Why is it necessary to kill the ego, the self, on the Spiritual quest? Should there be limitations?

Question

Peace and Love

Answer 1

It is not necessary to kill the ego, ID or self on any quest. To kill the ego is to say the ego is bad or undesirable. If that is so, then the whole search is fruitless. Had you said view the ego in perspective, that is different.
Before there was, there was GOD. In the beginning,(our concept of beginning), all was GOD therefor we were made of GOD stuff. This means we are important and should never but cast aside. Moderated yes, but not killed.
Even in meditation,you are not killing your ego, just going deeper into it to see the base.

Answer 2

Make sure you understand the meaning of ego:

1 : the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world
2 a : EGOTISM 2 b : SELF-ESTEEM 1
3 : the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality -- compare ID, SUPEREGO
- ego·less adjective

Now to be spiritual is not to be guided by the world and it's surroundings but to be beyond that so to be guided by the spiritual self therefore the ego must be laid to rest.

Answer 3

Who says that it's necessary? What evidence is there that it is necessary? Some people might claim that it's "necessary", but that doesn't make the claim true. It is not necessary. It is not necessary to use a teflon-coated skillet to fry eggs, even though a large number of people do so and some even say that there is no other way to make it work. "You must eradicate the self." is very often just an empty phrase that makes the speaker appear far more "enlightened" than he actually is.

What I have found from people who have actually matured is that they have not "killed the ego", they have deflated it. Many of us walk around so full of ourselves that getting a reasonable level of perspective is viewed with horror as if it were death--or even worse.

Answer 4

The ego is the false sense of identity that was born in each of us after the "fall," The fall being the fall of our conscioiusness from oneness with God to a sense of being seperated from God. The fall was from a sense of a spiritual identity to having a mortal identity.

In this mortal identity, all truth became relative since God's truth can no longer be directly experienced. All experience gets filtered through the ego and thus everthing we see has an overlay of the mortal sense of identity.

In fact, all problems in our selves and in our society stem from the fact that we seperated from God, created the ego and hence forth have been ruled by the ego.

The ego, having no permanent reality, will cease to exist if we stop placing our attention on it. Therefore, since it is born of the illusion of seperation, the ego will do all in it's power to keep us from seeing that we are really one with God.

Please note when the ego dies, we do not lose our sense of self but in fact reclaim our spiritual sense of self - our true spiritual identity. An identity that is not fixed, but can ever expand as we increase our awareness of and oneness with God.

Jesus' parable of the wedding feast clearly explains that we must let go of the ego before entering the kingdom of God that is within you. If you recall, one of the guests tries to enter the wedding feast without wearing the "wedding garment" (symbolizing the ego-less spiritual identity) and is bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness. This is the outer darkness of ignorance of the ego where spiritual truth cannot be known.

Clearly, where the Christ is - the sense of Oneness with God - the ego with it's mortal sense of identity cannot be. The two cannot co-exist ("no man can serve two masters"). Therefore, the ego has to go before a soul can completely enter God's kingdom (the consciousness of God).

Answer 5

The ego is a hard and fast complex of the human being. It is a motivator but can get in the way of spiritual approach when it wishes to justify the actions of the individual. A spiritual approach is from the spirit and seeks to rise above the mundane and earthly materialism of today's society. We all begin somewhere. Eliminating anything that is a complex of our being is not a method of growth...but a source of confusion and defeat. We are all 'a work in progress' in our learning and growing.

Answer 6

Harboring the focus of killing any aspect of oneself is spiritually counterproductive.

Instead, the focus should be to TRANSMUTE THE SELF with the focus of serving others and thereby increase one's Compassion and overall ability to Love genuinely and deeply.

Humility plays a key role - as does Purity - in spiritual stability, and therefore both need to be cultivated on the path.

Humility does not mean surrender; it means non-competitiveness.

Purity does not mean sexual abstinence; it means the rejection of lust and only pursuing sexual relationships with love, purified affection, and commitment.

There are no limitations to soul growth.

The soul is infinitely spiritually perfectible.

But I try to avoid using the word, "perfect," as that implies a condition of stagnation.

As anyone who has been on a spiritual path for a time and/or has studied physics, already knows:

The only constant is change.

In light of this...

There is no perfection, only degrees of spiritual excellence.

The most advanced technique for developing SELFLESSNESS, COMPASSION, HUMILITY, and PURITY - as it is essentially the approach that The Original Creator (who orchestrated The Big Bang) used to evolve into rarefied God Consciousness billions of years ago...is Heart Chakra Radiance.

Answer 7

Bbecause the flesh wage war against the spiritual. There are good things that we ought to do but we are not doing because of selfishness, etc. To sacrifice for the other is difficult because the self comes in; to forgive others is difficult because it touches our ego.

Answer 8

That really has to do with your 'self-description', which depends in large part on the internal filters that make it up:

* Your misconceptions
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* Your prejudices
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* Your belief systems
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* Your knowledge base
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* Your experiential reference
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OUTPUT World view (subjective reality)

Also, imagine another line and arrow going UP from each item, and re-joining at the top.

Those filters are INTERPRETIVE... they process the input that the universe provides for you, and create your subjective reality from that.

The only way to advance spiritually and personally is to ELIMINATE those first three filters... then, reevaluate your knowledge base... then recapitulate your experiential reference (meditatively review important events in your life) and reinterpret your life experiences WITHOUT the negative and erroneous influences of your previously held misconceptions, prejudices and beliefs.

Rinse and repeat.

Answer 9

I do not se where it is needed to lose ones self to be believe in Christ. He is a fullfillment not an overbearing master. After all what is Ego? Is it not self satisfying ones self to have ones own way whether or not it goes against God?

Answer 10

Depends on the tradition you are using to seek through. Some tell you to kill self, others tell you to engage the self in the process. Look around for what fits you.