/lit/ - Literature

Are you retarded?

>>16491135
>t. Ego driven response
Okay. Anyone else?

>>16491129
I confront it almost daily and it seems at last that he is willing to compromise..

>>16491129
Why would I do that? What you gonna do if you don't have an ego, give all your money to the homeless because you don't matter?

>>16491129
No because you have to understand that you can't kill your ego for good. You can refine it, which is what happens when you deal with trauma and other stuff. The ego is your contact point with reality.

>>16491129
Wanting to kill your own ego is pretty egotistical

>>16491129
Jacob wrestling with the angel

Tried it by taking LSD but experienced psychosis instead. Would not recommend.

You can effectively kill your ego by getting into the flow zone. Focus on some specific task outside of you that requires effort and concentration.

>>16491129
Yeah I killed him

>>16491140
Yeah I have and I don't feel one way or the other about it.

>>16491129
Ego can't actually be killed, it can be brought to awareness. At least, that is where I personally am so far.
It allows you to see others as trying their best with what they have and behave due to a similar process of your own,
therefore people are not really all that different.
Just trying their best with what they know and have most of the time.

>>16491129
I did, but then life threw some punches and I lost the kind of clarity I had and became very self-involved, eventually my ego blurred my vision completely. The fog isn't as thick now, but I still have some soul searching among other things to do before I achieve that kind of calm and clarity again.

>>16491140
Your response is also ego-driven.
Your ego isn't the same as egotism or selfishness really. You need your ego. You can't really use language without it.
I've had it happen with a really high dose of mushrooms. No doubt about it, full ego death.
>be in my bed tripping balls in the dark
>feel myself start to fall back through the mattress
>be scared
>return to the apex of the descent like a record skipping a few times
>feel my parts of my brain sort of slough off and dissolve
>know this is ego death, know that I should not resist
>feels like dying, don't want to go, panic and try to hold on
>can't
>everything goes
>complete and perfect nothingness, not even darkness
>some time (?) later
>be everything, no separateness
>hear my friends talking in the other room
>gain language
>wonder what I am
>decide that I am the emerging interplay between my friends interacting
>stop thinking for a while, just stillness and calm and satisfaction
>move
>notice I have a body with limits and an inside and an outside
>recall my identity
>slight disappointment
Been trying to get back there with meditation, but I suspect it'll take many decades.

>>16491201
No, that's not even close.

>>16491129
If you "successfully kill your ego", then you are dead.

>muh ego
I thought americans were asleep

>>16491286
East Coast alive and kicking, fren. About 75% of the population, i.e. --Sorry if inconvenient

Yea on a fairly high dose of shrooms (7g plus) it happened. It's really blatant when it does you can't mistake it. You basically lose all sense of meaning of anything and since you can define anything you can't define yourself, can't define yourself can't have an ego really.
I went from having next to no friends to having like 100 within 2 years of this event. Now back to none though after realizing that, yes, most people really are that dumb.

I took acid that was way stronger than I wanted and experienced what people call ego death

There's nothing to it, it's not a state that helps you do anything once your ego returns, and it's incredibly painful to experience

People ascribe spiritual horeshit to it, it's nothing like that, it's a purely mechanical thing & any kind of voluntary ego reduction is insidious in nature

>>16491401
>it's a purely mechanical thing
It doesn't have to be caused by magic for it to be a spiritual experience. You were lucky to experience that, regardless of how painful it was, you shouldn't reject it.

>>16491412
I don't reject it, I got what I got out of it, I reject the culture that surrounds it, it's incredibly perverse to speak about ego death, meditation, "the reduction of the self" in a positive light and it's not something I would ever recommend to anybody

>>16491129
>Has anyone on here actually managed to kill their ego?
No but I have met a few devout Christians in real life who managed to suppress it.
Very impressive desu.

>>16491470
> it's incredibly perverse to speak about ego death, meditation, "the reduction of the self" in a positive light
That attitude is what I mean by rejecting it.
A lot of positive stuff comes from realising that the ego is just an interface between inside and out, not the totally of your existence.

>>16491129
Yes, I have.. I fought my ego to the death and I came out on top, therefore I am the best.

>>16491129
Yes. Accidentally while meditating. I managed to completely and utterly kill my sense of self, albeit for less than maybe 5-10 seconds. It was a very powerful experience, to such an extent that it has completely changed the way I perceive and think about myself, the world and others, almost instantly too. Still, my ego is very much real and I still experience it everyday, but now, I’m a little bit more conscious of its effects on my behavior/thoughts, and the way it interacts with the world around it.

>>16491129
I'd rather kill my unconscious because he's an asshole that sends me troubling dreams of gore and molestation.

>in 5th grade, I realize that I can never really know if other people are really conscious (became a solipsist before I even knew what the word meant)
>apply the logic that got me to solipsism to all other things and sensations
>realize that nothing can really be known to exist, they're all just perceptions and thoughts
>I no longer make a distinction between things outside of my consiousness and things within it
>from then on, life just feels like me sitting in a theatre watching a movie within my own head
>the movie screen and all sensations are the same. There is no distinction between perceptions, emotions and thoughts
Do I have an ego, fellas?

>>16491500
>A lot of positive stuff comes from realising that the ego is just an interface between inside and out, not the totally of your existence.
No, your ego is all you there is, everything you know, think and feel is done through your ego, there is no "positive" or "negative" without ego, and without it you die because you cannot function at all

If you think there's a state of human existence without ego you have no idea about what ego is, and anybody who thinks they're living an ego-less or ego-reduced existence by following any kind of spiritual path is a completely mislead fool

>>16491129
Anon you're literally not supposed to do that. That's like "killing" your shadow. All you really accomplish is suppressing something until it becomes an unaware obsession. Go figure out how to balance your ego with the rest of your self.

