ego death addendum

[????????]

i feel ego death is a misnomer. does anyone agree?

it's because it has that moribund feel to it. something is going to die. who is going to be the killer? all this makes for a counterproductive approach to the experience because of the mindset that the term creates. you are not arranging for tripping but instead you're preparing for some kind of bizarre, self imposed funeral.

you see, i think that this had negative effects in my experience toward attaining a so called death of the ego. was i successful? i don't know. it isn't a yes/no answer (that would require another thread...) but i got into this heavy, emotional argument with myself. one part of me was deeply disgusted about the whole issue, wondering why i wanted to put myself through all this. it felt as some kind of torture, and i felt as the victim and the executioner at the same time. is this necessary? i can't help but think that i would have fared better if i hadn't ideated the ridiculous goal of "killing" my ego. if someone truly terminated his ego he or she would have to die for real or become an insane ever-gazing mute. all one has to do is realize the existence of this concept we call ego, understand the significance of it and not forget about it. of course this is easier said than done.

it now seems ludicrous to me to even begin such a foolish enterprise. because in reality nothing dies. it's more like an awareness that grows (credit to buff for that). i feel it would be more useful to talk of "ego transcendence" or something like that. look, wikipedia seems to agree with me:

wikipedia[/url]]The practice of ego death as a deliberately sought "mystical experience" in some ways overlaps, but is nevertheless distinct from, traditional teachings concerning enlightenment/"Nirvana" (in Buddhism) or "Moksha" (in Hinduism), which might perhaps be better understood as transcendence of the notion that one even has any actual, non-illusory "ego" with which to experience "death" in the first place.

i thought of the "ego transcendence" term before reading that article. i think it's fitting. it gives a much better sense of the experience imo. and look at this, the wiki even has to warn us not to take the whole death thing seriously:

wikipedia[/url]]It should also be noted, within the context of this system, that ego death is not actual death itself, but rather a temporary state of mind which can be stabilised and reverted.

anyway, all this stuff is my personal, subjective experience and i have not talked about this with irl friends. what do you think?

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

i feel ego death is a misnomer. does anyone agree?

I do. I prefer to speak of ego dissolvement, if I have to speak about it at all. In some contexts the term ego death may be more approapriate, but I don't see such a state as something to be aimed for by ingesting massive doses.

 

[????????]

in what contexts?

 

[maxfreakout]

it's because it has that moribund feel to it. something is going to die. who is going to be the killer? all this makes for a counterproductive approach to the experience because of the mindset that the term creates. you are not arranging for tripping but instead you're preparing for some kind of bizarre, self imposed funeral.

something does die in ego death, the naive association of one's personal identity with ego

In a sense the ego kills itself, because it willingly proclaims the fact that it is dead. In another sense, the divine revelation kills ego, it is 2 different ways of looking at it. It is partly a self-imposed funeral, and partly an eternally predestined funeral. But following ego death, you are never again able to fully identify with ego, the identification is permanently transcended

if someone truly terminated his ego he or she would have to die for real or become an insane ever-gazing mute.

you dont 'terminate' ego, the ego structure is temporarily dissolved, but it recoagulates quite miraculously when the trip ends

ie you dont go permanently insane, only temporarily insane. but the memory of the experience sticks with you for the rest of your life, and prevents you from ever again making the naive identification with ego

i feel it would be more useful to talk of "ego transcendence" or something like that. look, wikipedia seems to agree with me:

ego death and ego transcendence are not the same thing, ego transcendence follows ego death, when the experience is successfully integrated

wikipedia[/url]]The practice of ego death as a deliberately sought "mystical experience" in some ways overlaps, but is nevertheless distinct from, traditional teachings concerning enlightenment/"Nirvana" (in Buddhism) or "Moksha" (in Hinduism), which might perhaps be better understood as transcendence of the notion that one even has any actual, non-illusory "ego" with which to experience "death" in the first place.

that ^ is misleading, it is oversimplisic to say that ego is entirely illusory, ego is partly illusory, and partly real. in ego death, part of the illusory part dies permanently, namely, the part that assumes the identification to be real

 

[Brugmansia]

Or simply call it ego modification. Death sounds too unanimous.

Since we all choose just 'being' as the highest priority with open doors, I think ego plays a more noticeable role in the sober life than during any experience.

During the full experience, dissolution of control would be a more accurate phrase. It depends on the integration and choice whether one softens himself through ego modification, or not.

