“Yet, no amount of meditation or now-power can get rid of them entirely, eh?”
Damn right. To contact the power of now, you must first realise that “now” is everything we ever got. We are the “now”. Time is an illusion. Second of, accept everything as it is – the universe, other people, and EVERYTHING in you.
It’s obivius, that if you got rid of your mind, thoughts, and emotions, power of now wouldnt be that precius and worth having at all. The art, is simply to not identify yourself with all of these stuff – thoughts, emotions, pain. Yet, you got to face it. It’s all trapped life energy, that have eaten their own hosts alive.

When i say ego, i mean your fake image of yourself, not your mind. It’s the little voice in your head, that is affected of outer conditions. Lust and desire is the fuel, and hapiness is the goal. The ego is like a filter to your mind. A husband might see getting a child as a bad idea, because the ego is giving him some reasons based on patterns and exp from the past, but the wife thinks its a great idea cause her ego tells her it will save their marriage in the future…

I’ve seen your website. It’s kinda big work done here… With danger og sound lame, I’ll problably wont be able to talk you in to this. Just read my stuff, and if you sencirley can relate to this – im talking about looking for hope in the future, identify yourself from stuff done in the past, being addicted to outer conditions, you might give it a try.
Btw, notice this: The mind, not the ego, has 4 ways to go. The past, the future, judging yourself (credits, punishment), judging others. Funny thing, eh?

“Woe is being human, trapped in the black hole to lust and desire!”

That’s the crusade calling. It’s what people complain about, how they scapegoat the ego and fragment themselves, because they can’t make peace within.

Or rather, they don’t really want to try. Because those pesky negative emotions — since they’re not “creativity” or “love” or those other human experiences supposedly “beyond” thoughts and emotions — they’re so not worthy. (Translation: I’ll make them the enemy because then I’ll never have to face them, or what’s worse… admit that they are part of me!)

Yet, no amount of meditation or now-power can get rid of them entirely, eh? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so compelled to correct me. Under friendly “debate” of course, but really just you talking at me, after a compliment, of sorts.

Second off – i think you misunderstood the whole spiritual concept. Lets take a look at the ego:
The ego is the manifestation of our mind. It’s a frame of ourselfes, and a black hole to lust and desire. In spirituality, known as the “false” self.
Why? Think a thought. Anything. Who is “watching” over this thought? Who is the witness? Yes mam, you are. This witness aint just a random homeless dude. Its your “true self”.
Most of us makes the mistake to identify ourselves with our thoughts and ego. The ego’s desires can’t never be fed. Your thoughts and emotions can anytime go againts yourself. And it doesnt last forever.
Your true self thereagainst is lasting forever. Its part of the universe, everything. Its the silent witness, that will join the universe when our body, ego, and thoughts, fades away. None of them have truly hapiness in them, because they dont last for long, before a new desire comes up.
To achieve contact with our inner self, there’s an book for that, the power of now by echart tolle.
When we do come in concat with our inner self, wich can be a hard journey for some, or mind will still function. We need it to survive, to live, to feel. But our mind would not be controlled by our desires and ego. It will be controlled by the universe, our inner self.
Einstein, and many great artist and painters have said that their best ideas came up when their mind was quiet. In this condition, creativity and love is our state. I cant explain it properly. Who those who want, read the book :)

Thanks for providing those examples. There is a lot of loose language regarding the Kill-Ego Crusade, and sometimes it’s so intellectual-sounding that it’s designed to pass over your head! Or make you feel stupid or spiritually inferior if you don’t “get” it.

Severing it would be akin to lobotomizing the spark of our humanity.

Excellent quote! This is exactly how I see it.

However, softening the ego and making it more permeable is quite another matter. So in that sense, I prefer transformation rather than annihilation.

The way I see it is that we need to learn how to accept the ego and listen to it’s true needs so we can nurture it… and so it doesn’t continue gripping to fear or dysfunctional coping mechanisms. The transformation isn’t really in the ego, but in our ability to consciously parent and respond to its needs. But since the ego is an aspect of you, it’s really consciously parenting and responding to your needs as a whole person.

Your final statement hits the mark, thanks for your great response!

To Kevin and elaine, who believe it is very rare that “killing” the ego is advocated by much of contemporary spirituality and religious literature, I would respectfully disagree. Be aware, it has a full range of terms, from the Christian version of crucifying the self to the Sufi goal of annihilating the false self, the Buddhist version of no self and on and on. (And no, I am not saying those are all totally identical.)

I have always felt that the ego can never be successfully eradicated nor would we ever want it to be. It is an essential part of our personhood and individuality. Severing it would be akin to lobotomizing the spark of our humanity.

However, softening the ego and making it more permeable is quite another matter. So in that sense, I prefer transformation rather than annihilation.

We need to stop with the violent language and concepts aimed at the human person. Integrating and embracing our full selves, as difficult as it may be, is really the pathway ahead both for the individual and society at large.

I personally believe that yes, the physical universe is an illusion much in the way the Matrix is an illusion — you need to have physical senses (like the brain) to experience and thus “create it” for yourself.

But, just because that’s true doesn’t mean that the thoughts and whatnot that we experience in the physical realm aren’t “real.” We are still experiencing them. “Real” is just a description we latch onto things that we have experienced. They are real to us, because our brains constructed the experience — we can’t deny that.

I do believe it’s true that you are not your thoughts, in that you are more than just your thoughts, as well as more than just your brain. But, just because I believe this does not mean I am on board with how tons of spiritual people and even psychologists interpret that. They basically conclude that because *who you are* is not just a physical being bound by your mortal body and brain… it’s *okay* and even *healthy* to deny and invalidate your unwanted thoughts, and more importantly, your unwanted emotions.

This is a red alert to me. Total misrepresentation. It’s like they hijack the spiritual principle and use it to rationalize their fear-based avoidant behavior. They use this to avoid having to experience the painful scary stuff — missing the whole point. When you experience the painful scary stuff it *is* already part of your reality, because your brain co-constructed it. You can’t pretend you can just go back to your pure spirit form (or however you want to describe it) and just shake off the nasty thoughts. Nope, you’re trapped, or your hotel stay isn’t up yet, or as I like to say, you’re a physical human being living in a physical world, so get with the program already and make the best of it.

You can’t pretend that you can just go back to your pure spirit form, from which your thoughts may very well appear to be an illusion (because in spirit form, you have no physical senses to perceive those thoughts, or maybe just in the same visceral way). Because you can’t. You’re physical. That’s why I say it’s not a very good reason to try and deny the Ego and its integral role in your being a physical human living in a physical world.

I don’t know where thoughts “come from.” It’s still not answered by science. But just because we don’t understand the mechanics fully, does not mean we can dissociate from thoughts and emotions when they are clearly a huge and important part of our personal experience.

Thanks for your comment JediMaster, I honestly thought you wouldn’t be back. :P