An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
FROM A SITE VISITOR: So isn’t the prevention of ego really all about just staying awake to what we’re thinking and doing and assuring that we remain humble? Patricia
F.: Hello, Patricia. The short answer is “No,” but an explanation of that response will be offered. Understand that “ego” is Latin for “I,” specifically, the false “I.”
The only way that you could have “prevented” that false “I” from ever having been taken as something real would have been to prevent every adult, parent, politician, religious person, relative, friend, teacher, ad infinitum from subjecting you to programming and conditioning.
Yet that is not an option that children can choose, is it, so the ego cannot be “prevented.” Too, “humility” is just another man-made concept, and since the assumption of an ego-state immediately triggers the use of ego-defense mechanisms (including projection, rationalization, egocentrism, and egotism), what seems to be humility comes and goes as rapidly as a summer rainstorm.
As for “staying awake to what you’re thinking,” it is that very process of thinking which fertilizes the beliefs in the false self / false selves…beliefs that were planted via programming and conditioning and enculturation and domestication.
Those processes covered up awareness of your original nature, and the “mind” (which is a composite of lies) cannot possibly “think” its way into an awareness of truth. That truth, by the way, is accessed from within, never from without, but truth has been covered or blocked from “view” via programming, etc.
So ego-states cannot be prevented. The ego-less state can only happen after the forfeiture of the belief that You are the body and / or “mind” and / or personality (or any personas assigned or adopted, including the two that are usually the last to be cast aside, namely, “The Religious Person” and “The Spiritual Giant”).
When persons begin what they think is a “spiritual journey,” they are merely adopting what they take to be a “good” role to replace all of the earlier roles that their culture considered “bad” roles. The antidote for ego and egotism is not humility but is Realization. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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