Work that Ego till it drops away!

Wow, talk about turning the idea on it's head...

Instead of letting go of ego, wear it out! Work it like those dirty old sneakers till there's nothing left and it can't recover...

So, to take this to the ridiculous extreme, be a jerk until you can't jerk no more...?


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Thoughts?

Rule number 1. Definitions. What do you call "ego"? No wiki please. Present your understanding.

Hey! Let go my ego! :laugh:

Why do I want to wear out my ego, anyway?

Does the ego exist as something that can be "worn out"?

You try to "grab" it, and it eludes your grasp, like a phantom that one only sees out of the corner of their eye, but disappears once you turn toward it. Why is that?

On one end of the "intention" spectrum, we might think that ridding ourselves of the ego is the answer, to which, such a notion is a game of the ego. On the other end of this spectrum, "wearing it out" can be no different. Still the same game that drives you in a perpetual circle.

What is one to do then...

Other than to accept it for what it is - without intention.

I don't have any original thoughts on the matter. But one of the few thoughts that I have adopted is this...

"You cannot surrender ego, because it does not exist. You can bring a little awareness, a little consciousness, a little light. Forget completely about the ego; concentrate totally on bringing alertness into your being. And the moment your consciousness has become a flame, concentrated, you will not be able to find the ego...But I say unto you that the reality is ...it is not that you surrender the ego and the self-realization happens, no. The self-realization happens first, and then you cannot find the ego.
That is its surrender." ~Osho

haha I'm sorry, this is all I can think of when I hear the word ego anymore

(this is from the Ultra Spiritual guy)

i went to jiu jitsu twice last week and had two experiences which contrasted very sharply with each other

the way it usually works is that we spend the first hour or sometimes hour and a half working drills and techniques

then we spend anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes "rolling", which is when we wrestle each other in the effort to secure a submission

on monday, coach decided to do something a little weird: he split the class into two teams and had us all compete at the same time, the idea being that multiple people could work together to submit a single person

twice, i was the last one remaining from my team: the first time coach was the one to submit me, and even that took a while lol

second time it came down to me against two other people and i fought them off for several minutes, probably four or five, until the time ran out for the round

during this melee, i performed a really clean, one handed ankle trip against someone who tried to get at me from the side while someone else was trying to hold me in their guard

twice i flipped someone over my shoulder when they went to take my neck while i was trying to better my position against someone underneath me, and i executed four or maybe five successful submissions, and not only escaped a few but even reversed two different sub attempts and position attempts from multiple opponents

so i had a great night and walked away feeling like a champ lol

my ego was validated, because i have worked hard to learn how to do those things, and i did them well

the next night however, lol, i got my ass handed to me

i went against two different guys who are both bigger and way more powerful and in better shape, and more experienced

and i got smashed both times - i spent the entirety of each roll gasping for breath and doing my best to simply not die (or vomit lol)

with the first guy, my technical knowledge was slightly better than his, but has been a fighter for years and hes in good shape and much stronger than i am and a lot bigger

there was a point where he had me smashed against the cage and i mean i could hear him thinking "if it were a fight i would beat the shit out of him" lol and thats right, he could have dropped punches down on me all day and i didnt have the skill or strength to stop it

the second has been doing jits for a lot longer than me and is also a weight lifter for several years
not only is he quite a bit stronger but his technical knowledge and skill are clearly greater than mine

i held on for a while and i did ok, but he caught me an an arm bar eventually, which still hurts lol, and when i left that night i felt pretty deflated lol

my ego was humbled

so my opinion is that its good to have an ego

especially its good to do things that are difficult and which require dedication and discipline, and represent some kind of personal excellence

this kind of ego helps to develop resilience and confidence, and those are important qualities

i also think it is good to experience our own limitations and short comings

really we are all pretty frail and vulnerable to the greater universe; any of us could be crushed at any time by the most random of things, and there is no way for a human being to become so powerful as to be invincible

and it is healthy to experience that too, and be cognizant of it

so imo the best way is to have a really big ego and a little tiny ego atthe same time lol

Perhaps it is difficult to know what a lack of something would feel like without first knowing what 'it' feels like - considering that much of our 'everyday' Ego is so automatic that we're hardly aware of it.

But then, is it possible to be conscious of - to know the feeling of - a lack of Ego?

Kit wrote:

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haha I'm sorry, this is all I can think of when I hear the word ego anymore

(this is from the Ultra Spiritual guy)

I love that guy!

Probably advice to people who need to develop 'proper intention' by their definitions of the term... and I'd wonder that it might not be worn out to disappear but rather worn outwards to encompass more then self, or at least to reorientate how one views things - enough to constitute a character change of that persons 'identity'. The thing is I tend to keep considering ego to not be one thing, but a collection of little things which our spirit animates with and around. I keep pretending some primordial essence exists but all I ever dig up is evolutionary imagery (despite the odd strange experience which is hard to pin down). Maybe he means grasp to you cannot grasp no more.