Just some thoughts about the egoic structure, control and freedom

[theleelajoker]

Well said. Like very much what you wrote.

Maybe even going a step further with one sentence: is learning, changing, evolving maybe the only meaningful thing in life?

[gettoefl]

7 hours ago, theleelajoker said:

Well said. Like very much what you wrote.

Maybe even going a step further with one sentence: is learning, changing, evolving maybe the only meaningful thing in life?

Ego is a fragile frightened flawed thought system that generates the future by mimicking the past on its lonesome path to death and therefore has no true free will. 

Almost everyone believes they are an ego and have no choice in that.

There is another way available and this is the only free will.

[PurpleTree]

12 hours ago, Lyubov said:

I agree with everything you wrote up to until the end. It isn’t up to grace or luck. It’s about taking responsibility and reparenting yourself, shepherding the ego with love. What you are I believe is something beyond just the body, something so indescribable and great it’s difficult to maybe comprehend or understand. But one thing you know is that the ego can’t drive the car. We know it’s familiar and we can definitely thank this ego (I call it the inner child since it really is just like a child) for trying to protect us. But we see we can’t have it grasping at the illusion of control. And it’s like you said, the ego just doesn’t like this unknown and unfamiliar because it sees it as unsafe but we have always lived in the unknown, nothing changes about living in the unknown. This is one of the core teachings of Taoism and Wu Wei. We live in the unknown, we are floating down the river, there are crocodiles in the river so we can do our best to navigate it, but moment to moment we don’t know. We don’t know what will happen in 1 second from now. It’s just unknown. The very paradoxical thing about is it isn’t up to luck. It’s up to responsibility. The inner child doesn’t like oneself living responsibly because it is then accountable. For example say you honestly know you love music and for you, you want to make your life purpose about music, and you take on this responsibility but let’s say you run out of money and now you need to get strategic about your finances which may be interfering with you practicing your music, the inner child doesn’t like this because it doesn’t like the unpredictability and how life can invite in criticism from others and situations not going our way. The ego / inner child would just criticize you about you a being a failed musician rather than a balanced belief system where you maybe acknowledge your finances need work but you can also find time to focus some on music too. You choose your beliefs. You are not and never have been a victim to this structure. You can choose to soften it if you so want but often times it’s not helpful to do so by sheer force but with love and recognition. Something so powerful from your core that it doesn’t ever need to exert itself. It’s so loving it never forces, it’s silent, still, wisdom. It has nothing to prove and watches over with no judgement and in the most indescribable loving way, offering guidance if we so wish to nurture our connection to it and listen. This is where the aspect of balance comes in and living in Wu Wei. We balance and live through this silent wisdom within but at the same time do not judge this sometimes childlike human side to us, they dance together, will h the spirit leading and the child looking out in wonder at the miracle of life.

Yea that stands and falls with the notion of free will. I resonate with the kind of radical nonduality which implies that there isn’t free will. There are seemingly decisions but for no one really. But it doesn’t really matter already i don’t have the free will to do or stop inner work as i’m drawn to it with a strong resonance and kind of addiction actually. Is there free will in having a resonance with something or being inspired by something. Not that’s also grace or tough luck. I could ne addicted to gambling also.

[inFlow]

20 hours ago, PurpleTree said:

Especially with some traumatic experiences. For example someone says your laugh is ugly then you try to hide or change the way you laugh or just laugh less as it seems more safe.

I know a kid who has been to a massage doctor and the doc told the kid that his spine is very strong and everything is correct and that it's really good and I noticed that the kids ego is growing around that single interaction. I got enough awareness to notice how the ego shifts towards that, sort of cementing itself in that experience. The kid also is trying to continue this ego development unconsciously, it is trying to stay with a straight spine because it believes in it so much. It's such a fascinating thing to get to see.

 

[theleelajoker]

7 hours ago, inFlow said:

I know a kid who has been to a massage doctor and the doc told the kid that his spine is very strong and everything is correct and that it's really good and I noticed that the kids ego is growing around that single interaction. I got enough awareness to notice how the ego shifts towards that, sort of cementing itself in that experience. The kid also is trying to continue this ego development unconsciously, it is trying to stay with a straight spine because it believes in it so much. It's such a fascinating thing to get to see.

 

Great example. Haven't seen yet how much positive reinforcement can also create Ego, not only "bad traumatic" events 

[VeganAwake]

On 5/13/2025 at 0:17 PM, PurpleTree said:

So the amount of control the ego can let go of control is the amount of freedom to be had. But it’s letting go into the unknown. Which the ego basically can’t.

Yup,

Its also ego attempting to let go of control.

It believes that letting go of control, will benefit itself in someway.

But its not real.

It's an illusion of a self.

There isn't an ego and then a real self underneath the ego.

There is only ego.

And when it SEEMINGLY dies or drops, there isn't anyone left.

EVERYTHING just becomes emptiness recognizing emptiness OR fullness recognizing fullness.

But it's not even a recognition because the word recognition implies there is a separate someone to recognize something. There isn't.

Nobody becomes enlightened or liberated, so there's no hope in that sense.

