What Is The Substance Of Ego?

[ExploringReality]

I'm sitting down on the floor in my living room, wondering and observing thoughts. I go inside myself and just notice what is, being more conscious of the voice. But I starting feeling something I wanted to share and see how far this opens up.

One insight I got was, that problems are of the mind and I am upholding my problems, negative emotions and thoughts. I am actively maintaining problems through  thoughts. But what is a thought. There is this contraction. A contraction of the face and body. I feel that I am holding or pulling myself together. I feel uptight. But what is the ego? Then what is that? Okay 👍🏽 but what is that? Join minds. Let's stretch this dialogue, like opening a door for the next person that has a set of keys to open the second door for the next person. I am a thought. A thought that maintains itself through a frequency of thoughts.

Edited Friday at 10:19 PM by ExploringReality

[Hojo]

I was thinking about this too and I think the simple answer is reaction. For instance saying I am the best person and feeling pride is ego. Saying in the best person and feeling nothing isn't.

[Breakingthewall]

14 minutes ago, ExploringReality said:

One insight I got was, that problems are of the mind and I am upholding my problems, negative emotions and thoughts. I am actively maintaining problems through  thoughts. But what is a thought. There is this contraction. A contraction of the face and body. I feel that I am holding or pulling myself together. I feel uptight. But what is the ego?

The ego is the reality taking on a very complex form, composed of countless relationships. A perfect energetic structure of unimaginable complexity. Imagine the complexity of a human brain, its trillions of energy layers. Imagine it at a quantum level. It seems like a joke. It's the work of a god of gods; it's inconceivable. Well, this supports an energetic structure that sustains itself, feeds on its environment, mutates, synchronizes with other egos, dances with them, and from its dance emerges another structure of immense power, the collective ego, which in turn mutates and synchronizes with the total flow of reality. Then you could see that the ego is as real as a Galaxy 

[Davino]

It's like an annoying fly

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, Davino said:

It's like an annoying fly

If you call the ego the narcissim and lack could be, but ego is also all the human structure, the way of relation, language, conceptual frame, past and future, idea of progression, the need of bonds, the couple, friendship, family. all the human software. It's extremely brilliant, a perfect machine of evolution 

[Leo Gura]

Ego is more than just thoughts or ideas. It is a state of consciousness. Which is why it's so hard to shake. You don't break free of ego just by stopping thinking. You need a state change, which is beyond your conscious control.

Edited Friday at 11:54 PM by Leo Gura

[Davino]

11 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

If you call the ego the narcissim and lack could be, but ego is also all the human structure, the way of relation, language, conceptual frame, past and future, idea of progression, the need of bonds, the couple, friendship, family. all the human software. It's extremely brilliant, a perfect machine of evolution 

Yes, that I call Human, not ego. Otherwise, I say: I or God.

[Tristan12]

@Leo Gura What are the deepest levels of ego death you have experienced and what have they felt like? I remember hearing in your salvia trip report video that salvia gave a particularly strong ego dissolution/death. I'm curious how deep your ego deaths have gone with your deepest trips on 5-MeO-DMT and other substances

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Tristan12 said:

@Leo Gura What are the deepest levels of ego death you have experienced and what have they felt like? I remember hearing in your salvia trip report video that salvia gave a particularly strong ego dissolution/death. I'm curious how deep your ego deaths have gone with your deepest trips on 5-MeO-DMT and other substances

I don't have a way of quantifying it for you.

Obviously deep no-self was experienced.

It's possible to go so deep into no-self that memories of your name and life are absent. It's like forgetting you were ever a human. In a sense being human is something you're constantly imagining. Until you're not.

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Ego is more than just thoughts or ideas. It is a state of consciousness. Which is why it's so hard to shake. You don't break free of ego just by stopping thinking. You need a state change, which is beyond your conscious control.

Well..you need that realization that it isn't real.  You need the actual realization or insight.  Not..it might not be real.   More like..oh my God.   Then there is a shift in concousness.  Magically.

Edited Saturday at 01:12 AM by Inliytened1

[ExploringReality]

I have had altered and psychedelic states of consciousness. It makes a lot of sense that ego it's just a state of consciousness, reality is states of consciousness. Yeah definitely feels like I'm imagining everything and that I can simply stop.

Edited Saturday at 02:04 AM by ExploringReality

[James123]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Ego is more than just thoughts or ideas.

When one completely stops thinking or genuinely not knowing, what is the ego or universe? 

[James123]

4 minutes ago, ExploringReality said:

I have had altered and psychedelic states of consciousness. It makes a lot of sense that ego it's just a state of consciousness, reality is states of consciousness. Yeah definitely feels like I'm imagining everything and that I can simply stop.

That's why psychedelics never can one make realize what is the Truth, because it is still functioning under so called brain.

Real question is, the one can imagine everything, or stop, what is that "I"? 

[Leo Gura]

22 hours ago, James123 said:

That's why psychedelics never can one make realize what is the Truth

False.

Quote

because it is still functioning under so called brain.

This is such a dumb argument.

As if an non-psychedelic enlightenment is not using a brain.

I swear. You enlightenment people are brainless.

Self-inquiry and meditation requires chemicals to work! Stop bullshitting yourself please.

Edited Sunday at 12:50 AM by Leo Gura

[James123]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

False.

This is such a dumb argument.

As if an non-psychedelic enlightenment is not using a brain.

I swear. You enlightenment people are brainless.

Self-inquiry and meditation requires chemicals to work! Stop bullshitting yourself please.

Enlightenment can not be experienced, Experiencer is an illusion in first place.

Do not trust "yourself/identity". 

Let the love take over "you".

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, James123 said:

Enlightenment can not be experienced, Experiencer is an illusion in first place.

Good.

So then call what psychedelics reveal "not an experience". Problem solved.

[James123]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Good.

So then call what psychedelics reveal "not an experience". Problem solved.

Great. There is no problem whatsoever. 😊 

 

[Someone here]

On 12/07/2025 at 5:06 AM, James123 said:

When one completely stops thinking or genuinely not knowing, what is the ego or universe? 

This is actually a very valid and good point . You think or imagine "universe ".. Then it seems like" yea obviously there is a universe out there beyond my thoughts about it" ..But if you stop thinking "universe " then there is literally no universe.  Does anything exist except direct sensory experience(like the place you are in right now ) if we stop all thinking ? In fact if you stopped thinking then even direct sensory experience is not that even. It's just ___.

[James123]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

This is actually a very valid and good point . You think or imagine "universe ".. Then it seems like" yea obviously there is a universe out there beyond my thoughts about it" ..But if you stop thinking "universe " then there is literally no universe.  Does anything exist except direct sensory experience(like the place you are in right now ) if we stop all thinking ? In fact if you stopped thinking then even direct sensory experience is not that even. It's just ___.

Definitely. 💯 Absolutely.

That's what You really are is, some calls it as enlightenment (when the mind completely stops chattering).

Edited Sunday at 09:13 AM by James123

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

This is actually a very valid and good point . You think or imagine "universe ".. Then it seems like" yea obviously there is a universe out there beyond my thoughts about it" ..But if you stop thinking "universe " then there is literally no universe.  Does anything exist except direct sensory experience(like the place you are in right now ) if we stop all thinking ? In fact if you stopped thinking then even direct sensory experience is not that even. It's just ___.

"Thinking" is the universe, same than anything else. There is no difference between thinking and silent or a dog, they are planes of existence between infinite possible planes.

To believe that conceptual thinking is some kind of silly human error and that you have to make an effort to keep your mind free of thought is to create a fundamental duality and then claim to be a master of nonduality.