Does knowledge only feed the ego?

reply to post by Devino


Dogmas (religions) are not knowledge, they are closed book
mind prisons.

If you are brave enough to even challenge your ego, read this

Thats a possibility, right?

RP

[edit on 10-10-2009 by RobertPaulsim]

[edit on 10-10-2009 by RobertPaulsim]

I dont notice many artists who are interested in spirituality these days. Perhaps thats why I dont like artists. They are to me the superficial shallow people you call sheeple on your blog.

But you may be different. At least you show signs of self reflection and curiosity.


[edit on 10-10-2009 by Copernicus]

Originally posted by The Spiritual Warrior
So the burning question is...If I am trying to become "holistic" and free of ego, doesn't gaining more knowledge feed my ego, since knowledge is power?

Yes.

But not if you have the Spirit of Christ (the Christ ego) dwelling in you.

With the Spirit of Christ, knowledge is received in a state of Humility,

Meekness, Patience, and Love. Likewise, knowledge is passed on to others

with humility, meekness, patience, and love.


Knowledge is the raw material. Wisdom is the ability to use it for the cause

of Christ, which is the betterment of mankind.


The self arrogating fool will use knowledge to pump himself up, gain some

personal advantage over others, and quite often to put down others.

And that is not wise.

IMHO of course.

Being a "know-it-all" makes one Godlike, you can be everything, and know everything about everyone, you can judge others, you are the ONE!

No one can tell you that you are wrong, even when you are, when you have the all knowing, all seeing powers of a massive ego and, the proper personality disorders to keep it going.

And then you die...

Originally posted by Walkswithfish
Being a "know-it-all" makes one Godlike, you can be everything, and know everything about everyone, you can judge others, you are the ONE!

No one can tell you that you are wrong, even when you are, when you have the all knowing, all seeing powers of a massive ego and, the proper personality disorders to keep it going.

And then you die...

ILMAO That was brilliant.

"the proper personality disorders to keep it going.....And then you die..".


Kinda sums up the futility and vanity of the whole exercise don't it?

Take a look around. Your Ego is God just like every other atom/particle/quark. You think you're really in charge. We are co-creators. Our Egos are here to enoy the ride.

Where do your thoughts come from?... Really stare into the mirror on that one.

I have found that I have to follow my curiosity, my inspiration, but I also have learned the joy of not-knowing and that things can drastically change in a heartbeat.

reply to post by The Spiritual Warrior


I think what your describing is a misunderstanding of what being knowledgeable is in comparison to being egotistical.

Gaining knowledge does not inherently lead to being egotistical.

Ego is defined as: LINK

(n) ego, egotism, self-importance (an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others)

Egotistical is defined as: LINK

(adj) egotistic, egotistical, narcissistic, self-loving (characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance)

I don't see how knowledge can inherently lead one to have those characteristics as it appears to me to be more of a personality trait than one equating with learning something.

reply to post by RobertPaulsim


I don't know what it means to "challenge your ego", I assume it means to question it which I do a lot. I tend to try and understand the points of what I am reading even though I disagree with some of the writer's claims.
As an example, what is a ghost?
Is this phenomena that we think of as "ghosts" the souls of dead people?
I consider this the discernment of a yet to be understood energy and I think it is important not to limit our understanding with assumptions like they are the souls of dead people.

I believe it is very possible that the energy people are seeing and assuming to be ghosts is from several different phenomena, some maybe even another life form. They are all classified as ghosts and therefore dismissed as supernatural. The same thing happens when someone claims to be "channeling spirits". Some people actually promote this for their personal benefit and this is when ego comes in play.

I don't believe that some rebellious spirits are whispering in the ears of a few privileged humans. Most of the stuff that I read sounds too much like religious fear propaganda to me.

As with the movie Zeitgeist there is some profound truth involved in your link, "The Theocrats". Energy is knowledge and understanding can come from observing energy as it has been done for thousands of years. I believe it is a spiritual energy but not individual spirits. This gets into a very deep discussion and one that I understand very little. The words that I can think of right now that pertain to this are; Quintessence, Akasha and Luminiferous Aether. It was from the study of physics, electricity and the work done by Nikola Tesla that lead me down this very strange and wonderful road.

I think I agree with you on the religious implications. The Church has been the single largest factor in the suppression for Understanding of what we are discussing in this thread. This is what I consider to be against Jesus' teachings (the anti-Christ if you will). The real trick is understanding how and why this all happens.

