The ego is a master of disguises. It's very good at disguising as a "healthy ego". Just when you think it's your friend it pulls the rug out from under you. The ego, as Tolle stated, cannot be destroyed, nor is it necessary. You simply need to be aware of it and see that IT IS NOT YOU. The danger is in identifying with it. It's very cunning and if it appears to be friendly or helpful it's only trying to suck you in. Your true self is the only voice you need to listen to...it tells you everything you need to know. When you truly know the ego...and most people need to get beat up many times before they do, you'll avoid it like the plaque.

Thanks for sharing your view Suzanna, altohugh it isn't one that I share and I am not in agreement with Eckhart's teachings that the Ego will always cause suffering, I fully appreciate the diverse views on this topic.
It never ceases to amaze me how discussion forums bring so many views and beliefs and philosophies and opinions to the one page -for the first time in history! Amazing.

Carol

Having read through all the posts...it's interesting. What I am reading is a lot of egos feeling very threatened and desperately trying to hang on. You DO NOT need your ego to succeed or anything else. Your ego has one goal and ONLY ONE goal and that is to make you miserable...actually it's goal is to ultimately kill you. In the many cases of illnesses due to stress, it has succeeded.

How many egos push a person to succeed, to make more money, only to be followed by a heart attack or cancer.

Our past definition of ego is a form of vanity, boastfulness or over-confidence, etc. That's not it. A voice that tells you that you are wonderful and beautiful and talented and capable, without doubt, is not your ego...it's your true self. A voice that tells you that you are more wonderful and beautiful, etc. than others...that's the ego. A voice that tells you to do something that adds to your peace and happiness is not your ego....again...it's coming from spirit. The ego has many masks that all lead to annihilation.

The ego might say you are wonderful or that your awful, that doesn't matter...it's the feeling it leaves behind that gives it away. Only the ego would tell you that you're awful, but it might tell you that you are wonderful with more subtle feelings of guilt for being vain or a softer voice that says: you're not really wonderful. The ego is best revealed through feelings not words, since words can have so many different meanings.

'No worries' as we say in Australia Suzanna. I appreciate you taking time to read through the posts and share your opinion.

Carol

Do you realize that not every voice in your head is your ego? Many, many wonderful thoughts and ideas and messages come from your spirit, your true self. The ego wants you to think that it has a nicer, helpful side...it doesn't. But, maybe the disagreement here is in labeling. What would you consider a thought from your spirit?

(P.S. I love Austrailians and would so love to go there one day. Even my little granddaughter can't get enough of the Wiggles.)

Do you realize that not every voice in your head is your ego?

Sure Suzanna...my partner has a great saying "There is only One everything"..and it is in the space that I view "Ego" and "Spirit" as aspects of the One, in a Universe where everything is interconnected, where we are breathing one another in and out and Thoughts circulate through the ages....there is no division, no split, no need to eradicate one thing in order for another thing to emerge.

The Ego and Spirit discussions have many of the same arguments as the "Devil" and "God" debate-
e.g. The ego wants you to think that it has a nicer, helpful side...it doesn't...

I don't believe in the Devil either so the insidious, deceitful Ego which we have no control over is one I reject over the belief that we are all growing and evolving into the harmonising of all aspects of who we are and an Ego-amputation is not a part of that equation.

But as I mentioned before Suzanna, I know this is not the view of many people in the forum and is not one shared by Eckhart Tolle in his teachings and I am most respectful of the Reality that others are living. I don't look to 'convert others' or to be 'converted', simply to share and discuss our stories.

Carol

Hi Carol, Everyone!


I haven't read through the entire thread, yet, but this last post prompted me to go ahead and add my two cents. I was happy to see this topic addressed in this week's class, because it's one of the first questions I got from a very ambitious son o' mine He had the idea that there would be no "drive" or ambition without Ego, but I was pleased with the way Eckhart explained the difference between the "pushy" voice in the head and the higher vibrational energy coming from Spirit.


As I understand it, the Ego presented in "A New Earth" generates and thrives on -negative- energy, whereas all truly creative force comes directly through its opposite, namely, Spirit... Life, Truth, Love. Used in this sense, ego is also termed "animal magnetism" in Christian Science as taught by Mary Baker Eddy, and is defined as "the sum total of all error, and that in itself, nothing, unless a belief is attached to it." Wallace Wattles (The Science of Getting Rich) illustrates this as the "competitive" mindset in his writings, which is based on a belief in scarcity, rather than universal abundance.


The Ego which our pal, Carol, professes to love and adore seems to be more akin to the Mind of God, as Mrs. Eddy explains in her work (excerpt gleaned from the Textbook at Healing Unlimited):

God and His image
Error presupposes man to be both mind and matter. Divine Science contradicts the corporeal senses, rebukes mortal belief, and asks: What is the Ego, whence its origin and what its destiny? The Ego-man is the reflection of the Ego-God; the Ego-man is the image and likeness of perfect Mind, Spirit, divine Principle.

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.

