Do animals have an ego?

[BlueOak]

2 hours ago, Moksha said:

@Carl-Richard @BlueOak You are both pointing to a realization which seems to be endemic to the awakening process. 

The absolute realizes some distance from the mind, and the mind responds with a thought, "I am awake!".

Deeper still, and the mind responds with a thought, "I am more awake!".

Deeper still, and the mind responds with a thought, "OMG even this is still a thought!".

Deeper still, and the mind responds with a thought, "HAHAHAHAHA!".

Literally every thought is egoic. It is the most hilarious journey into the absolute. 

Yes like layers. I'd peeled them all back manually ten years ago to have a temporary ego death. Through self-inquiry if someone wants a fast-track route. The ego also comes back of course.

The realisation I had here, was I'd compartmentalized instinct and thought to be Above/Below each other. So even though I say to myself there is no great difference between an animal and a man for example, because they are both parts of my consciousness I represent to myself when I look at them. I had been putting instinct as below thought or lesser than it. I won't as much now.

 

[Moksha]

11 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

I had been putting instinct as below thought or lesser than it. I won't as much now.

Instinct and thought are both biological, but instinct has the benefit of being wordless. The vast majority of life is closer to the absolute than most humans because of this. The absolute has the capacity to realize itself more deeply through us, but at the price of being entirely entrapped.

[Breakingthewall]

9 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

@Breakingthewall So the experience of say hotness vs. coldness is called a "representation" (an internal or subjective representation of something external or objective). It's the basis of cognition. On the other hand, to be aware of the fact that you are experiencing hotness or coldness is called a "re-representation". It's the basis of meta-cognition. I think what most spiritual traditions are referring to when talking about "transcending the ego" is to see through the compulsive activity of re-representation or meta-cognition, to the point where this activity largely diminishes. It's not about transcending representations themselves (e.g. the experience of hotness and coldness), although that can be done in cessation. Hotness and coldness are just experiences, and they may involve pleasure or pain, but they're not the mechanism that causes suffering (compulsive re-representations). By this definition of ego, most animals probably do not have much of an ego (just like humans 30-50k years ago). That said, spiritual teachers also talk about subtler processes of refinement after the initial dropping of compulsive re-representations, and that is where concepts the like the "unconscious ego" or the various types of karma come in.

Interesting differentiation. I would say that animals will never be able to transcend cognition, since basically that is what they are and without that they would cease to be. On the other hand, humans live in metacognition, and also cognition is largely derived from social relations. This leads to a state of alienation, to live in stories of the mind. This is very unpleasant and the person wants to let it go, but once you settle there it is extremely difficult. if achieved, the person may come to realize that while metacognition is illusory, so is cognition. it's all in his mind. then he changes perspective and realizes that he is the totality of history, there is nothing outside of him, it does not exist outside. he is the reality. After that, it's another step. What is the reality? Why the reality is flowing it the way that it does? What am I? 

 

[Hugo Oliveira]

Cats have more ego than dogs for sure.  

[BlueOak]

15 hours ago, Moksha said:

but at the price of being entirely entrapped.

What makes you think or feel this?

Edited April 12, 2023 by BlueOak

[Moksha]

6 hours ago, BlueOak said:

What makes you think or feel this?

Just an observation that the more advanced a form is, the easier for the absolute within that form to become entrapped by its cognition. The human brain is brilliantly deceptive, and the absolute has to shine more brightly to break through. When it does though, the luminosity outshines any other form.

[The0Self]

Depends on what you mean, but basically, definitely not, in that:

They are not conscious of themselves as a soul with a purpose / ambition / god.

[BlueOak]

On 4/12/2023 at 3:25 PM, Moksha said:

Just an observation that the more advanced a form is, the easier for the absolute within that form to become entrapped by its cognition. The human brain is brilliantly deceptive, and the absolute has to shine more brightly to break through. When it does though, the luminosity outshines any other form.

@Moksha
Do you feel trapped? Is that why you perceive life this way?

I know I often do myself. My reasoning for it evolves but the feeling remains. It seems a common enough thing to feel when speaking to spiritual people. *Look how many say they live in seclusion or as a recluse for example.

I would point at the flower. Which also outshines any other form. I could point at anything but a flower is easiest. Things might be very simple on the surface or infinitely complex the more you look or observe it. Not only its own design down to the molecular level but how it sits in harmony with everything around it, supporting and giving life to a complicated and balanced ecosystem. How it's all designed around the golden mean ratio, like all of life. We could sit here now and write for days about a single flower, or a single human.

I used to say you can have a spiritual or life-altering realization from a dog just as easily as a human, but that applies to anything, because it's all coming from you. Anything can shine brightly. (It all does in certain states of mind/body).

Edited April 13, 2023 by BlueOak

[Moksha]

4 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

@Moksha
Do you feel trapped? Is that why you perceive life this way?

I am no longer trapped, but have been trapped by misidentification most of my life. It took decades of sincere suffering before I was ready to dissolve the conceptual cage and realize the absolute within.

Flowers are luminous. Jesus taught people to become like the lilies of the field. Not that our destiny is to be mindless, but to realize our true nature and through its light experience the phenomenal beauty of the cosmos.

