Should I......?

Steve

Member
Which choice is correct, or are both, neither ?

Is our purpose on earth to learn to outgrow ego?

Or

Is it to learn lessons, ego being a vital part of that lesson?

Or to ask this another way? Is Rupert Spira full of it? :)
 
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Which choice is correct, or are both, neither ?

Is our purpose on earth to learn to outgrow ego?

Or

Is it to learn lessons, ego being a vital part of that lesson?

Or to ask this another way? Is Rupert Spira full of it? :)

None of those, Steve. Our purpose is to make sure Simon Cowell is filthy rich. Nothing else is of any real importance. I need to check out who Rupert Spira is and then I might be able to come back with a more sensible answer. (sorry) :)
 
I need to check out who Rupert Spira is

Oh the shame! Haha I'm sure not many people know who he is, he's a non-dual teacher. He's becoming very popular, there's a couple of interviews with him on Buddha at the Gas Pump.

I know that a lot of what he says is very valid & useful. But is he the messiah or just another very naughty boy? :)
 
Which choice is correct, or are both, neither ?

Is our purpose on earth to learn to outgrow ego?

Or

Is it to learn lessons, ego being a vital part of that lesson?

Or to ask this another way? Is Rupert Spira full of it? :)

I don't think there is any one size fits all answer about individual purpose. That's up to the individual or whoever wrote the script.

The ego can be thought of as a feedback loop. It is impossible to get rid of it while surviving in this world and maintaining complete sanity and identity. But it is possible to tune it or modulate it. A poorly tuned feedback loop of ego results in all sorts of pathologies of the mind and maladjustments to reality.

We are born without much of a feedback loop of self... just experiencing. Then in childhood the feedback loop gets going. By junior high it creates a mess of our minds and we spend the rest of our lives trying to fix it or get away from it.

The cruise control on your vehicle or the autopilot on your plane is a feedback loop that has factors that can be adjusted for smoother output over varying terrain. A poorly tuned feedback loop can put out unstable or even destructive output if resonance occurs. For example, a microphone held up to the output speaker will amplify ambient noise until a painful screech occurs.

Depression is like a destructive resonance in the mental feedback loop of self. The self thinks about the ambient noise of life and considers how unpleasant it is. The self then thinks about what a sad state the self is in and the noise gets louder. The self then pities the self for being in such a sad state. And round and round it goes.

Sometimes all that is necessary to break the destructive resonance is to temporarily break the feedback loop... take the mic away from the speaker. A person can do this by getting so focused and involved in an activity that the person "loses himself" in it. Meditation can also break the feedback loop by ceasing all thought. Or mindfulness meditation can help tune the feedback loop by creating in the mind a separate and more stable reference frame outside the stream of thought, which is a secondary feedback loop so that the primary feedback loop can be modulated.
 
If idealism is true and we're all part of a MAL (mind-at-large) then our purpose may be simply to have as many different experiences as possible.

Holy cow! That is the most genuine and (possibly) spiritual thing you have ever said Arouet. I am so glad that we have finally got to you :)
 
"Is our purpose on earth to learn to outgrow ego?"

There are different ways to explain this because different people have different views, attitudes, etc.

One way to approach the question is to start with forgiveness. When you develop forgiveness, you forgive other people, you forgive fate/God/the universe, and you forgive yourself, that is equivalent to developing non-attachment or egolessness. In that state there is no craving, no hate, no anger, no envy etc. What is left is love. You don't have to do anything special, life teaches this automatically. If you want to learn faster, meditation can help.

Ultimately the goal is to learn to love. One path is to work on forgiveness which results in an egolessness that lets love shine through.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/09/evidence-that-god-exists-people-who.html
People Who Have Near Death Experiences Meet God.
...
George Rodonaia
...
Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. To serve God's creation with a warm and loving hand of generosity and compassion - that is the only meaningful existence.

...
Arthur Yensen

... salvation is simple. All one has to do is to love so unselfishly that his soul-vibrations will rise high enough to fit him into heaven.​
 
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I don't think there is any one size fits all answer about individual purpose. That's up to the individual or whoever wrote the script.

Great post Hurm, thanks.

I think maybe you're right about this. I've been heavily involved with Facebook in the last few days, I have a reason for being such a sad bastid, forgive me :).I need interaction with people and since my stroke loneliness has been a fear of mine. It's not as if I don't have friends, I have many, but their spread all over the UK and the world. So I don't get the daily 'craic' that I kind of took for granted when I worked, I miss it. Facebook is a way to connect, however inefficiently and whatever your view of it.

I put up a post saying how I couldn't vote for either presidential candidate, I don't really care about the consequences. My wife wrote on her page last night protesting at the latest shenanigans that looks like delaying Brexit,( she voted for Brexit). She predicted the friends who moved in a blur to show how little the fiery Irish woman understood about Parliamentary Democracy. It was like catching fish in a bowl! She understands exactly how things work. One doesn't have to know anything about parliamentary democracy to do so.

