Enlightment is the ultimate selfishness

[Carl-Richard]

In a sense, but it flips around, because as you drop the identification with the self, you experience yourself as other people. Their pain, their suffering, you experience it as your own. This is quite paradoxical and can be related to what Dr. K is talking about with "the deep hurt". Even though you are silent and peaceful, around you there may be suffering, and you become a pristine mirror, taking on this suffering. And that's the vow of the bodhisattva, of returning to the world and taking on the suffering and trying to alleviate it in others.

[Carl-Richard]

On 17.3.2026 at 5:11 AM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It isn't actually possible to 'delete' or erase the ego. I think it is foolish to think one can do this.

All that happens is the we cling or identify to something new to replace the old that we think we erased.

Spirituality becomes the new ground. Nonduality becomes the new ground to replace XXX. God-consciousness replaces nonduality etc etc ad infinitum.

The 'ego-less' individuals I have met have been unconscious to the biggest and more detrimental egos I have ever encountered.

You know, when I started having spontaneous awakenings during university lectures, without me willing them, without me having the intention to go to that place, was the time I had been laying off "spirituality" as a #1 goal (and instead it became a #2 goal, after academics). When the identification and clinging to spiritual concepts softened, a new sense of depth of disidentification opened up. And then when it got so bad I decided to stop meditating altogether, that is when I was truly fucked, because then I had truly given up all clinging and identification with things that I had prior strong clinging and attachment to. Now I was free floating. It took years to stabilize in a more normal egoic identity again. Constant fear of death, every moment of the day, around the corner, I had to invent the most weird strategies to keep myself on the ground. But even from that state, it was possible to revert back. It's like how growing up when you're a child, you slowly put on the clothing of ego. It's possible to do this at an adult age as well. But it's not pleasant, at all. Every moment feels like confinement, even transcendent things like music felt like confinement and contraction of divine energy. And was there a meaning to it all. We're yet to see.

Edited 11 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Carl-Richard Thanks for sharing ❤️

Did you have any intention behind it, or it was spontaneous? Intention usually means there is an aim there... Maybe that made the difference

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Carl-Richard Thanks for sharing ❤️

Did you have any intention behind it, or it was spontaneous? Intention usually means there is an aim there... Maybe that made the difference

In the moment, the intention was to focus on the lecture, and ironically, I noticed a tension while focusing on the lecture and having that intention, and when I dropped that tension, the awakening happened. So it was a dropping of intention on many layers simultaneously, but of course riding on top of a momentum of having had those intentions for a while. That is why spiritual practice is like a train and you want to find out when to jump off to get to the right station. That's why Jan Esmann is (probably) my favorite teacher of all time

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Carl-Richard We are googling, we are in the rabbit hole. We are YouTubing.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's why Jan Esmann is (probably) my favorite teacher of all time

I say "probably" because there are of course many other teachers that have had a profound effect on me (actually Martin Ball comes to mind). Even Leo, despite me claiming him moving away from "enlightenment" as a pursuit, has given me one of the most profound pointers of all time: "you are creating everything". It doesn't just put everything in reality inside the confines of your identity, but also the live unfolding dynamic creative aspect of it, which has a palpable and powerful effect when grasped intuitively. Sometimes what you can call "higher states of consciousness" are just better ways of grasping a concept (or generally naming) that creates a resonance intuitively.

[Leo Gura]

In a certain paradoxical sense, yeah.

Your friends and family will certainly feel like you're being selfish for neglecting their survival.

Humans have a twisted sense of selflessness: where being selfless means serving their survival.

Edited 9 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Sometimes what you can call "higher states of consciousness" are just better ways of grasping a concept

That's not higher states of consciousness.

[Rafael Thundercat]

This is the level of explanation I am talking about. 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/the-power-of-consciousness

 

[Jirh]

On 3/17/2026 at 7:11 AM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It isn't actually possible to 'delete' or erase the ego. I think it is foolish to think one can do this.

All that happens is the we cling or identify to something new to replace the old that we think we erased.