[Yimpa]

Just now, Moksha said:

I am no longer trapped, but have been trapped by misidentification most of my life. It took decades of sincere suffering before I was ready to dissolve the conceptual cage and realize the absolute within.

[Lila9]

I think that it's not black or white and there is certainly some degree of ego in animals. Ego is something that is always developing. We can put humans on the scale of ego development, same we can do with animals. We are not that different from them. We are them, just in different developmental stages.

I don't think that all animals are controlled merely by pure instincts. I don't agree with this claim. Especially the animals that we consider more intelligent like dogs, dolphins, elephants. They are capable of mourning and grieving; it contradicts the assumption that all animals are controlled merely by pure instincts.

They have emotions and even thoughts. Ravens actuary build tools and have a good memory, it requires some intellect and intellect derives from the ego. 

 

 

 

[integral]

My dog loves squirrels. ??

[Breakingthewall]

On 13/4/2023 at 11:50 PM, Moksha said:

Not that our destiny is to be mindless, but to realize our true nature and through its light experience the phenomenal beauty of the cosmos.

 

Would you get to see the beauty in a group rape of a 10-year-old girl? The problem with life and why people darken and, as you say, become opaque in the light of the absolute, is the darkness of life. It is a difficult enigma to understand, but possible. But it's not a good idea to underestimate it's difficulty

Edited April 15, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Moksha]

@Breakingthewall The absolute chooses everything, even the most horrific events. How could it be otherwise, in the realm of unlimited imagination. Phenomenal beauty cannot be experienced unless phenomenal terror is also allowed. Dualities are inevitable within the dream.

The secret of the dream is that when realizing itself, the absolute allows all experiences to flow through it without resistance. In the flow state, there is no judgment of energetic expressions as desirable or undesirable, simply the unconditional submission to them all. This is the absolute realizing the absolute. It is love within and beyond the dream.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

@Breakingthewall The absolute chooses everything, even the most horrific events. How could it be otherwise, in the realm of unlimited imagination. Phenomenal beauty cannot be experienced unless phenomenal terror is also allowed. Dualities are inevitable within the dream.

The secret of the dream is that when realizing itself, the absolute allows all experiences to flow through it without resistance. In the flow state, there is no judgment of energetic expressions as desirable or undesirable, simply the unconditional submission to them all. This is the absolute realizing the absolute. It is love within and beyond the dream.

good understanding, there is no yin without yang. the problem is that it is almost impossible to abandon preferences, and as soon as you prefer one thing over another, as the poem says, heaven and earth separate infinitely. For the glass to be truly transparent, for you it has to be the same as your children being tortured or having Christmas dinner with your family. Quite difficult, but to jump that difficult step, we have psychedelics, which make the opaque transparent without having to renounce being human.

[Yimpa]

8 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

 the problem is that it is almost impossible to abandon preferences

It’s not impossible, it’s just that you’d be dead. 

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

It’s not impossible, it’s just that you’d be dead. 

many have understood and tried. living in a cave, depriving himself of any comfort, sleeping on a bed of nails, fasting for a month, etc. works up to a point it seems, but well used psychedelics work best and you don't need to torture yourself

[The0Self]

33 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

many have understood and tried. living in a cave, depriving himself of any comfort, sleeping on a bed of nails, fasting for a month, etc. works up to a point it seems, but well used psychedelics work best and you don't need to torture yourself

But it sounds like you’re also saying that it is in any way possible one could get to the point where they have no preferences.

?‍♂️ 

Maybe in a very intense state, but even then, it’d be that state you prefer, so no, not the same as having no preferences in that way.

Even with an unstoppable iron-will sort of awakening force powering the maximal deepening of Samadhi, the body will never actually shed its preferences in daily life (as if that really needs to be stated). Hell, the mind won’t even stop projecting limiting beliefs! (They just won’t be listened to.) There might be no one left who would mind though, thus it is accurate to say that only one with no preferences is awake — they just aren’t human… or in form of any kind at all. The body can’t have-no-preferences, because the body’s preferences are entirely basic electricity and physics etc — the only way to get rid of the body’s preferences would be to literally turn off the energy flow completely, which would obviously mean death.

Edited April 15, 2023 by The0Self

[Moksha]

43 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

the problem is that it is almost impossible to abandon preferences

It is the simplest and the rarest realization.

Don't let the mind deceive you into believing that dissolving demons is only possible in extreme states. Take any desire or fear that you have, it doesn't matter. You already have the power to let it flow through you. What you lack is motivation.

For example, I hate snakes. They have always freaked me out. I could convince myself that willingly holding a snake is inconceivable. It is a lie. What if the life of my daughter depends on it? Amazing how instantly the will arises to meet the moment.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Moksha

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, Moksha said:

Don't let the mind deceive you into believing that dissolving demons is only possible in extreme states. Take any desire or fear that you have, it doesn't matter. You already have the power to let it flow through you. What you lack is motivation.

For example, I hate snakes. They have always freaked me out. I could convince myself that willingly holding a snake is inconceivable. It is a lie. What if the life of my daughter depends on it? Amazing how instantly the will arises to meet the moment.

Nice example. It reminds me of exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, where the patient is gradually exposed to their fears. 

The best part about ERP therapy is the therapist never forces you to do something. It’s always the patient’s choice with how deep they want to face their fears.