>>16491569
Retard

>>16491129
It happens to some people they are shells of their former selves the mind has little to no desire and actions are limited

>>16491372
>Now back to none though after realizing that, yes, most people really are that dumb.
Went through this phase as well. It's much more comfy listening to your own thoughts instead of being surrounded by dumb ones.
However I still have 100 friends and all of them are (You)

>>16491519
How do you meditate

>>16491129
I have and I'm proud of it

>>16491519
Based samadhiposter. Meditation has taken me to some very interesting places, but I never managed to transcend the ego.

>>16492327
There are many techniques. The simplest is just to contemplate the spot between your eyebrows ... and keep doing just that.

>>16491129
>>16491135
>>16491140
>>16491281
To the midwits ITT: let me explain one thing before you and OP go on deluding dumb anons on what ego really means.

Your EGO is your self-image, it is the IDEA you have of yourself. While you cannot live without a self-concept, you can indeed have an inflated one, which is why people meditate or take mushrooms to kill their ego, they're not destroying their sense of identity, they are resetting it.

Your SELF is what is underneath it all, all your thoughts, perceptions, it is what you ARE. Many say it is just your body, and that is a philosophical discussion for those more bigbrained to tackle, but if you're prone to dissociating then grounding your idea of your Self in your body is definitely a good place to start. Naturally, your SELF encompasses so much more than just your body, because it is also the originator of perception and of experience, it is the totality of everything you have ever experienced, but, like I said, more big brain discussions for the big brain threads.

You have an ego about your self, that is what the ego is. Just remember that your self is stronger than your ego, and can exist without it. Your ego cannot exist without your self, on the other hand.

>>16491569
You almost have it. Yes, you need your ego, your ego isn't a negative thing. Doesn't mean it's not good to sometimes go without it for a period or to reduce your attachment to it.
No one thinks you should kill your ego and just be a vegetable.
Other anon was right to call you a retard.

>>16492380
Correct

>>16491129
You're not supposed to kill your ego permanently, it's just an alternative state

>>16491129
Something that's helped me tremendously is viewing people differently. Humans typically look for flaws and weaknesses in others, so we can further advantage ourselves. We tend to look for the worst in people, which isn't a great mindset to have at all. So, instead of looking for the worst in someone, instead ask yourself "What is something great about this person?". This has made me so much more appreciative for the people around me, and just everyone in general. I feel so much happier and truly look for the best in people. I don't judge strangers anymore, which was something I used to do constantly. I feel free. I feel genuine love for everything around me.

>>16491129
Twice, it came back both times.

>>16492443
>You're not supposed to kill your ego permanently

Yeah, if you mean in the sense people generally use that term vis a vis hallucinogens. I don't recommend it.
Just meant I wasted a couple weeks meandering with much less confidence in myself than before until I rebuilt my personality.

>>16492380
So you shouldn't kill your ego, you should kill your self.

I stabbed my ego and he's bleeding on the carpet

>>16492380
>>16492440
To add to this, the Rastafarians have a very deep understanding of language and how it affects your perception of yourself and of the world. The phrase 'I and I' is meant to represent both the EYE, that which perceives, your body, that which binds you to the physical, as well as your 'I', the abstract identity, that which binds you to the astral, of which you can include your ego.

>>16492498
ebin

>https://www.ramdass.org/practice-self-inquiry/
good meditation which focuses on the 'I'

>>16492458
This. Although I usually go with "what does this person know that I don't". I don't usually try to find out, but just knowing that I can learn from everyone helps me treat people better and enjoy interactions more.

>>16492495
Are you should you had ego death? It's not going to take two weeks to "actually" rebuild yourself. It just takes a few minutes. If you mean psychologically building yourself back to how you were before the trip, that wouldn't result from ego death.
It sounds like you had a profound and perhaps introspective experience, but maybe not ego death. It's not easy to understand what ego death is, but there's no questioning it when you've experienced it. It's a thing that happens with high doses, I guess neurologically.

>>16492519
Nice I didn't know that's what that meant.

>>16492550
>Are you should you had ego death?
Positive.
>It's not going to take two weeks to "actually" rebuild yourself. It just takes a few minutes.
It takes a few minutes to be cognizant of yourself (or realistically hours considering the confused state you'll be in with psilocybines). It took me a couple of weeks to get back to the level of confidence I had prior to it.
>If you mean psychologically building yourself back to how you were before the trip, that wouldn't result from ego death.
The drive, ambition and confidence destruction is directly tied to the ego death.
>It's not easy to understand what ego death is, but there's no questioning it when you've experienced it. It's a thing that happens with high doses
Why is it that every blowhard "spiritualist" feels the need to curate the experience of others?
The "not so high dose" I took was 9g of lemontekked shrooms, and yes it involved a literal death experience as well as a dissolution of everything myself.

Schizophrenics

>>16492592
Relax, you just didn't describe it in a way that sounds like ego death to me. Two weeks to rebuild your confidence is not something I've heard anyone say in relation to ego death.
What I have heard is several people mistakenly claim ego death after an intense experience, including myself and several friends. It's not an uncommon mistake to make. You can see in this thread people making similar mistakes, attributing ego death to things like flow states.

>The drive, ambition and confidence destruction is directly tied to the ego death.
I sort of disagree with this, if you're stating it as a general property of the experience. Those things obviously arise from ego, but I didn't personally feel like ego death was a particular challenge to those things. I felt an increase in confidence if anything.

>>16491129
why would I do that?
all the things I do in the name of physical, mental, and spiritual excellence are to give my ego substance
what kind of loser tries to kill his ego lmao