Spirituality becomes the new ground. Nonduality becomes the new ground to replace XXX. God-consciousness replaces nonduality etc etc ad infinitum.

The 'ego-less' individuals I have met have been unconscious to the biggest and more detrimental egos I have ever encountered.

A rock has no consciousness, and at the same time no ego. It makes sense because less ego means less distinctions, and less distinctions require less consciousness. So yes, spirituality is likely a higher form of ego.

Everything alive has survival instincts, and they can be co-opted and occupied by ego (most clearly seen in humans), but these are not technically ego.

[Eskilon]

On 17/03/2026 at 1:02 AM, Joseph Maynor said:

The elephant in the room is no one gets rid of their ego.  That's already a wrong objective.  But to point this out is anathema due to people thinking that they need to erase their ego.

@Joseph Maynor What is ego for you？Your thoughts ? Your psychological pattern? Your body? The centrality in your head?

Depending on your answer I think you might be incorrect here.

Edited 2 hours ago by Eskilon

[Joseph Maynor]

2 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

@Joseph Maynor What is ego for you？Your thoughts ? Your psychological pattern? Your body? The centrality in your head?

Depending on your answer I think you might be incorrect here.

Ego is the way you show up in the world as a finite perspective.

[Eskilon]

14 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Ego is the way you show up in the world as a finite perspective.

That's cute. But get a little less abstract. You are saying that my form as it stands its ego? my pov? what you are trying to say?

If I don't have a talking voice in my head does that mean I dont have ego? What do you say about that?

Edited 2 hours ago by Eskilon

[Joseph Maynor]

3 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

That's cute. But get a little less abstract. You are saying that my form as it stands its ego? my pov? what you are trying to say?

If I don't have a talking voice in my head does that mean I dont have ego? What do you say about that?

Actually it's the inverse of abstract.  What is abstract is denying the existence of how finite perspectives operate, including myself.  There's a desire to deny reality here.  And if you don't see this, you're going to react vehemently against this.   

[Eskilon]

6 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Actually it's the inverse of abstract.  What is abstract is denying the existence of how finite perspectives operate, including myself.  There's a desire to deny reality here.  And if you don't see this, you're going to react vehemently against this.   

Yeah, finite perspective... But then that`s your definition of ego? If I am not in an Arupa Jahna(formless states) that means I have an ego? 

Finite = ego, is that what you mean?

Edited 2 hours ago by Eskilon

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

That is why spiritual practice is like a train and you want to find out when to jump off to get to the right station.

When you're on the train, "awakening experiences" and "practices" and "spiritual work" and "progression" can apply. When you're off the train, Neo-Advaita language applies ("you're already there", "there was nowhere to go", "it's not an experience, "it's simply what is and what always was"). This is what @UnbornTao and perhaps @James123 seem to disagree about with many on the forum. They want you to jump off the train and see what happens.

[Joseph Maynor]

9 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Yeah, finite perspective... But then that`s your definition of ego? If I am not in an Arupa Jahna(formless states) that means I have an ego? 

Finite = ego, is that what you mean?

What I mean specifically is the aspect of the self that is showing up in space and time.

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What I mean specifically is the aspect of the self that is showing up in space and time.

Not the identification with that aspect? Perhaps a useful distinction is the body-mind complex and the identification with it (ego). You can identify with things outside your body-mind complex, and their state will change your sense of self (e.g. you see somebody you love in an attachment-kind-of love get hurt, it's as if you get hurt yourself). But you could also extend the body-mind complex concept to include those "outside of the immediate body" attachments (but then it also includes identification so we've eliminated the prior distinction).

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Joseph Maynor]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Not the identification with that aspect? Perhaps a useful distinction is the body-mind complex and the identification with it (ego).

I get this and you're right.  There's a split here where some people deny that there is such a finite perspective and chalk it up to a kind of attachment that is unreal.  

[Eskilon]

A finite perspective exists, but it can definetly go, hint: deep-sleep. But if you are saying that you can exist as form and not in a infinite perspective then I dont know that yet. Maybe you can be infinite while being finite.

Edited 2 hours ago by Eskilon