Does ego death really kill the ego?

[73809]

I was thinking about ego death and I had an interesting thought.

 

”After ego death, will I not still experience these thoughts and this vantage, ultimately stubborn self that remains”

Is those thoughts and that vantage ego that can’t be killed? That even after ego death, there will appear to be self as I interact with others? The illusion of separation doesn’t destroy this vantage and these thoughts that arise, there is implied self you can’t escape.

[Bluff]

When you walk through the dessert and see an oasis far away, after walking towards that place where it seemed to be, and you find nothing but sand, you will notice that there was never an oasis to find. 

It's not right to speak of a death of ego, because there is no ego to die. The ego is an idea that turns out to be an illusion. 

There will still be thouhts, because they were never arising from the ego, since there never was an ego. 

1 hour ago, 73809 said:

That even after ego death, there will appear to be self as I interact with others?

After realising your true nature, there will be interaction but no seperat self that is interacting. You are the vantage that knows the interaction. You need to be that vantage, otherwise the interaction could not be known. 

[73809]

@Bluff thanks!

[Moksha]

When you realize yourself as Consciousness, your sense of self dissolves. Your personality is just a field of forces - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, physical drives - that you used to identify with, but now see them for what they are. You are the field within which these forces arise and fall, and they no longer have much pull on you. The forces themselves have lost some of their coarseness, and have become more sublime. As Consciousness, you realize your infinite abundance. You can enjoy the forces for what they are, but no longer take them seriously, or direct your attention to them for long.

[The0Self]

There are different kinds of ego death. Ego death happens in deep sleep. It happens when you take an adequate dose of a psychedelic under the right conditions. It can happen in meditation -- the most illuminating of which is the cessation of experience, which isn't an experience itself -- you basically jump forward in time -- it happens when there is no projection of the mind, revealing all experience to be nothing more than the minds' various processes projecting and sending info to each other -- this is obvious because when they stop reacting/responding to their own various projections (which aren't recognized as such until after cessation), everything vanishes and experience completely goes out like a candle; it's revealed what those projections are -- the projections are everything. No projection = no experience. This reveals experience as completely empty of being the way it appears. Reaction to projection = projection itself = (dualistic) experience.

Edited November 23, 2020 by The0Self

[Claymoree]

depends what you define as ego

[Zigzag Idiot]

Almaas's quotes about ego death

Death of the Self-Identity

It is clear here that the ego or self which is annihilated in “ego death” is not the ego of depth psychology and it is not the actual self. It is specifically the self-identity. The death of this identity merely means that there is no barrier or resistance to the presence of Essence. There is no need to uphold an identity based on a psychic structure that is bound to have some rigidity for the simple reason that this psychic structure is based on a representation, and that the representation is based on past experience. This might prove to be irrelevant to the arising dimension of presence, but it is an irrelevance that is bound to function as a measure of inflexibility. Ego death also implies the total freedom from the overall self-representation. This condition does not necessarily mean there will be no more self-representation or identity; it means that this representation does not pattern the experience of the self and that the identity is not experienced as oneself. The self is the presence of Essence itself, and when the identity is present in experience, it is perceived to refer to a superficial manifestation of oneself.

The Point of Existence, pg. 524

 

The Idea of Ego Death is a Misnomer

One important thing we see here is that there is no ego separate from the soul. The proverbial ego of spiritual terminology is nothing but the ego-self, the soul structured through ego development. There is no ego as an entity; there is only the soul that can become ego by becoming structured with mental forms. Therefore, the idea of ego death is a misnomer. There is no entity that dies, for the soul does not die. All that happens in such experiences is that an ego structure dissolves, and the soul field is liberated from its influence. More accurately, the soul ceases to structure her experience through these mental forms. This can bring about the dissolution or transcendence of one's identity, but this identity is a feeling that arises from the soul being structured by a particular self-representation. A representation dies, but no entity. Depth psychology itself, as in psychoanalytic theory, does not recognize an ego that is an entity. Ego in psychoanalytic thought is nothing but a mental structure, or a system of mental structures, and the processes and capacities that go into its development and functioning. In fact, some theoreticians consider the ego to be nothing but the organizing process itself. "The basic proposition we wish to develop is that the concept of ego, as it has evolved through its several definitions in the course of psychoanalytic theory construction, has become synonymous with organizing process." (Blanck and Blanck, Ego Psychology II, p. 15) 

The Inner Journey Home, pg. 627

More quotes about ego death here- https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/ego-death

[Visionary]

11 hours ago, Moksha said:

When you realize yourself as Consciousness, your sense of self dissolves. Your personality is just a field of forces - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, physical drives - that you used to identify with, but now see them for what they are. You are the field within which these forces arise and fall, and they no longer have much pull on you. The forces themselves have lost some of their coarseness, and have become more sublime. As Consciousness, you realize your infinite abundance. You can enjoy the forces for what they are, but no longer take them seriously, or direct your attention to them for long.

Very well said. As consciousness everything is indeed truly abundant. Infinite recognition and acknowledgement by the eye that sees all (not Sauron).

