ego death

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how do i destroy my ego once and for all?

If it is truly possible, then the most plausible path seems to be decades of dedicated meditation.

I’ve heard it talked about, even advocated, as a possibility.
Sounds potentially risky: if it is possible it probably requires direct one-to-one guidance from someone who’s already done it.

I was a bit reticent in the post above about sharing this, but I’ve decided to do so since it might be irresponsible not too: I don’t know how well it aligns with what you’ve got in mind, but here goes:

When I was at uni we had a site visit to a Buddhist monastery in a Victorian mock-castle on the moor above Todmorden in West Yorkshire (architecture course).
We were given a guided tour of most of the place by one of the monks: the highlight he saved to the end was the cell of a, now deceased, monk who had, he told us, achieved enlightenment.
It was in the tower over the entrance: a large room with all the windows boarded over. Inside this another smaller room had been constructed from multiple layers of thick chip-board. With no windows: this was where the enlightened monk had lived after his achievement of that goal.
The door had a heavy lock.
On the outside.

Like I said, I don’t know what exactly you have in mind: but I felt that my conscience wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t share the anecdote. I’ve never been exactly sure what to make of it.

I don't know, even ancient buddhist only went as far as to claim that they were "close to having no delusions". The ones who went further than that were ridiculed.

Is there anyone that you uphold who has explicitly made that claim?

Last edited by Sahn on 02 May 2020, 7:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

People can be less egotistical or egocentric but if you had no ego you wouldn't know who you are,egos was just the Greek word for "identity" and autos was the Greek word for self in the physical sense.

A person can be non-egocentric but you can't get rid of your ego.

Various Hindu sages talk about how, after experiencing an enlightening moment, elders would gather around and exhort them to meditate for hours on end in order to stabilise in that condition. Otherwise the cunning ego starts to reconstruct itself almost immediately. In Zen they have a name for students who achieve the first stage of enlightenment then become toxic with pride "Zen devils".

Trying to remember a verse that says something like...

Settling for the first mark on the scale,
He darkens the eye of enlightenment,
Though he may dedicate his whole life to Zen,
I the end it is just the case of the blind leading the blind.

You can rid yourself of egocentricity and egoism but you can't ever rid yourself of an ego,an ego is not a bad thing,it's just awareness of who you are.You can't have humility without and ego also,without an ego you can't know your faults.

Freud divided the human psyche into two parts,the ego and the id,the ego being a sense of self and the id being your desires.All people have an ego it's just part of being human.

You can't really kill your ego. You can only find a way to imprison it.

It sort of happened to me ten years ago. In my experience depression and feeling of helplessness fueled it. I think going through hard times and experiencing difficulty makes it possible so i am not sure if its a good thing.
Also researched "the dark night of the soul" a lot in that period (i am not christian)

P. S. I interpreted ego death as accepting things as they are,not judging anything, feeling like you belong on the world without doing anything. Being humble and down to earth to the extreme. Idk if this makes sense but i feel like i was a completely different person in that period like a complete personality change. A lot of hatred and insecurity i kept inside me also disappeared. But i don't think it is possible to kill your ego completely and ita not necessary either.

Why don't people get it,you can't kill your ego and you don't want nor Need to kill your ego

Your ego is just a part of you,from the Greek "egos" meaning "yourself as different than others" that's all.

You can kill egoisms and egocentricity but the ego is a healthy part of being human.

I think people are confusing toxic egotisms and egocentricity with the "ego" a ego is perfectly healthy.

Just did a bit of brain wracking: the building is called Dobroyd Castle. There’s a Wikipedia page on it (grade II listed).
From there:
The Buddhist group that were there in 2005 when I was shown round were a Tibetan order called New Kadampa Tradition (founded in Britain in the 90s): apparently they’re viewed as a bit iffy by other Tibetan groups, have been accused of being a cult and the particular community in question vanished from the premises in 2007, just after receiving an English Heritage grant to repair the roofs (no idea whether they’d received the cash though).

It’s now owned by some kind of activity holiday company.

Did try to find out details about who it was who that cell was constructed for etc, but couldn’t get anywhere: a few local newspaper articles from the grant with pictures of a smiling monk holding a bucket, the fact they bought the place in 1995 for over £300,000 so on and so forth: but nothing about who was there etc.

I surmise something went badly wrong with his quest, they locked him up in the tower, told the lay members he’d succeeded, and it’s all been hushed up: their official web page doesn’t even mention them ever having had a community there.

My friends father died on an extended retreat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/mysterious-yoga-retreat-ends-in-a-grisly-death.html

That’s awful: how’s your friend?

I had a friend who encouraged me to get into alchemy/kabbalah... I ended up having to sit in my attic alone for many hours forcibly willing myself to remember who I am and what reality is. (He was with me when I started to freak out, and ran away... so maybe not really a friend at all)
Rather put me off the notion of enlightened states.

Even animals have an ego,they know who they are,every wolf in a wolf pack knows it's place,from the alpha and on down.
Hyena's can often chase lions off a kill even though a lion would win a fight with a hyena every time but lions know the hyena's eat putrefied flesh and there bite is septic and would cause a fatal wound.Hyena's know that lions know that even though no hyena is big enough to take a lion and win,the lion usually won't fight not wanting to risk a bite from a hyena because the infection could kill them.

So animals have ego's even though there not psychologically sophisticated enough to become egotistical or egocentric.

My friend is making a documentary about it.

So you got into adveda... "who am I?"

I like Ramana, Nisargadatta, those guys are cool, but I don't follow it.

It's always interesting to read one of their books... any guru, for that matter, form an impression of them, then watch a YouTube video of the actual person. I prefer books.

Most of them make a few interesting points, then kind of snowball, if you get my drift?