over all other beliefs? Considering the main consensuses of each belief states that ego can indeed separate ourselves from God, how truly of God is a person who states absolutes?

Let's put this in another way, how much of the inners self or nothingness is a persons when stating absolutes in relation to their own beliefs? Considering that absolutes within anyone's belief system is egotistical, how virtuous and exact is any absolute view in this case when they are themselves obviously showing no connection  to their truer being?

On numerous occasions I have had discussions with people following various beliefs, most people are open minded to one extent or another, others are absolute within their convictions. Even people who call themselves Buddhist, have spoken about absolutes for example, their is absolutely no God and soul, we are nothingness that is completely void of ego. As soon as you talk about absolutes, you are talking not just about ego but egotism. Is the view that absolutes are egotism? No, because again there are no true absolutes.

I should also state that I have talked to other people of Buddhism about other people who state they are Buddhist, but at the same time talk about absolutes. According to these people I've talked to, they are not true Buddhists. 

Now my view on ego is, all motion is ego, all excessive (extreme) motion is egotism. Oneness, zero point, God, nothingness, inner self and so on, which is in my mind our truer being, are motionless therefore are ego free. The closer we become our truer being, the less motion we express therefore the less of the ego we become.

As I have always said, motion is an expression of our truer being, God if you like. There is nothing wrong or right within this expression, it's how we express our truer being that defines how destructive or constructive we will be. If you wish to judge destruction as being wrong or negative, this is your will but any judgment like this is of the ego, therefore a further separation from our truer being. Is there anything wrong in this separation? No but one should be wised that the further we separate ourselves from this truer being, the more egotistical we become and the more destructive we become, the world around us at present is a good indication of this.


Ego can be a beautiful thing, egotism can be an ugly thing in accordance to it's obvious destructiveness. It's wise not to judge the Ego as you do egotism, this is obvious within it's observation.                          

Saturday 12 September 2015

Choosing Your Own Reality


Written by Mathew Naismith


This is an awkward post to write, actually, I wasn't going to write it, it's going to be too ambiguous for a number of people, meaning, for anyone religiously following a certain ideology, my explanations are going to seem like a joke to them. This is all to do with explaining the different aspects of things like God, ego, soul, for example. In most ideologies, these things only have one meaning, one explanation, all other explanations are irrelevant and wrong, I will however hopefully show this isn't correct, all ideologies have their own truths which in turn creates a certain reality.

Which ideology speaks the utter truth: over and above all other realities, is Buddhism correct over and above Christianity or visa-versa? Is Islam correct over and above Buddhism or visa-versa? Who actually defines what ideology is more correct over and above all other ideologies? This is an important question to answer because the answer to this question isn't ambiguous at all, actually, the answer is quite unambiguous, meaning, the answer to this question is quite obvious.

At present we have religious extremists expressing themselves in a very extreme way, this is wholly do to these people believing their ideologies are the be and end all above all other ideologies. 

What is the driving force behind these extreme reactions, what makes them extreme within their ideology? 

Most people will just look at the ideology itself, in this case, this makes all the people who follow such ideologies, that can be expressed in an extreme way, extremists in some way. This analogy would also make all Christians extremist as well, especially when  considering the religious Dark Ages. Does the actions of Christian extremists in the Dark Ages infer that all Christians today are extremists?  Of course not. Extremism hasn't anything to do with the ideology itself, its to do with the implementation of such ideologies by certain people religiously following an ideology.

If we are religiously following an ideology of one kind, what human trait are we actually expressing to an extreme? Following any ideology religiously is defined as an extreme reaction going by dictionary definitions. The only human trait that can create extremism in any way is egotism as opposed to ego.

So the answer to the question, who actually defines what ideology is more correct is egotism, not the ideology itself. Yes, an ideology can be written in an egotistical way but it's the way a person reacts to this ideology that can cause it to become extreme. I don't know of too many ideologies that aren't written in an egotistical way, God definitely exists, God defiantly doesn't exist. You even have ideologies that state that all other ideologies that have a believe in God and/or soul, are beliefs brought about by delusions, in other words these ideologies are delusional, this is a quite a broad statement to make. This kind of statement says to me that such statement like this are highly influenced by egotism themselves. What other human trait, other than egotism, would state such a statement? 

