--- In [email protected], "do.rflex" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What's interesting about this post is that Barry appears, > out of all the main posters on this forum, to have the > biggest ego of all of them. He celebrates his ego [self] > in his posts - and appears to have all of the skills > required to hide the terrors of non-existence he describes. > The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
I'll answer this, even though it's a bit of a slam, because it opens the possibility for a discussion that I don't think I've seen here before. It's related to comments I made about love vs. lust recently. It's clearly possible to be as *attached* to love as it is to lust. And in many spiritual traditions, it's the *attachment* that's the boogey- man in the equation, not the activity itself. So is it the *having* an ego that's the boogeyman in the realization-of-Self game, or is it the *attachment* to one's ego that is the boogeyman? I'm kinda of the opinion that it's the latter. Do I have a big ego? You betcha. Do I *revel* in having a big ego? You betcha. Am I particularly *attached* to that ego? I don't think so, because I've had so *many* of them. I've watched them come and go for years now, ever since I met the Rama dude and sat with him in the desert and had my ego-at-the-time blown out of its socks and watched it die. This is a rap that is *not* gonna resonate with a lot of people here. Unless you have been in a situation in which your ego -- your small s self -- gets blown away and replaced with a *new* ego on a regular basis, what's to identify with? But that's been my experience. So shoot me. :-) We'd go out into the desert with Rama as one ego, and come back for a few days blown out of our socks, egoless. It would take a day or two for a new one to take hold. The same thing would happen at the weekly meetings; it was to a large extent what we were there for...those periods of "between-ness" in which the old ego has been blown away and a new one hasn't yet taken root. For those of you who can admit to having dropped acid, and assuming you actually did *good* acid, try to remember back to that experience. There was a *reason* that Tiny Tim stole the basis for his book "The Psychedelic Experience" from the "Tibetan Book of the Dead." A good hit of pure Sandoz was literally like traversing the Bardo. You entered into the experience with a self, and the experience pointed out to you in no uncertain terms that you didn't really have one, and that Self was all there was. And for a few hours after the LSD experience, you remained in this "between- ness" state, with the old self blown away, but without having a new one (or, horrors, what you considered the "old" one) taking root again. That's very similar to what I'm talking about, but without the reliance on chemicals. I got *used* to this process of having one's ego blown out of its socks and, a day or so later, having a new one replace it. It happened on pretty much a weekly basis -- if not more often -- for fourteen years. THAT is to some extent where I'm "coming from" when I celebrate the latest and greatest ego or self I'm wearing. I don't *resent* the small s selves that play across my Self. I don't confuse them *with* Self. They are what they are, mere masks, costumes that Self has chosen to put on for some reason that probably even it doesn't understand, long enough to make a nice entrance at some costume ball. After the ball is over, the costume goes into the trash bin and the Self "puts on" another self. The new one is no more important than the old one. It has no more, and no less "going for it" than the last self did. It's Just Another self. So do I have an ego, a small s self? You betcha. But, unlike many here, do I *resent* that small s self and view it as some kind of barrier to Self, something that I have to "overcome" or "get past?" No I do not. My personal experience has taught me that that's going to happen pretty soon without my having to do much to "make" it happen. You guys are free to interpret all of this however you want. What you think about this rap, or my raps on this forum in general, doesn't really affect me that much. I've only met one person here in real life; the rest of you are just dots of phosphor. I live my life the way I live it. End of story. Part of the way I have chosen to live it is to *not* fall into the rut (as I perceive it) of resenting the self or believing that it's a terrible obstacle to Self. I have had enough extended experiences of Self to know that that's not true. So I choose to have *fun* with the ego, rather than resenting it or pretending not to have one. OF COURSE I have one; so do you. And, in my opinion, having exper- ienced enlightenment for short periods of time, so do the enlightened. Having an ego during those periods of enlightenment did *not* prevent my realization of enlightenment. I'm *comfortable* with my ego. I'm comfortable cele- brating it, and even more comfortable laughing at its silliness. If you knew me personally, you'd have more of a feeling for the full *extent* of that silliness. I can laugh at each silly ego because I know it's not going to be around that long. Tomorrow morning I'm likely to wake up and have a whole new ego to laugh at, and with. What is not to like about all that?