[Breakingthewall]

12 hours ago, The0Self said:

the most illuminating of which is the cessation of experience, which isn't an experience itself -- you basically jump forward in time -- it happens when there is no projection of the mind, revealing all experience to be nothing more than the minds' various processes projecting and sending info to each other -- this is obvious because when they stop reacting/responding to their own various projections (which aren't recognized as such until after cessation), everything vanishes and experience completely goes out like a candle; it's revealed what those projections are -- the projections are everything. No projection = no experience

Really interesting, good description. Is this possible in normal meditation or are you talking about of an hipotetical case of anyone who is enlightened? This cesation of the experience and jump forward sounds like the cesation of being

Edited November 23, 2020 by Breakingthewall

[The0Self]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Really interesting, good description. Is this possible in normal meditation or are you talking about of an hipotetical case of anyone who is enlightened? This cesation of the experience and jump forward sounds like the cesation of being

The moments before and after the cessation event are insight experiences (awakenings). They don’t always lead to enlightenment. Yes it’s possible in normal meditation but it depends on what you mean by normal — if you mean standard breath/concentration practice, then no it’s very unlikely. It comes from either aggressive skilled noting or balancing very powerful concentration with very powerful mindfulness — penetrating experience such that it gets extremely wispy and then when it becomes so un-solid the mind can’t do anything with it, the lack of the mind “doing anything with it” results in “lights out,” revealing experience to be the mind’s own making.

To clarify (noting works very well for this but I'll describe what can happen with breath meditation at a very high level of meditation skill) -- if you are skilled enough to enter jhanas, the jhanas can get your concentration to a level that's really impossible to imagine -- eventually you can actually attend to the sensations so closely that the time element isn't fully accounted for, and the breath becomes like an oscilloscope -- you're observing the entire breath cycle at once. Time is completely outside of experience. It's insanely trippy. If you try to further deconstruct this extremely subtle experience, you might not find anything and the mind gives up on sense-making, which is how experience is constructed, and so there may be a blip where you essentially just jump forward in time for a few frames of reality. But it's not always felt as jumping forward in time, sometimes it feels very strange loopy, sometimes it seems like a bit of reality was just eaten up by oblivion, etc.

Edited November 23, 2020 by The0Self

[PurpleTree]

16 hours ago, Moksha said:

When you realize yourself as Consciousness, your sense of self dissolves. Your personality is just a field of forces - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, physical drives - that you used to identify with, but now see them for what they are. You are the field within which these forces arise and fall, and they no longer have much pull on you. The forces themselves have lost some of their coarseness, and have become more sublime. As Consciousness, you realize your infinite abundance. You can enjoy the forces for what they are, but no longer take them seriously, or direct your attention to them for long.

just a force field or a field of forces, i do like that

[cuteguy]

When a magician shows you how he does the magic, the magic doesn't die, you see it was just a trick.

[Moksha]

1 hour ago, PurpleTree said:

just a force field or a field of forces, i do like that

Yeah, it feels right. Identity is just the illusion of forces cohering together within an infinite field. The Buddha describes personality as a bundled blend of spices. He compares it to walking through a village marketplace, where vendors display their ingredients on mats. The spice-seller takes a banana leaf, and doles out small heaps of spices, like ginger and coriander, then wraps them up in the leaf and ties the bundle with a banana string. 

Each personality is a unique blend of five skandhas, or "heaps" of ingredients, which are energy formations:

• Rupa (form)
• Vedana (sensation or feeling)
• Samjna (perception)
• Samskara (forces of the mind)
• Vijnana (consciousness)

Who knew that our personalities are nothing more than energy formations within an infinite continuous field?

Edited November 23, 2020 by Moksha

[Byun Sean]

When I first experienced what we are referring to as Ego death or the realization of no-self or no free will:

I'm not gonna lie. It was creepy af at first.

I woke up the next morning and No one was in control of my body or my thoughts anymore.

I was like a puppet eating food and brushing my teeth etc.

Then after a while I got used to it and it was amazing.

The more awake I become and the more the separation between self and other collapses, 

the more life feels like a dream or a movie that I'm just enjoying watching.

Sit back relax and enjoy your time. 

[Breakingthewall]

5 hours ago, The0Self said:

revealing experience to be the mind’s own making.

This is the point. Sure it's possible with meditation, but looks very difficult to stop the mind only willing it. I start trembling of lazyness every time that I think in a vipasana retirement, but at the end we should be strong

[The0Self]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

This is the point. Sure it's possible with meditation, but looks very difficult to stop the mind only willing it. I start trembling of lazyness every time that I think in a vipasana retirement, but at the end we should be strong

Yes, that's the point. Doesn't matter how that realization comes about. Cessation is not necessary, it's just one way -- and sometimes rather than providing the realization, cessation just becomes a nice toy that one can use to experience the bliss wave that comes after it.

Edited November 24, 2020 by The0Self

[Display_Name]

I doubt anyone here actually knows, because, well, they’re still here.

[Nahm]

On 11/22/2020 at 8:32 AM, 73809 said:

There isn’t an ego that dies, nor is there death. 

I was thinking about ego death and I had an interesting thought.

”After ego death, will I not still experience these thoughts and this vantage, ultimately stubborn self that remains”

Is those thoughts and that vantage ego that can’t be killed? That even after ego death, there will appear to be self as I interact with others? The illusion of separation doesn’t destroy this vantage and these thoughts that arise, there is implied self you can’t escape.

Ego, death, thinking, vantage, stubborn self, killed, others, escape...are all a priori. 

[Willie]

10 hours ago, cuteguy said:

When a magician shows you how he does the magic, the magic doesn't die, you see it was just a trick.

Nice analogy!

[The0Self]

10 hours ago, Byun Sean said:

I was like a puppet eating food and brushing my teeth etc.

Yep, that’s what it feels like after awakening. For me anyway. It felt like god was pushing air into my lungs every time I breathed in. I felt like a marionette, walking around weightlessly.