[edit on 10/11/2009 by Devino]

reply to post by Devino


Well i read that book in 3 creepy days.... damn, the paranoia was at max and i never care much of people who do drugs and 'magic'... but, the "plot" so to say at least, its very... genius.

Untill i project again and see this for myself in the astral, i gave it 50% chance of could be the truth.

But, the very fact of opposite forces reminded me of the hermetic staff, with two snakes curling away to the top.... so the IC and the Crats could be the same team (this is my wondering, dont take for information just speculation).

You see theres a big difference of truth, self truth (as a wrong statement can be right inside a unique POV) and of course knowledge (information and specultation).

The worst of it is that we filter out of information and speculation that will cause hurting and reaching out to a future point of rupture of the current structure of belief.

Thats why change is a bitch.

When the OP asks if having knowledge feeds the ego... the very first thing that camed to me was that if the amount of said knowledge goes into the same direction... only things that does not cause mental confrontation.. and if thats the case the answer is yes, of course you are indulging yourself.

After reading the book, when I see a little girl praying to god makes my skin crawl... the big "what if" is haunting me.

Thanks (not god) that my folks are atheists... hehe.. they are 50% safe.

[]´s
RP

reply to post by The Spiritual Warrior


Knowledge itself is not power, it is translatable into power on a situational basis. My motto, taken from a favorite author, is "All Knowledge is Worth Having". You'll find that the more you know, the more you can translate knowledge into power every day. Power in itself is not egotistical. You need power to change your life, your consciousness and your direction.

The destruction of the ego does not lead to weakness or infirmity, in fact the attainment of universal consciousness makes you a stronger person through and through. You become invincible in the sense that because you are one with life and existence itself, no matter how bad someone treats you, no matter what someone says, no matter how much physical pain is inflicted, you remain intact and untouchable. In a sense you become immortal because your consciousness is aware of itself as a part of the eternal and infinite nature of the cosmos.

Ego creates fear of change, fear of whats different, fear of failure and success. Ego is what makes you hurt when petty people say petty things about you. Ego is what causes people to kill and maim in the name of their religion or political beliefs. Ego is what makes you feel inferior, is what allows you to accept being mistreated and walked on, or causes you to be reactionary when someone crosses a line. Ego is in fact what has caused you to fear knowledge, because knowledge diffuses the ego since it causes a change in conscious perceptions of reality.

To give an example, an extremely egotistical person will only listen to heavy metal, and they will hate and complain about anything else. This is because they have formed an image of themselves in their mind that will ONLY accept that kind of music, and to branch out into other things will destroy that image (the ego). However if you branch out into other kinds of music, eventually you no longer have a "music ego" in the sense that the reasons you appreciate music become refined, and your capable of indulging in all forms of music because music is harmony and harmony always resonates with those who are in touch with universal consciousness. This of course does not mean you can't be in touch with music which has discord, since that to is a part of our being and universe.

However knowledge will never produce understanding, which comes through practice, nor wisdom, which comes through (painful or ecstatic) experience. Hope this has helped.

Originally posted by Seventhdoor

 

Ego creates fear of change, fear of whats different, fear of failure and success. Ego is what makes you hurt when petty people say petty things about you. Ego is what causes people to kill and maim in the name of their religion or political beliefs. Ego is what makes you feel inferior, is what allows you to accept being mistreated and walked on, or causes you to be reactionary when someone crosses a line. Ego is in fact what has caused you to fear knowledge, because knowledge diffuses the ego since it causes a change in conscious perceptions of reality.

Yes, thank you; well said.

I think Eckhart Tolle described the ego as creating enemies for the increased sense of self (he used the hitler germany to exemplify), and how we can do terrible things to each other AFTER we reduce a person or a group into a mind concept, a complete desumanizing enemy tactic of the ego... we treat people as labels, not human beings.

"Sure bomb them. They are terrorists." is a clear example.

But once you see the pictures of a child with no arms and legs you re-integrate the human part to the label. Thats when mental confrontation occurs and the labels could be ripped appart and the ego diminishes.

But most peoples look the other way of pictures, or the ego is so 'cristalized' that change needs a lot of momentum, a lot of exposure... imho this can be experienced when a teacher goes with his students to look at a drug addict clinic to show what drugs really do to a human being.

Thanks for your text man.

[]´s
RP