I've seen people fixated to a certain ideology use science to explain why God and souls don't exist, however, I've also seen people following a different ideology use relevant science that explains that God and the soul do exist, which one again is more correct over another? Egotism will always state my ideology is more correct no matter what.

The point is, no ideology is perfectly correct, however, no ideology is incorrect either, the truth is defined in what reality we presently reside in. Does God defiantly exist? Most definitely but only in certain realities.

The Infinite Consciousness: There is supposed to be over 8 million realities within this one physical reality, only egotism can state, categorically, which one is more correct over and above all other ideologies. I do find it quite amusing that some ideologies state that all ego expressions are an illusion, but in stating so, have themselves not expressed a form of egotism!!

Consciousness itself is extremely diverse and infinite within it's expression, it ever changing as human history quite plainly shows, which ideology is always correct above all other ideologies?  Once again egotism will say my ideology is always correct but what does a consciousness, not influenced by egotism, actually say?  

All ideologies have merit within their own realities, if you want to create a certain reality for yourself,  follow a certain ideology as it's these ideologies that create a particular reality, in other words each ideology creates it's own reality. For example, Buddhism creates a certain reality as does Christianity, Islam and even materialism, is one reality more correct over and above another reality? Egotism once again will say it is within it's own ideology, it's own reality.

Consciousness itself isn't defined by egotism nor ego, it has not fixed to defined  boundaries, it's infinite within all it's expressions either it be of egotism, ego or a state of being egoless.

Materialism; expresses a state of egotism and creates relative realities according to the ideology being expressed.

Religions like Christianity; mostly expresses ego and  creates relative realities according to the ideology being expressed.


Religions like Buddhism; creates a state mostly void of the ego and creates relative realities according to the ideology being expressed. One might judge, "To express materialism is less worthy than to express Buddhism for example, one is more of a delusion than another". The only part of the humans self that will make this statement is egotism. 

Consciousness is that vast and infinite within it's expressions and non-expressions, there are no true delusion, the only delusion there is, is only knowing that we are only of one of these realities. We are not just egotism or ego nor egoless, we are all of what is.

In all, is it wrong to just choose one reality to exist by? I will answer this with another question, is it wrong in being physically human? Experiencing being human is experiencing one reality, this isn't wrong no matter what way we express ourselves, we can however express ourselves to the point of being highly destructive though, even this isn't wrong. When we look at our destructiveness only through this reality, destruction is wrong, however, this view changes when we realise we are all of what is, there is no right or wrong, just different expressions of consciousness that a wise collective consciousness would change to something more constructive I feel. 


It matters not what reality you choose to experience, what does matter is how destructive our fixation to a reality can become when expressed to an extreme.                           

Saturday 30 November 2013

Consciousness in the After Life


Written by Mathew Naismith

Synchronicity raises its head again; while in discussion about there being consciousness outside of the brain on an IONS site a magazine that my wife & I subscribe too arrived & on the cover of this magazine was the heading, Life After Death, it’s about a neurosurgeon’s own OBE.  This is quite interesting because it usually needs well educated people to experience these kinds of things first hand before they will even consider their existence However a Dr Sam Parnia is doing just that.  I should mention here, being well educated doesn’t mean you know more than less educated people it just means at times one can only reason to set learnt mode of thought which can be egotistically driven, once you bring in egotism you bring in doubt on any findings or research conducted.  In this case, for neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, he was lucky enough to experience life after so called death for himself.



Neurologist Oliver Sacks is sceptical of what Eden is saying here however Dr Parnia is researching such claims by a simple test of placing a random pictures above beds of people who experience OBE’S. These findings are yet to be published however this doesn’t disclaim what thousands of people like Eden experience firsthand.


We could say here that any findings or research conducted by Dr Parnia can be again influenced by egotism however it’s a little less likely because it’s not too egotistical to be a laughing stock within your own profession. Even by researching such phenomena would denote a lesser chance of egotism hindering any true findings.