The mind supposed to exist in matter or beneath a skull bone is a myth, a misconceived sense and false conception as to man and Mind. When we put off the false sense for the true, and see that sin and mortality have neither Principle nor permanency, we shall learn that sin and mortality are without actual origin or rightful existence. They are native nothingness, out of which error would simulate creation through a man formed from dust. ~ SCIENCE OF BEING, Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures

I hope this gives a little glimpse into the idea of Ego, which can actually have more than one meaning, depending on individual perspective, knowledge and understanding. I'm off to add this thread to the CanDo! blog (see link in my profile) ~ thanks for having the courage to explore this one, my friend

Celebrate Life ~ I AM!
Your Pal, Pen

I realized that I could have taken more care to distinguish between the ANE ego/animal magnetism and the Ego-man, i.e., reflection of the Ego-God as revealed in the CS Textbook, by applying the use of capitalization in my response

Learning all the time ~ I AM!
HAND-pda

Thanks for sharing those thoughts Lucky...great to see you here...I'm sure your Powerful Intentnios are percolating very nicely these days!

I appreciate you sharing Eckharts interpretation of the Ego...from Freud to the Yogis to Eckharts current teachings the interpretation and definitions are as multifarious as the many face of the Ego itself!

My view of the importance of honouring and embracing what the voice of division and narcissim and separation ('Ego" at its most self obsessed) is offering to us and honouring and loving those aspects as equally as that which is "good" has enabled a once very self-divided and hyper vigilance to 'bad dobby Ego" to harmonise whereby now when my Ego says "f*** them, f*** you...I embrace and really listen to what that 'shadow' is wanting to bring to the light and decided what to do and why I AM rceating these thoughts.

To embrace Ego is not necessarily to act on it and i found when I was working with young offenders that when they were embraced (and some were very nasty in their woundedness) and loved, with firm boundaries and discipline as well as humour...their vicious Egos transformed to reveal a whole other interesting aspect of the Ego self that I would not have missed for anything, so creative was its potential.

Give Ego meaningful work and clear job description and it can be the brawn behind the collective heart-brain of Spirits calling.

(Dr Jean Hoston has some great work on the correlation between the heart cells structure and that of the brain and how they mirror one another on so many levels).

My partner Sal often says "there is only One everything..." and that in itself reveals that the illusion of Ego split and Spirit Self is really just a stage we are growing through......;-)

There is only the One........and it is One'derful...

....But on the way we often meets splits in the path to Self that will eventually lead to the same destination anyway...

Carol

Bumping for Paul also.

It seems to me you are quite aware of your ego and what it does. Ego only exists in an unconscious or unaware state. I question whether refering to one's ego and being fully aware that it is ego is actually ego. It sounds like you have attained a degree of awakening that you are not aware of. Boy, does this ever sound oxymoronic!

Thanks for that loberger...I have a very much alive and non annhilated /transcended Ego that has the capacity to isolate others (old school yard behaviour), talk over other people ("I was not listened" to as a child behaviour) and show off at the traffic lights (driving car that accelerates fast that just has to be exercised and impress the other kids)...

These aspects of me that I once held a pathological view of I now see in a much more 'mythological " context...for example the gossippy tell tale in the workplace that I recognise in another person I know to be the same little-girl wounded story teller whose creativty and magic has imploded...or the hyper-manic friend of mine who most people tire off very quickly with her never-pause-chatter is the inventor , creator in me who was made to sit still, eyes to the front, stop talking not long after I left kindergarten.

It is the demonising and pathologising of a very intrinsic aspect of 'being human' that I disagree with in Eckharts words "the Ego will always cause suffering" and when I peep in the rear view mirror to see how far I have left the traffic behind on a day when my Ego is soooooooooooooooo bored with the far more temperate and less "borm to be wild" life of the Spiritual path...I don't try to annhilate /transcend /deny its existence...I just check that my seat belt is buckled and make sure there is no speed camera ahead and no dnager to anyone else of course...

Usually Ego just needs a bit of fresh air these days instead of rampaging all day and night ...and the rest of the time it is so very useful that its propensity for Self promotion and "Me" motivates me to go out into the world where, quite frankly, much of the time my Spririt would rather retreat from the madding crowds and hyper-hysterical media driven illusions and stay at home with my art, animals and beloved Sal.

Carol

One'derful, indeed not to mention, a great big WOW for the amazing contributions to this thread! Mrs. Eddy opens her classic book with Shakespeare's insight, "...but thinking makes it so." Her work in Christian Science was also Joel Goldsmith's first introduction to this teaching. You may recall Eckhart recommending his work to the first Skyper in the series broadcast.

This is also what first gave me the impression that the ANE ego equates with animal magnetism, or error (d'evil.) This is a form of mesmerism, and Mrs. Eddy delves into the subject in depth in the chapter entitled, Animal Magnetism Unmasked (Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures.) We can love this so-called "enemy" by recognizing it for what it purports to be and learning how to get a handle on erroneous thought.