One who is intrigued about his destabilized 3 gram mushroom experience, and feels that his sensed softened insights suit him better than any other insights known, he is willing to adopt these in his sober life.

One who has felt completely aliened and lost on 6 grams and decides that being obvlious and sober is the only way to go, he might continue with his old more demanding insights. Though, he has experienced the absence of control, which is not inherently tied with the willingness to modify the ego or changing believe.

Dissolution of control however, is strongly associated with dose. Losing control is being forced to the acceptance that any state of awareness, and any outcoming direction is possible. There's no way to determine what's going to happen. Witnessing and sensing what fate presents.

However, such a state will have profound influence on one's existence, but still, if one believes more in any other insight, ego will remain the same size as it was. True, entheogenic experiences are very strong with a powerful message. But it still has concurrence. For instance, not everyone is willing to change insights based on history and a book.

There's no substance that offers a specific believe. Only a very strong message that speaks loud. It's a matter of believe through choice.

 

[????????]

you dont 'terminate' ego, the ego structure is temporarily dissolved, but it recoagulates quite miraculously when the trip ends

so our ego dies... only to resurrect later... right. why theorize that it dies at all? occam, etc.

ego death and ego transcendence are not the same thing, ego transcendence follows ego death, when the experience is successfully integrated

that's splitting hairs.

something does die in ego death, the naive association of one's personal identity with ego

something does change, alright, but why say that it dies? what is the usefulness of using such metaphor?

that ^ is misleading, it is oversimplisic

hehe complain at wikipedia then. but you're splitting hairs again. the part that is not illusory is the concept of it, which is in our heads. if it were completely illusory we wouldn't be talking about it.

 

[Nomada]

If there is I then there is no-I. Both are, and are embedded upon one another. And they dance.
I am. I am not. no-I is. no-I is not. Then we are. Then we are not.

If there's a black cat orgy in a very dark room. Can you count how many of us are at this party besides you?

 

[????????]

^yes, i would start by grabbing some tails. i would reach in the dark for the fluffy appendices and collect them one by one. i would move slowly so as not to harm anybody, but my grip will by notorious. eventually, i will hold each one of you. then i'd start releasing and counting one by one.

 

[????????]

i've been thinking. the usefulness i see in the death metaphor is that it does indeed describe well that curious feeling that comes when taking sufficiently big doses; that feeling that makes one feel that everything is going to shit and one's losing the grip on things; many of us seem to have felt it to a degree and so we fear and/or respect it. and of course, the parallel with NDEs.

on further reflection i think that, maybe, i went all the way to the door and took a peek but didn't actually go through it. is it reasonable to reason that maybe lsd is not the adequate trigger for truly feeling "dead"/egoless in my particular case? maybe if i tried a dissociative? or mushies? or mesca? (i have only messed around with the lysergic)

still, the term continues to bug me a bit, like hallucinogen does.

is it reasonable to have the goal to crucify one's ego? have any of you psychonuts feel that such mission has been accomplished? what's the point of killing it if the fucker is going to "coagulate" itself back again? so what, we must kill it again over and over like some daemon we have to keep at bay at all times?

it doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Forkbender]

"Something does die"

And as soon as the trip is over it is reborn.

 

[maxfreakout]

"Something does die"

And as soon as the trip is over it is reborn.

the ego is reborn at the end of the trip, but that isnt what i was referring to by the 'something' that dies

the 'something' that dies is the mind's identification with the ego, that is never reborn, following successful integration of the ego death experience.

As soon as the ego is reborn after ego death, the mind has a tendency to 'escape' back into its reincarnation with a huge sigh of relief, and to re-identify itself with ego, but following a fully integrated ego death, the mind ceases to do this (because it can no longer sustain a belief in such a blatant logical contradiction), and ego identification has at this point been permanently transcended, the identification is completely DEAD, and what remains is a kind of ghostly ego homunculus that is now seen to be purely a convention of the ordinary state of consciousness

ego identification is based on sloppy logic, unexamined assumptions and lazy, disorganised thinking. The ego death experience straightens all of this out, so the mind enters a new phase of life with a transcendentally perfected logic, and clear, organised thinking

I am not really my (separate) self, I am actually everything (which is nothing), pretending to be a separate self. Only during the intense psychedelic experience is my true nature revealed (to itself)

('mind' = 'mental worldmodel')

 

[Brugmansia]

I must admit I lay pretty much in line with what has been written here above, too. It contains some good descriptions of my senses that I couldn't put into words myself. Nice input, Max.

