Ego death is a misnomer. There isn't anyone to die in the first place, nor is their any such ego to be suspended, because the real nature of the false sense of self is that of a mirage. Mirages appear real, you see them, and they can even seem frightening, but they can do you no harm, because in reality the mirage is just an illusion created out of avidya (not seeing, or ignore-ance). Once you realize the so-called ego is not real, you cease to stop trying to transcend it, because there is nothing in the first place to transcend. Then, when you see people all over the spiritual marketplace trying to sell techniques of meditation you are appalled, because meditation is now being sold as a method to go beyond the ego and the whole thing is phony. Meditation is what the fundamental nothingness is always doing and always has been doing and always will be doing and that's what you are. From the void we arise and dissolve. Just as in the nature of thoughts, love affairs, the rise and fall of civilization, the birth and death of species', the lifetimes of the stars, and even the whole universe. From the void all becomes form (information) and into the void all is dissolved. Again and again forever and ever. There is no ego, because there is in actuality no such thing as a separate cut-off being from the whole universe. That separate self is a total phantasm and has no reality. Because it is a pure hallucination, how can we say the ego has a beginning and an end? In this way there is no birth and no death. Through the gate of this realization is deathlessness. That is the true meaning of immortality. Realizing your true origin the concept of ego becomes obsolete and ridiculous. There is nothing more egotistical than meditating in order to go beyond your ego. Come off it already.

Nothing to add.

You are that.

I am that.

We are it.

But you see, mirages are in some sense real, or there would not be a word to describe them.

Maybe I would add some whitespace though..

very true, very true

Very deep Anamnesia!

Of course, the ego is an illusion, as you rightly said, but it's an illusion that's persistent, and it's one that works. By that I mean it serves a purpose, to help us survive and navigate in this reality. This is what I think.

This is how I see it (please no personal offense intended!):

All there is, is it. There's nothing but it. And it is pure existence-consciousness-bliss (Sat Chit Ananda). This consciousness brings forward in itself a plane of duality, from which (the illusion of) form comes into being.
Sri Aurobindo explained thoroughly these different planes and their functionings and how the (illusion of) form is created.

It is an old debate if you wanna call this form world (Maya) illusion or not. In the end IMHO it is a typical feature of the ego-mind to make such distinctions. The mind always tries to separate, analyze and categorize.
You can see it from both sides: As this duality plane is part and parcel of the all, it is also real. OTOH you can see it from the perspective as you described and see it as unreal.
It's just how you want to define reality.
In the end does it matter?

The same applies if you define the ego as real or not.
In the end what is IMHO important is, to be happy.
The ego either likes to bloat you up and tell you, you are the best or trashes you and tell you, you are the worst.

From an evolutionary POV the ego is needed to judge made decisions. Modern science is actually quite far into the knowledge how the ego works. E.g. the ego itself can not act in any way (this is known today), but it identifies itself with the acting and judges it and can so by an (emotional) feedback loop influence future actions.
Sure this is all again seen from this form perspective. Which you can define real or not.

But IMHO just defining the ego as not real, with a mental logical construction but not experiencing it, is not of any avail, as you still sometimes suffer, worry and are not happy, because you do identify yourself with your (illusion of) body (you still identify yourself with this ego)
That's why people meditate. Sure you can have this mental belief, which is even true from a higher perspective, but that doesn't free you from your ego identification on this plane of consciousness.
Meditation is basically how to silence the mind (ego), to actually realize and experience this and not only believing in the mental construct of it.

But as said, you can always see it from both sides. And I would never say one side is the truth and the other not. It's all just perspective.

I just wanted to show, that one can see it from different viewpoints. And IMHO it doesn't really make too much sense to categorize and judge such mind understandings in any way.
As if you experience the one, you realize that this is all just a big laugh.
What I also did get from my personal first experience of the one was, that the mind on this plane, will never be able to "understand" it, whereas while you experience it, everything is so obviously clear.

It's just a term used to help describe the stripping away of conditioning, just an easy and quick point of reference that most people would understand.

Sometimes there is no need to overanalise such terms, to lose the meaning.

ego || mind

the impermanence of this experience and the desire to derive anything lasting

the judgment of this experience

the words surrounding this experience, the need to describe everything, to experience linguistic representations of coherence

the clinging to this experience

the sense of this experience

the thought of this experience

the observation of this experience

the suffering of this experience

the joy of this experience

the dichotomies and duality of this experience

our opinions on this experience

our actions within this experience

the rational, the analytic, the reduction of this experience

the feeling, the visceral, the experience of this experience

attention to this experience

this experience

dreaming

deep sleep

the void

silence



the gateless gate


what do you make of asceticism to transcend the suffering which arises from the clinging to sensation and mind in a non-lucid state

and then perhaps upon relinquishing the hold of this reality on us as a cage we return to what this plane of existence has to offer, far more attentive to other dimensions of experience yet able to enjoy our presence here without delusion

This is something I can completely relate to. Every time I experience what would be called "Ego Death", I come back to reality with a fresh sense of appreciation for a "Normal" sense of perception. I feel like my delusional interpretations of consensus reality have been washed away and replaced with a transparent view of the beauty and bounty of life.

Kind of like a psychedelic afterglow which, due to its origin within ourselves with minimal external augmentation, becomes a lasting, baseline for all experience to then flow through.

I have a concept: the apex of importance in any endeavor ultimately boils down to Awareness or presence, and thereby, any action we carry out here on earth through that heightened presence, will be by default, greatly enhanced

more like tell someone to pee in the corner of a circle and they find it.

Zen and Egology seems like it was made for these old hermits who had endogenous DMT experiences, and the ones who havnt piggybacked off of theirs .

i personally find using Anime & Manga references for describing religious & philisophical things a whole lot easier .

vs this shit

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen

What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?

Bassui




for Dogen's shit, ill take links Mirror shield, goku's universe buster powers, obito's Kamui .

or better yet, Body goes to sleep so i can come out and play.


for this bassui shit.
this is an endless riddle. what makes up electrons and makes up that, and that .

all these dead monks n priests had endo DMT experiences to gain their stuff they gained, almost every person on this site has gone to the places these dead hermits have gone but many many more times they have, and yet hold old dead hermits to a dogmatic lvl worst then christian extremism fused .

Come up with your own way of idk bringing it to earth to share, these Dead hermits are nothing special, the avg psychonaut who has prolly smoked DMT for a week prolly has more exp in those realms then these dead hermits, and is much more powerful then them .


the things in these Psyche realms go beyond english & modern Human language . so pick something that can somewhat translate psyche exp and expect some inacuracies or some to understand your view and some wont.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcrocgMBBDI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85-ue156EjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F4bsNFSVNE