I woke this morning in fine form, I had a spring about my step. (Metaphorically only, I am disabled! :D) And I had one overriding thought in my head which I felt may have been behind my frivolity. It was 'Let go and let God'. I had the real feeling that things weren't in our control any longer, if they ever were. Many of my/our friends are bright people, two of them that responded to her post were/are strongly in favour of Remain, she's a Doctor, he's a Director with post graduate degrees. Opinions appear to count for nowt any longer in my view, no matter what qualifications, or how 'important' or intellectually superior the person expressing their views may seem. When I hear fear driven protests from all directions, against or for whatever, on the tv, I have stopped hearing distinct voices. Now it often sounds like white noise - and it feels good hearing it in this way?

Events in the US and the UK both seem to have taken on a life of their own. Logic and reason from all directions don't seem to make any difference. 'The election' and Brexit are now off the leash. The chaos creators are in full control!

To get back on topic, I feel comfortable in seeing all these world events in a spiritual light. Trump really does seem to me to be here to teach us a lesson, Hillary too. Trump has revealed our hypocrisy, with 'nice, good people' despising him - but falling over themselves to promote and to vote for someone who, in a way, is just as bad as he is! If a nuclear WW3 does come to be, it will only be evidence that Karma is real.

That might be a last thought worth considering when we see the blinding flash. ;)

I'm strangely at peace with things. Right, Big Man - Let's see you in action.
 
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Great post Hurm, thanks.

I think maybe you're right about this. I've been heavily involved with Facebook in the last few days, I have a reason for being such a sad bastid, forgive me :).I need interaction with people and since my stroke loneliness has been a fear of mine. It's not as if I don't have friends, I have many, but their spread all over the UK and the world. So I don't get the daily 'craic' that I kind of took for granted when I worked, I miss it. Facebook is a way to connect, however inefficiently and whatever your view of it.

I put up a post saying how I couldn't vote for either presidential candidate, I don't really care about the consequences. My wife wrote on her page last night protesting at the latest shenanigans that looks like delaying Brexit,( she voted for Brexit). She predicted the friends who moved in a blur to show how little the fiery Irish woman understood about Parliamentary Democracy. It was like catching fish in a bowl! She understands exactly how things work. One doesn't have to know anything about parliamentary democracy to do so.

I woke this morning in fine form, I had a spring about my step. (Metaphorically only, I am disabled! :D) And I had one overriding thought in my head which I felt may have been behind my frivolity. It was 'Let go and let God'. I had the real feeling that things weren't in our control any longer, if they ever were. Many of my/our friends are bright people, two of them that responded to her post were/are strongly in favour of Remain, she's a Doctor, he's a Director with post graduate degrees. Opinions appear to count for nowt any longer in my view, no matter what qualifications, or how 'important' or intellectually superior the person expressing their views may seem. When I hear fear driven protests from all directions, against or for whatever, on the tv, I have stopped hearing distinct voices. Now it often sounds like white noise - and it feels good hearing it in this way?

Events in the US and the UK both seem to have taken on a life of their own. Logic and reason from all directions don't seem to make any difference. 'The election' and Brexit are now off the leash. The chaos creators are in full control!

To get back on topic, I feel comfortable in seeing all these world events in a spiritual light. Trump really does seem to me to be here to teach us a lesson, Hillary too. Trump has revealed our hypocrisy, with 'nice, good people' despising him - but falling over themselves to promote and to vote for someone who, in a way, is just as bad as he is! If a nuclear WW3 does come to be, it will only be evidence that Karma is real.

That might be a last thought worth considering when we see the blinding flash. ;)

I'm strangely at peace with things. Right, Big Man - Let's see you in action.

I can very much sympathize with your situation! I bet it would be tough going from flying all over the place to house arrest :-/ I had a very tough time going from being very active to barely able to walk at age 24 due to Lyme disease causing arthritis in my hips. Hip replacements at age 28 gave me my life back though. :)

In the feedback loop model, something has to be said about input... you might have an out of balance cruise control, but if the car runs into a brick wall, the feedback loop isn't the issue! So there are tough things in life, but long term the question is how do we adjust? Eventually given enough time everything bad will go away and be forgotten and eventually given enough time all the goodness and stability will become boring and we'll go in search of adventure and challenge.

I think one secret to a well lived life is to learn to choose when and how much to care about various things.... to be able to "let go and let God" so to speak, or to be able to give your whole self to something you feel is important.

I think the ego death thing is really just an experience we call ego death that involves tweaking or nearly ceasing the feedback loop and this can result in a feeling of expansiveness, elation, quiet, etc... and the study on "Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience" PNSE is all about that. But I don't think ego death is some ultimate purpose. I think it is a useful experience to have and to learn to control... turn on and off at will.
 
Or mindfulness meditation can help tune the feedback loop by creating in the mind a separate and more stable reference frame outside the stream of thought, which is a secondary feedback loop so that the primary feedback loop can be modulated.

It just occurred to me that this establishment of a higher order feedback loop to monitor the lower level feedback loops that compose the stream of consciousness (monkey mind) could be symbolized by putting the capstone or all-seeing eye on top of the pyramid.

The structure of a person's consciousness filters info and processing up through a hierarchy until at the highest levels the mind is controlled by a few meta-centers which may compete with one another for control. This could be called "double-mindedness" and leads to less mental stability. The crowning achievement of consciousness refinement is to reign in all these competing thought centers to be controlled by singular undivided I (eye) which maintains and moves freely about the lower levels in a benevolent way but can always climb back on the throne to bring the mind into total obedience to the central authority of this "I".

...just a thought... thought I'd share. :)
 
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