Freedom is the end of a someone that isn't really there, but SEEMED to be.

So it's a non happening.

And when it SEEMINGLY occurs, it's simultaneously realized that NOTHING actually happened, because it wasn't really there to begin with.

Freedom, enlightenment, liberation, samadhi, emptiness and fullness are this very same EVERYTHING.

Which is already REALITY.

It's impossible to be outside of EVERYTHING because there isn't a separate individual in the first place.

The separation never actully occurred, it only SEEMED to occur, upon another body telling that body, it was an individual, and that body believing it to be true!

❤️ 

Edited May 14 by VeganAwake

[theleelajoker]

31 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Yup,

Its also ego attempting to let go of control.

It believes that letting go of control, will benefit itself in someway.

Ups I kind of feel caught with the idea "ego want so benefit and thus let's go of control"

@VeganAwakeThe rest of your post kinda makes sense for me intellectually, but also not really. Guess it's because there wasn't the experience of ego dissolution. 

Can't really imagine the experiences of no self.  How does that look in practice? Are there no more thoughts? Very few of them and you are very aware of them? Are there no more preferences? Or you have preferences but are OK if things turn out to be different? If someone ask you e.g if you want to move to city x or city y - you just say "let's see what happens"? Or is there still the idea if "I want to moce to city X". And is this then a false egoic thought? Kind of trying to grasp how life looks after the end of the self-illusion...

Edited May 14 by theleelajoker

[VeganAwake]

5 hours ago, theleelajoker said:

Ups I kind of feel caught with the idea "ego want so benefit and thus let's go of control"

@VeganAwakeThe rest of your post kinda makes sense for me intellectually, but also not really. Guess it's because there wasn't the experience of ego dissolution. 

Can't really imagine the experiences of no self.  How does that look in practice? Are there no more thoughts? Very few of them and you are very aware of them? Are there no more preferences? Or you have preferences but are OK if things turn out to be different? If someone ask you e.g if you want to move to city x or city y - you just say "let's see what happens"? Or is there still the idea if "I want to moce to city X". And is this then a false egoic thought? Kind of trying to grasp how life looks after the end of the self-illusion...

Haha, yeah I understand what you mean.

It's not like forgetting who the "ME" character was, or something like that.

Actually its easier to see and understand how this illusion of identity seemed to take form from a young age.

I know, it seems like it would be a massive life changing event with fireworks or something ......but no, not really at all.

It can feel shocking at first, but also very ordinary at the same time......it can seem scary, funny, awkward and radical, all at once

It's actually pretty incredible just how much energy goes into the illusory character called "ME"..........so the biggest change is in the relaxing of the energy used to uphold that illusory "ME" construct.......it's often referred to as an energetic shift, which I find is a good way of describing the phenomenon.

But preferential choices still SEEM to happen, the difference is, its obvious now, they aren't being chosen by or happening for anyone. 

So a choice can SEEM to be made to climb into a nice warn hot tube instead of a cold swimming pool........but that's just the body wanting to enjoy some warm water at that particular time!

Same as a deer in the woods choosing to eat one type of grass over another 

❤️ 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

But preferential choices still SEEM to happen, the difference is, its obvious now, they aren't being chosen by or happening for anyone. 

So a choice can SEEM to be made to climb into a nice warn hot tube instead of a cold swimming pool........but that's just the body wanting to enjoy some warm water at that particular time!

Same as a deer in the woods choosing to eat one type of grass over another 

❤️ 

So if, for example, the doctor tells you that you have an aggressive tumor in your brain, it's the same as if he tells you that you have a cold?

[Lyubov]

On 5/14/2025 at 10:37 AM, PurpleTree said:

Yea that stands and falls with the notion of free will. I resonate with the kind of radical nonduality which implies that there isn’t free will. There are seemingly decisions but for no one really. But it doesn’t really matter already i don’t have the free will to do or stop inner work as i’m drawn to it with a strong resonance and kind of addiction actually. Is there free will in having a resonance with something or being inspired by something. Not that’s also grace or tough luck. I could ne addicted to gambling also.

Notice how you have free will to choose to believe whether or not there is or isn’t free will. I would ask yourself why you resonate with what you do. Also notice how you can choose to perceive it as something happening out of your control vs something you choose. I don’t believe in addictions. They are a choice which you choose to leave on auto pilot. Why do I believe that? Because I at one point chose to see addictions as something happening to me, giving my power away. You could choose to be addicted to gambling if you wanted to and have many beliefs to justify this choice as do many people who chronically gamble their savings away. Or you can choose to not believe in the beliefs that hold an addiction together(nothing but belief). I say this with compassion and consideration for anyone struggling with an addiction and I am not dismissing what it takes to practically clear up an addiction for most people nor your perspective on your will, if you want to believe you don’t have free will I won’t try to change that. I’m talking about this issue from higher order thinking on what fundamentally is occurring. 

Edited May 15 by Lyubov

[PurpleTree]

52 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

Notice how you have free will to choose to believe whether or not there is or isn’t free will. 

Notice how you don’t have free will to choose and believe in free will or not. Goes both ways.