What does spirituality mean to you?

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by bobjob

That's all I feel the word 'ego' to be - one's sense of self. Hence most of us are never without ego and it's not a negative issue.

BUT I suspect 'ego' is often used in a perjorative sense - overly involved, to a negative degree, with self and/or one's perceived importance or self importance - ie egotism

Yes. And we seem to be making a lot of fuss over the use of one word - perhaps I simply don't understand Brother Greenslade's insistence that it can only be used in a psychological context.

So some further research - according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the use of ego in English dates back to 1707 in a metaphysical context.

by 1707, in metaphysics, "the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks," from Latin ego "I" (cognate with Old English ic; see I); its use is implied in egoity.
(See "The Practical Works of the Late Reverend and Pious Mr. Richard Baxter," London, 1707.)

This long predates psychology. Thus the psychologists do not have a monopoly on the use of the word.

And as has been previously said, Freud and Jung wrote originally in German and thus would have used the term "Das Ich". The word ego was a convenient way to translate this term into English.

It would be nice to talk about ego without having to repeat this same discussion every time.

Peace

Originally Posted by bobjob

But why? Capitalising the first letter of any word gives the impression that it's being elevated from mundane to specific.

Back in the early days, yes I did 'elevate' Spirituality and I guess the habit stuck. What words we use and how we use then are reflective of our consciousness and at that time Spirituality for me was important. Still is.

Originally Posted by iamthat

So I was curious and actually looked up the Sanskrit term Ahaṁkāra.

Same as you were curious and looked up Greenslade in Google? At least you got that right.

https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5235/ahamkara

Originally Posted by iamthat

The logic of this escapes me. Of course ancient scriptures did not use the word ego. No doubt the Chinese do not use the word ego either - it is a completely different language.

Yes it is, but the ancient wisdom didn't use Latin words, my whole point being that it's yet another word adopted by Spiritual people, redefined to suit and agenda and the understanding has been lost.

Originally Posted by iamthat

I suspect that those who have genuinely transcended their egos can still function very effectively in the physical body.

And I don't suspect that people with high vibrations or believe the world is an illusion are no longer affected by earth's gravity.

The people who have supposedly 'transcended their egos' have only become more egotistical and ignorant.

[ameliorate]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Our ego is not simply our "worldly ID". if I asked you to describe yourself, "I am" is your ego and everything after that is the 'contents' of your ego. Essentially it's the sum total of everything you perceive yourself to be - including describing yourself as 'Spiritual' if that's what you would do. And your internal reality is relative to your ego or "Sense of I am."

For the most part, any thread on the ego is about reducing/killing the ego - ego is often portrayed as the 'bad guy' and that's superstitious nonsense, not Spirituality. Egoism is the issue and the barrier to 'higher understandings' not Spirituality, and so-called ego-death is egoism. Redefinition only leads to illusion/delusion.

Ancient scriptures can't talk about minimising the ego because ego is a Latin word, and the ancient scripts - mostly in Sanskrit and similar languages - can be at least two thousand years older than Latin.

Redefinition only changes the meaning to something more palatable, and often that only causes entropy.

When I say our ego is simply our worldly ID this, of course, incorporates all that we are in interacting with the world/our environment. (I thought that went without having to spell it out!)

So you picked me up on a pedantic point re. ancient scriptures talk of minimising the ego...of course, I meant self - whatever. You missed my point here?

Originally Posted by bobjob

BUT I suspect 'ego' is often used in a perjorative sense - overly involved, to a negative degree, with self and/or one's perceived importance or self importance - ie egotism

Yes!!!

Ego as defined by Jung - who stole the term from the Sanskrit - defines it as "A sense of I am." He also uses a number of different definitions but that is because the ego has a number of different 'roles'. The key understanding is that there are two aspects - there is the ego itself and the 'contents'. And this is where the Spiritual understanding makes sense. So to out it simply, if I asked you to describe yourself, "I am" is your ego and everything else after that is the 'contents'. Everybody has an ego but the 'contents' are very different - the "Sense of I am" or what that "I am" is is individual to you.

Ego as the bad guy is nothing more than finger-pointing, and blaming the ego for all the ills is like blaming inner demons. People define themselves as 'Spiritual beings' then define themselves as being 'ego-less', all it does is separate themselves from themselves and leads to personality issues. Being ego-less also means they don't have to deal with what's inside them.

Egoism is the 'killer' of Spirituality. An unbalanced ego can seek status and to some, 'Spiritual Being' is status and there is a 'wealth of knowledge' that can be just as mad as regular wealth.

As for the self, that's something else again but that's another mess, frankly.

Originally Posted by iamthat

Yes. And we seem to be making a lot of fuss over the use of one word - perhaps I simply don't understand Brother Greenslade's insistence that it can only be used in a psychological context.

No you don't understand. Ego has been the subject of so many threads where people have waxed Spiritual about something they simply don't understand and think it's Spirituality. They don't want to know that they're fooling themselves.

Aren't we supposed to be looking for understanding, and how is making up any old nonsense conducive to that?

The words and their meanings came from the Sanskrit 'Ahamakara', so what is your point?

Originally Posted by ameliorate

So you picked me up on a pedantic point re. ancient scriptures talk of minimising the ego...of course, I meant self - whatever. You missed my point here? [/color]

My point is that when people make up their own definitions and call it Spiritual the understanding is lost. All you've done here is provided another example of the reason getting the understanding right is key to understanding.

You've missed the point - a few actually.

[ameliorate]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

My point is that when people make up their own definitions and call it Spiritual the understanding is lost. All you've done here is provided another example of the reason getting the understanding right is key to understanding.

You've missed the point - a few actually.

Sorry but there IS a general understanding by what is meant by ego that we commonly share.

In your insistence for excruciatingly precise definitions, you throw the baby out with the bath water! Witness the number of posts you have just made addressing us all on the same point. You seem unable to get past your insistence of how we should use the word ego (when so many associations are now in common use) that you focus just on language and miss the points that are being made. Must be very frustrating for you....perhaps you should accept a wider and common usage of the original word?