Spirit is not one big do-nothing bore in my understanding -- it's the highest creative energy known to man, and we have only to tap into the Source to rev up the old engine and make some serious tracks in Life! This is the reflection of the Ego-God within -- with a capital 'E'!! Just my two cents and a plate o' pasta

Speaking of growth and greenery... Have you seen the Gratitude Mala made of lotus seeds featured in The Secret Garden at PI? Your Empowerment Necklaces reminded me of them, and I'd like to share this craft with our CO-OP members, if you're inclined to plant a key Google phrase to cultivate our learning

Signing off for now as the clock reads 1:11 AM,
Your Pal, Perky Penne

fwiw ... Elizabeth Lesser said some interesting generalizations about the ego in her chapter 4 aftershow ...

personally I don't see the ego as good or bad ... it just is ... but I honestly don't think I going to love my ego either ...

Without getting too deep ... loving the ego becomes a problem with duality ...

And I really appreciate Tolle's warnings about the ego ... in teaching us to access that higher part of Intelligence ... that is timelessness and formlessness ...

I'm with YOU


Spiritual growth has long been thought to require the death of the ego. This is not a true understanding.
There is no problem with the ego. Denying the ego its right function has created dis-ease in the ego and this dis-ease is the problem.
Death of the ego is not a necessary part of Spritual growth.

Ego in fact is the part of you that recognizes yourself as you. The ego operates to protect your present level of ability to accept and express.
Ego is as Divine as anything else. There is no problem with the ego if it sees itself evolving with the rest of you. You cannot tell the difference between yourself and anything else without ego.

from the book - Right Use Of Will

I do not consider that I nor anyone else has any missing or extraneous parts. What we do have is parts that are not functioning together in harmony and wholeness.

I think is about accepting and understanding and learning to use these parts to contribute to and serve the whole is the way out of the major soup we have individually and collectivelly got ourselves into. Imagine throwing out parts of your car's engine simply because you didn't know what it's function was - it may hold you back a bit - might not get too far on your journey. And there you would stay, stuck right where you are until you recognized, accepted and understood the function of what ever part of the engine you sought to discard or deny.

It may well be that the truth of the ego is that it assists you in identifing that which you are not.....as in I'm not a tree. It would be a problem however if one considered the thing that assisted them in discerning they were not a tree was in fact them. I have a mind, I am not my mind. I have free will, I am not my will, I have emotions, I am not my emotions, I have a body, I am not my body, I have nice clothes, I am not my clothes, I have money in the bank, I am not my money, I have no money in the bank, I am not no money, I have an ego, I am not my ego - but without it....I wouldn't know that.

amahjenme

Thanks Luckypenne...those old Christain Scientists and New Thought Elders were speaking many of these Truths over a hudnred years ago!
Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, Shakti Gawain....all New Thought students extraordinnaire!

This topic of Ego is a signficant one and after reading Eckharts quote that the true meanong of Jesus on the Cross is that we are all on the cross, I am becoming more uncomfortable with the old suffering and devil story (Ego and struggle) reincarnated into its latest form.

I have a lot of photos of making the Empowerment Necklaces in my facebook public photos and will zip you the link in ...it is so satisfying to make the beads form the lumps of air-dry clay and shape the Intent into each bead, create your pendnant with the images /symobls that are meaningful to you...and then wear the Empowerment Necklace as a manifestation of your Vision.
Googling the term beauty from the deep sadness a ‘post Sorry Day’ story will show you the photos of the necklace made to release grief and honour the story of a Mother whose children were stolen from her during the Aboriginal child-removal policy era in Australia- a terrible indictment on our past. But what a powerful crration we made to honour the Mother Chiddy and Nungalas Sisters...

Realager thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic....I truly have come to love my Ego in all of its manifestations and forms and tricky ways and dealings and as "LOVE" is the only healing force in the Universe...I am so at peace these days with even the bits that do the 'bad dobby whisperings' because I am no longer under the illusion that my Ego has the power to destroy my vision or create discord in the areas where I am challenged...

Hey amajenme...I'm right with you on this one, in a minority tribe of a few in the forum where the general consensus is ego = bad and many of its publicised 'trickeries' and 'selfish whisperings" are exactly the same bad press as the Devil story... Bravo to these words:
What we do have is parts that are not functioning together in harmony and wholeness.

In the place of differing to how Eckhart perceives the Truth and Oprahs endorsment of that version of the Ego~Spirit relationship I am most respectful that people who are in agreement that the 'Ego always causes suffering" are experiencing that as a "truth" and will therefore experience it as Reality...

My experience is that all things are interconnected, Ego is a wonderful source of identification, motivation and energy that, for me, is not a predominant energy factor in my Spirit Self that has a very strong tendency to retreat and create in solitude .

We all establish an Identity in this life...what we identify with, where our passion, creativity and commitment to Service might go...and the very word itself...Identity = ID~entity...

ID= The Self...and as you say ...
Death of the ego is not a necessary part of Spritual growth.

Thanks for your Thoughts and sharing of Wisdom and insight all...very much appreciated by my Spirit Self, Ego is choofed that our little discussion corner has people calling by and would like to know if you all noticed my new hair do when you called by.......]:)