A meditation experiment in Ego reduction and nothingness

This was started in chat and thought It might make a good discussion.
We were talking about the idea of nothingness or of Void as it were.
Someone posted this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssf7P-Sgcrk

This discussion is interesting because as part of my meditation practice I am exploring the idea of no ego. A way to lower that wall between myself and everything else.
Here are a few things I have discovered:

1 - It is scary! That feeling that you are getting thinner and thinner and that fear of loosing not only control of your mind but of your very existence.

2 - It is very calming to try and ditch the ego.

3 - We all build walls everyday.. But how often do we try and tare them down all the way to the core?

4 - Pondering if we could survive when this is accomplished or would we just blend into the universe at large? or cease to exist at all?

Thoughts? Anyone else interested in this way of connecting to the force as it were?

We can't really get rid of our egos... And even the desire to get rid of the ego is itself an act of ego anyway. The ego is not something I think we need to get rid of or even condemn anyway. Like I said in another thread, we need it because it is what we use to observe our world as human beings. Without the ego, we might only be robots.

Perhaps a better option would be learn to be aware of it, accept it, and appreciate it for what it can provide us. We might learn how to properly use it instead of letting it use us. This can easily take a life time, though, to unlearn doing such a thing with desire, since conventionally we don't know much else of a way to approach such a thing.

Proteus wrote: We can't really get rid of our egos... And even the desire to get rid of the ego is itself an act of ego anyway. The ego is not something I think we need to get rid of or even condemn anyway. Like I said in another thread, we need it because it is what we use to observe our world as human beings. Without the ego, we might only be robots.

Perhaps a better option would be learn to be aware of it, accept it, and appreciate it for what it can provide us. We might learn how to properly use it instead of letting it use us. This can easily take a life time, though, to unlearn doing such a thing with desire, since conventionally we don't know much else of a way to approach such a thing.

Interesting points. I guess what I was going for was a way of better connecting to what is around me. A way out of my head. There are times i feel like a lion in a cage of my own construction. I want to find ways to lower my walls, defenses, and break down the trappings of self and other. If that makes more sense.

The ego as a construct of habit really is something I try to discard, but I don't think it needs to be discarded... and rather it might be more useful to refine ones existing habits then remove them. I personally try because I have the time at the moment, and yes it's results can be very uprising sometimes!! Once in a dream I actually separated myself from the dream, and floated into a complete void.... that was a bit of a fright as it felt like death so in that regard I don't view existence in terms of suffering requiring the cessation of suffering as the cessation of samsara, but rather the cessation of samsara is being able to actually enter its nirvanic state of existence whence suffering ceases...
:S
... so the concept of the void has real practical application in development a connection to the Force, but I don't view the void as the Force.

I see what you mean. Just to be clear I do consider the force and the void to be very different things. I'm my meditation it is more about trying to tap into what is around me rather then feeling "separate"
The void part of the discussion was something in the site's chat. Not in my mediation but it was related in the original discussion is all.

Adder wrote: The ego as a construct of habit really is something I try to discard, but I don't think it needs to be discarded... and rather it might be more useful to refine ones existing habits then remove them. I personally try because I have the time at the moment, and yes it's results can be very uprising sometimes!! Once in a dream I actually separated myself from the dream, and floated into a complete void.... that was a bit of a fright as it felt like death so in that regard I don't view existence in terms of suffering requiring the cessation of suffering as the cessation of samsara, but rather the cessation of samsara is being able to actually enter its nirvanic state of existence whence suffering ceases...
:S
... so the concept of the void has real practical application in development a connection to the Force, but I don't view the void as the Force.

in "nagualism" the distinction is made between the "tonal"
toNALL and the "nagual" nahaWULL

it is said that the tonal encompasses everything that we think we are and everyrthing that makes up our world

the nagual is the backdrop upon which the tonal is built

in order to introduce one to the nagualist view it is feasible to say that the tonal is the ego
and the nagual is what happens when the ego reliquishes its control

the nagualist view is that the tonal is indespensible to the human organism

and that it must be protected and fortified with the right kind of knowledge and behavior, which is loosely reffered to as the "warriors way" and the "path of knowledge"

it (the tonal) has the inherent tendancy to escalate itself "from a guardian into a guard"
the difference being that a guardian is a benevolent protector, whereas a guard keeps one confined to ones cell.
self importance and self fixation are psychological activities which cause the ego to shift from guardian into guard, according to the nagualist view

the key to reaching the nagual is in shrinking the tonal

and in reaching and accumulating inner silence

the theory is that
it is our self talk which keeps the tonal large and important

and prevents the overall person from having access to the nagual

accessing the nagual is the essential aim of nagualism

Very interesting. Haven't heard this one yet. Thank you. That describes more of what i was going for.

OB1Shinobi wrote: in "nagualism" the distinction is made between the "tonal"
toNALL and the "nagual" nahaWULL

it is said that the tonal encompasses everything that we think we are and everyrthing that makes up our world

the nagual is the backdrop upon which the tonal is built

in order to introduce one to the nagualist view it is feasible to say that the tonal is the ego
and the nagual is what happens when the ego reliquishes its control

the nagualist view is that the tonal is indespensible to the human organism

and that it must be protected and fortified with the right kind of knowledge and behavior, which is loosely reffered to as the "warriors way" and the "path of knowledge"

it (the tonal) has the inherent tendancy to escalate itself "from a guardian into a guard"
the difference being that a guardian is a benevolent protector, whereas a guard keeps one confined to ones cell.
self importance and self fixation are psychological activities which cause the ego to shift from guardian into guard, according to the nagualist view

the key to reaching the nagual is in shrinking the tonal

and in reaching and accumulating inner silence

the theory is that
it is our self talk which keeps the tonal large and important

and prevents the overall person from having access to the nagual

accessing the nagual is the essential aim of nagualism