Joseph Maynor

Ego is the identification with Experience as me or mine or them. In addition, Ego is the identification with Thought-stories about me or mine or them.

His views on women are horrible. But he’s an essayist, so it’s best to take each of his essays as its own statement on whatever topic he’s addressing. I really benefitted from reading his essays. I had a complete books of his essays. If you like Schopenhauer, check out Francis Bacon’s essays. Not the painter Francis Bacon but the philosopher Francis Bacon. I think there’s an Essays Vol. 1 and an Essays Vol. 2 if I recall. You’re gonna be amazed at how much wisdom is packed in Bacon’s essays. And they were written in the 1600’s I think. I’ve read them all, they’re great and had an influence me. Schopenhauer’s essays and Bacon’s essays should be part of everybody’s reading list in life.

You gotta have the attitude that helping to change one person is enough. Really what you’re trying to do is help change yourself. And then you give back by helping to change others.

Here’s an essay I wrote recently: Compassion is the effect of knowing the true Self. And this comes from reducing ignorance. Once ignorance is seen through it can be reduced and prevented. Compassion is the prevention of suffering that is enabled by reducing your own ignorance and helping to reduce the ignorance of others. Love is not really the issue it's compassion. Love is a little too vague and ambiguous. You can have love for many things. But compassion is about reducing suffering caused by ignorance of illusion and otherwise. Compassion is walking up to a person and saying "I think you're making a mistake and let me tell you why I think so." So, I kind of feel like love is not quite right as the concept for Enlightenment, it's compassion that's more accurate. It's once you know the truth you can reduce your own ignorance and the ignorance of others, which is compassion to yourself and compassion to others.

Sure. Spiral Dynamics is just a model for Personal Development and development of groups of people. I’m less concerned with the groups of people part of it and more concerned with how Spiral Dynamics aids my own personal development. To what extent does Spiral Dynamics give me ideas on how to grow my Ego? That’s the key question for me.

Spiral Dynamics just is about the development of Ego. One of the worst beliefs people come to cling to is the belief that Ego is bad and should be gotten rid of. Although Ego is an illusion, it’s still a constant part of Experience just like the Body is. Spiral Dynamics isn’t really about Enlightenment — actually paradoxically it is and it isn’t. What I mean by that is you can be Enlightened and also fully love and accept Ego after you discover the true Self and after you see through the illusion of Ego. You can think of Enlightenment as 3 stages — (1) Carry water and chop wood, (2) seek the true Self and actual reality, (3) carry water and chop wood. It’s the third stage where Ego is accepted back into your life and loved, although it is an illusion. Vision for your life is an illusion, it’s thought-stories, but you’re gonna have the illusion of Ego anyway, so the key is to create a loveable vision for Ego. This is a vision where you’re doing good things for yourself and for others. That’s a loveable vision even if you don’t accomplish it (or it doesn’t come to full fruition). It’s still better than sitting on the couch eating junk food watching TV, wasting your life.

@VioletFlame I’ll do a deeper read and give you a fuller comment.

Both. I share my insights with others and I benefit from others’ insights too. And others benefit from my insights. I think it’s good to share your insights — just don’t become too evangelical about it.

There’s a paradox and you gotta work both ends of it. On the one hand peace is knowing everything is just fine and nothing needs to be done. But on the other hand peace is having a loveable vision for your life that you want to implement in reality.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive and paradoxical but you have to go from hating Ego and wanting to get rid of Ego to loving and accepting Ego. But at the same time fully realizing the illusion of Ego. It’s tricky because we tend to want to stick to one answer like “Ego is bad” instead of accepting a paradox like Ego and No Ego.

Schopenhauer has some great things to say on certain topics.

Worship of competition and financial and social success. Sports, investing, sales, business. The Olympics is very stage Orange. When I mean social success I mean success that makes a person a step ahead of other people in the perceived social pecking order. Orange is competitive, but with society's standards not their own authentic standards necessarily. In contrast, Coral is competitive, but on their own authentic standards only. And Coral is only competing with themselves not with other people like Orange is. You ever hear the saying "being a step ahead of the Joneses?" That's a very stage Orange sentiment because Orange is comparing themselves with other people and competing with other people.

Yeah there’s that paradox in there.

Hehe. I was just thinking of stuff that I don’t need. What I need is an amazing set of computers to fit into my life. I want to get one of those Windows Surface things. That seems kinda neat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_(2017)

You need a vision. Something you want to work for. Something beautiful uniquely to you. You need a vision for your life and for all life that comes into contact with you. Vision is #1 in personal development.

Yes and you have to be careful about that. Stay true to your instincts.

Give yourself time. Remember, all that matters is your vision. It's a stubbornness to being you that eventually brings you to success in personal development.

Oh yeah. I took the intro course and the upper division course. Those are the classes where I was exposed to questions like “What is pain?” Those are important classes if you have a good teacher.

If you really wanted to get into real philosophy of religion, study Medieval Western Philosophy. Theology is the other area you might want to look at.

I just re-watched “American Beauty” the night before last. That movie’s got some themes in it for sure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Beauty_(1999_film)

This is the hardest thing, but you’ve gotta become your own accountability partner. Ditto for me.

I think so. It exposes you to certain things that you might never have been exposed to. I have a degree in Philosophy and took a couple of classes in philosophy of religion and one in Buddhism. The Buddhism class was almost worthless except for the textbooks which I read like 10 years after I graduated.

This is one area where I think Western Philosophy shines. Watch these videos.

Everyday! And I keep that page on my desk too so I have to look at it when I get any kind of temptation. Sometimes I still breach the agreement, but it’s much harder and it makes me think more before I do it. // Here’s what I print out on it’s own page and sign daily: I agree to comply with my schedule tomorrow 11/15/18. [insert whatever date tomorrow is] _______________________ [sign here]

I don’t have a single system. I have binders of notes, many electronic files, and the essays I post on Actualized. One thing I try to keep all in one place are my essays and one binder of materials that I review before I go to bed each night which keeps me on track with my Life Purpose Work. And I fill out a daily report on how I performed on my daily schedule (daily routine) which gets saved to a file on my Linux computer. I also sign a daily agreement to do my daily schedule (daily routine) and those signed agreements get saved in a pile in a special place in my room.