 

[maxfreakout]

you dont 'terminate' ego, the ego structure is temporarily dissolved, but it recoagulates quite miraculously when the trip ends

so our ego dies... only to resurrect later... right. why theorize that it dies at all? occam, etc.

the ego dies temporarily, in the sense that it becomes totally convinced that it has died/the world has ended etc until the trip ends

but the mind's identification with ego dies permanently, never to be reborn

ego death and ego transcendence are not the same thing, ego transcendence follows ego death, when the experience is successfully integrated

that's splitting hairs.

it is a vital distinction to make, between 2 entirely separate stages of the mental maturation of the individual. First there comes the ego death experience, as the mental strucure of ego is temporarily loosened/disintegrated and then reborn, and then when this experience is integrated into the everyday life of the individual, there comes ego transcendence, when the individual becomes permanently aware that they are not identical to ego. Sometimes years can pass between these 2 events, if the appropriate information (the perennial philosophy) is not available immediately after ego death

something does die in ego death, the naive association of one's personal identity with ego

something does change, alright, but why say that it dies? what is the usefulness of using such metaphor?

it is not a 'metaphor', it is a literal description of what happens. The word 'ego death' is the accepted word for it. It is 'useful' insofar as it consensually refers to the event in a person's life

that ^ is misleading, it is oversimplisic

hehe complain at wikipedia then. but you're splitting hairs again. the part that is not illusory is the concept of it, which is in our heads. if it were completely illusory we wouldn't be talking about it.

ego is real in the sense that it is a mental construct, ego is not real in the sense that it is not the true self-identity of the individual

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

in what contexts?

That has been answered by Max Freakout basically. What happens after the ingestion of a psychedelic is that the boundaries and structures of the ego dissolve. But there's nothing that dies there, just like sleep is simply a matter of shutting off certain processes so other purposes can be served.

What may die is the "naive association of one's personal identity with ego" as Max put it, probably paraphrasing Michael Hoffman. That can be a permanent effect of a succesful entheogenic experience, especially with the proper preparation.

In a sense the ego kills itself, because it willingly proclaims the fact that it is dead. In another sense, the divine revelation kills ego, it is 2 different ways of looking at it. It is partly a self-imposed funeral, and partly an eternally predestined funeral. But following ego death, you are never again able to fully identify with ego, the identification is permanently transcended.

 

[????????]

well, ok, i agree with everything that max said too. and, yes, a person can experience ego death and yet not transcend it, because of lack of integration or whatever. so what about ego kenosis?

STILL, i do believe i have a point, since it is the mind's identification what really dies and so, at some point it needs to be clarified that the ego in fact does not die (or pulls a jesus and rebirths). although any knowledgeable psychonut would realize this after some reading around.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

STILL, i do believe i have a point, since it is the mind's identification what really dies and so, at some point it needs to be clarified that the ego in fact does not die

Yes, I agree with that.

 

[MelT]

Not quite drug-related, but I agree completely with Max, everything he says is correct from the point of view of Buddhism on the meaning of ego-death - a term we use to mean the loss of desire and the rising of inherent compassion after an experience of enlgihtenment. It would depend on the depth of the experience that caused it whether or not it was truly lasting. IN some it could last a few months or their whole lives, it depends on a number of factors.

In some cases though, nothing can ever return by way of ego unless you try really hard to get it back and force yourself back into the confines of dualistic thought. The knowledge that there's nothing to return and nowhere to return to continues to strike you for the rest of your life, and overwhelms any ideas that there's any point in going back to how you perceived before. That doesn't mean that life becomes unliveable and that you become a dead non-person, it just means that cherishing ego and wanting materialiastic things suddenly seems pointless.

Sorry, not quite relevant here, but it may add something

MelT

 

[Mr.Smith]

.

 

[MelT]

Whilst some here are aiming to have experieces of enightenment (Kensho) I don't think many people are prepared for the breadth of effects it can have. Whilst on the one hand ego-death is a powerful and life-changing event, it does make it very hard to continue having normal relationships and a normal way of life afterwards, unless you're lucky enough to be able to go on and live your remaining existence in happy seclusion somewhere afterwards. Again, I don't mean by this that life becomes empty and unbearable, just that without any common ground between you and others it can be hard to relate to them.


MelT

 

[????????]

^as i see it learning to do just that is part of the enlightenment.