While working in the welfare arena twice over in my fifty years I have quite often witnessed how egotism & taught set modes of thought can influence learned people’s judgment, if you haven’t experienced anything firsthand it’s nearly impossible to make fair unbiased judgement.  The strangest thing I have witnessed is learned people actually having these experiences & not changing the way they reason. I have often asked myself why & the answer that keeps coming up is egotism, if you think you’re above most other people you will keep making misjudgements which is driven by egotism.

I’m not university trained however I was offered a job in charge of my section, while working with people with various disabilities, over & above university trained people for the main reason I didn’t have a set reasoning process or egotism to hinder my judgment plus of course I had firsthand experiences.    


This sort of judgmental egotistic attitude with a number or learned people isn’t just to do with people who have a higher level of education but people in any arena that takes a higher level of education to know. I have come across this on spiritual sites, if you’re not learned in certain arenas you’re usually ignored because how could one possibly know without studying.  Neurosurgeon Eben didn’t need to study to know what he experienced & neither did thousands of others who have experienced OBE’s first hand.  Consciousness does obviously exist outside of the body but some people’s egos tell them otherwise.  

Friday 11 October 2013

Mice’n’Men


Written by Mathew Naismith

To be a true spiritualist is to be most humbling so at the soul level if we wanted to be most humbling wouldn’t we choose to live a life of a maggot or some other so called lowlier creature than ourselves but the big question here is what defines lowlier at the soul level?  There is nothing higher or lowlier at the soul level, only at the human level do we define/perceive this so do we at the soul level take this human definition of a higher/lower life form into consideration?  I believe we do however at the soul level lowlier or more humbling is defined as something quite different than what we as humans perceive I believe.

We need to look at this through the souls perceptive only, what would be more humbling to the soul, not the human, while taking in the human perception of lower/higher forms, what form would it choose to be, to be more humbling? At the human level we would probably say a maggot or a rat for instance but what if I said, “To be most humbling therefore spiritual was to be human”. What creature is more destructive & egotistical? What this is saying is to be more destructive & egotistical is more humbling at the soul level, however as humans we perceive this quite differently. Being more humbling is to be more spiritual so how can a more egotistical person be more spiritual than a non-egotistical person? To us at the human level of perception we can’t see this but what I am saying is at the soul level it’s quite a different story.  

If you think on this, why would we think that non-egotistical people are more spiritual than egotistical people? Egotism, we think we have to be better or more spiritual than someone who expresses egotism when in fact what I am saying is at the soul level it’s more humbling therefore spiritual to be egotistical than non-egotistical but only when we take in consideration of human perceptiveness. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that other creatures are less spiritual. At the soul level there is no level of superiority, it’s only at the human level we perceive this. To a human perspective it’s more humbling to be a maggot for instance so in fact what we are saying is, at the human level, to live as a maggot is more humbling/spiritual than living as a human being however at the soul level that’s not the case as there are no levels of superiority unless we take on human perceptiveness at the soul level.  


Human perceptiveness comes into being when we choose to live as a human being which allows us to choose, at the soul level, how humbling we are going to be which is defined by human perceptiveness in what being humble means to a human remembering at the soul level, without human perceptiveness, there are no levels so we wouldn’t be able to choose to be more humbling or not. Human perceptiveness gives us definition even at the soul level to what is going to be more humbling or not when in fact there are no levels, this of course includes defining the soul as being at a certain level, the soul itself doesn’t see itself at a level.  So what this is all saying is humbleness at the soul level doesn’t exist but it does at the human level so in fact one form of animal isn’t above another unless we take on the human perspectives of things. So we have defined that humbleness to a human isn’t being spiritually aware at all which says a less non-spiritual egotistical person is more humble therefore spiritual at the soul level because that is the life the soul chose. A true spiritual soul would choose a more egotistical life not a humble more spiritual life but our human perception of life tells us the opposite. Most souls are spiritual so to be more humble it would choose a more egotistical life but a less spiritualistic soul would see being spiritual as being more humble. I should say here, a less spiritual soul is defined by its attachments; a true spiritual soul has no attachments therefore has no preconceptions.