How do you kill the ego and what's the point of doing it?

Question

And what is this ego anyways?

Answer 1

Ridding oneself of the ego allows one to see the world from a larger perspective. Although the ego also is sort of a guide to what is best for that individual, so someone should not kill it, just find the best times to utilize it, and the best times to detach from it.

Answer 2

You kill the ego by realizing that you and everything that surrounds you, are one and the same. Instead of feeling separate from the universe and individual from it, you allow yourself to become an integrated and essential part of it. Instead of feeling isolated and alone, you allow that you are connected and necessary.

The problem is that you can't use your mind to kill your ego. Your mind is the cause of ego. Your conceptual way of thinking is your ego. And you can't conceptualize not conceptualizing without still conceptualizing. So the only way to go about doing it is trying to "still" your mind. Only when a pond is still is its water not muddy. You mind is that pond.

That's the whole point of meditation, stilling the mind. It's not about going on some cosmic journey, it's about being present in the here and now. Ever watch a sunset (I know cheesy example) and feel yourself be filled with awe at the wonder of nature? Well, that's a simple meditation and that's a surrender of your ego.

What's the point? All depends. Some people like the drama of ego. Ego fuels anger and indignation and expectation... and so on and so on. Without ego we'd have no Jerry Springer. Without ego we'd have no war. Without ego the world would not be what it is and changing the world can make some people very uncomfortable. Ego allows us to set up formalities and structure. It makes it so it's okay that a rich can have a huge house and lots to eat, while a poor man starves down the road (after all the rich man worked hard to earn what he has). But if the ego is dissolved and the rich realizes he is very much connected to the poor man (in fact one and the same as the poor man), then it gets harder to rationalize the poor man's suffering.

So that's the tip of the iceberg. And just so you know, the rest of the iceberg is infinite. But infinity is good, cause like a good sunset, it tends to still the mind.

Answer 3

Live side by side with the ego...watch it with amusement. It is part of the whole scene. It creates the interest..never a dull moment.
The ego is the main teacher. If you can watch it, in all of it's arrogance, you will learn that it causes you much suffering.

When you are tired of suffering the ego will die a 'natural' death. You will not live from ego anymore, but from a more natural, spontaneous 'place'.

The only "point" is to realize the difference too see this strange dualistic game. In my own experience, there is less suffering...still watching, though. :-}

Answer 4

As you can see by the answers there is much disagreement.

To simplify. Your ego is your learned survival system. Its beliefs control your perceptions of reality and your feelings and thoughts and actions. YOU are (or should be) the "observer" of that programmed thought system. Because limited ego beliefs are mainly unconscious, life can be a living hell and yet the ego is totally oblivious that it is the cause. Reality mirrors that complex chaotic belief system, we literally live by faith, whether we are conscious of it or not. For some lucky people it is a gradual process, but don't count on that if your present life is a mess.

Because people overly identify with their little egoic self, transcending it - tracing thought/feeling back to the source of each negative/positive belief and pulling each of them out by the roots - is not a very attractive proposition.

The only reason for doing so is that you become increasingly aware of the havoc it is producing and gradually or determinedly overcome it. It's insane, incapable of accurate perception or reason, but it IS NOT YOU. Reality is synchronizing with IT or YOU. One of you has to go!

Answer 5

Freud did not want to kill the ego. It is the job of the superego to impose limitations on the ego as it is the job of the ego to impose limitations on the id.

Answer 6

The ego is your consciousness, there is as much point in killing the ego as there is in blowing your brains out!

Sophist's answer has this nailed.

Answer 7

The first person singular word "I" is the simplest expression for the ego. ' 'I' kill 'I' ', why.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slbeing.htm#SL96n

The readiest instance of Being-for-self is found in the ‘I’. We know ourselves as existents, distinguished in the first place from other existents, and with certain relations thereto. But we also come to know this expansion of existence (in these relations) reduced, as it were, to a point in the simple form of being-for-self. When we say ‘I’, we express this reference-to-self which is infinite, and at the same time negative. Man, it may be said, is distinguished from the animal world, and in that way from our nature altogether, by knowing himself as ‘I’: which amounts to saying that natural things never attain free Being-for-self, but as limited to Being-there-and-then, are always and only Being for another.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/li_terms.htm

http://www.glumbert.com/media/cultleader

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ol/ol_phen.htm

Outline of Hegel's Phenomenology
INTRODUCTION

Our ordinary Knowing has before itself only the object which it knows, but does not at first make an object of itself, i.e., of the Knowing. But the whole which is extant in the act of knowing is not the object alone, but also the Ego that knows, and the relation of the Ego and the object to each other, i.e. Consciousness."

For ego psychology see the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erick_Erickson

Answer 8

It's a shock to lose the ego suddenly. Life will do it for you over time the natural way if your sensitive.

Answer 9

Ego is a part of you its a gift. It is not to be killed. It is to be used properly. It is not inherently negative but it can become negative.

Answer 10

To rid yourself of ego you must rid yourself of your identity. Cease to think, act,or believe in I, me, we, us, they, them. Purge them from your vocabulary. Every act must be a denial of self. This will, supposedly, bring you into greater harmony with the spirit of the universe. In time you will be able to deny the very existence of the world and reach a level that is called nirvana.