bluegreen17 | ergo no ego

I recognize the emerald breeze when it rattles my shutters. And Osho is like a hard, sweet wind, circling the planet, blowing the beanies off of rabbis and popes, scattering the lies on the desks of the bureaucrats, stampeding the jackasses in the stables of the powerful, lifting the skirts of the pathologically prudish and tickling the spiritually dead back to life.

-tom robbins

i've been reading bits of osho's books lately. a real mixed bag,but with lots of gems. one thing he said that really struck me was that some people,for instance,'westerners' in general,are not going to have much luck doing zazen...it may just literally drive them crazy. instead,they need to occupy the body/mind to get it out of the way,so doing a dancing or some kind of movement meditation--i think tai chi would fit in there--is a much better way to start. makes a lot of sense to me! zazen was driving me crazy,which is amazing considering how crazy i already am. some of my best thinking gets done...or rather,inspiration comes through, when i'm singing in the shower or singing and driving...i've got to get my pesky mind busy and out of the way so the messages come through...

my therapist gave me a funny look today when i told her that i realized one day that there's no such thing as an ego...it's just a word and a concept we made up. no need to transcend an ego that doesn't exist,which is why i had suspected that it didn't need doing...but you needn't take my word for it. remember,i'm crazy.

time to wash dishes,brush and floss...

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Odd...

[1] I was reading a bit of Osho today in the bookstore. First time ever, and here you are with this entry. :-)

[2] I believe that the ego is real. The key is to understand that it is something that can be: used, forgotten, lived-in, thrown away, re-invented, exploded, imploded, rebooted, devalued, overvalued, put-to-sleep, awakened, killed, beaten, conquered, adapted-to, in-your-way, or darkened-to-a-stormy-gray. It is a tool. Like a hammer or a wine glass. And like those it has some good uses...

[3] Been thinking of starting yoga, lately. For the same reasons you mention movement meditations above. Sitting is VERY hard for me. Tried breath control or mantras or yantras, mudras, etc...?

1. i love synchronicities.

2.i like your idea of the ego as a tool. it reminds me of how i think of the mind as a 'receiver' as opposed to something that 'fixes' things. does that make sense?

3.haven't tried mantras or mudras yet,anyway. don't know what a yantra is. i get too self-conscious watching my breath. it didn't even help with anxiety attacks...self-talk helped instead.

i'm thinking i may create my own type of tai chi/dance meditation thing,but i'm going to read more in the osho meditation book for specifics of what he suggests.

Mind as receiver sounds like something Huxley would say--tho' in reverse: he classifies the mind as a filter, keeping the universe-as-it-is at a distance. If we experience the universe directly it can overwhelm us. If nothing else, it takes our attention away from survival. Hence his idea of mind as filter--see also RA Wilson.

Oh, I think a yantra is a picture that is used as a visual aid to meditation... :-)

i've read a moderate amount of RAW's stuff and like it a lot. i think the tricky thing is that sometimes words are being used differently. of course,he talks about that too. i experimented with e prime for a while,but found it tedious. a friend pointed out that when one says something,even if you don't preface it with 'i think',they still know that's what you think.having said that,indeed i think language affects us greatly.

a yantra sounds like a mandala.i've thought of using mandalas,but all i can find are mandala coloring books,and i don't feel like coloring them in myself! i'm sure they exist,though.

E-prime is more than just "I think ..." My wife said that, too. It is also more than "It appears to me that ..." It is supposed to inspire the user to really think about what they 'really mean.'

Those boilerplate formulations are always available when you can't think of something better, but the real goal is to try to really think about what you are saying. "I am depressed" could be turned to "I think I am depressed" or "it appears to me that I am depressed" but those miss the point. "My current behavior appears depressed" is closer to what the goal really is--to reveal the time-binding aspect of the behavior versus the idea of long-standing core of depression in the personality. In short--lock onto the temporality of behavior rather than positing a 'real' falsely concretized depression as a thing inside of you. That is much more important than deleting 'is.'

And I disagree with your friend--people forget that you are 'just thinking' when you don't say it. They need to be reminded on occasion. But yes--e-prime is the most tedious thing in the world. Jesus said something about circumsizing the heart rather than the penis. I say practice e-prime in your soul, but use as many is-es as you want! :-)

BTW--I sent the book in a photo mailer yesterday. I didn't clean it out so any bookmarks are just leftovers from when I was in college. It only cost a couple bucks, so next birthday or gift giving holiday just consider it my gift to you! :-)

In short--lock onto the temporality of behavior rather than positing a 'real' falsely concretized depression as a thing inside of you. That is much more important than deleting 'is.'

i really like that and what you wrote leading up to it. i think (ha ha,now i'm going to be self-conscious about the fact that i HAVE been influenced by playing around with e-prime!), that i was missing the point of it,really. it makes me think of advaita and the 'observer',though even the observer is duality. but i have a hard time talking about that stuff,both because i don't know much about it,and because some of it is hard to express.

i also think that when you mention that we need to be reminded that what we say is opinion...yeah,i get your point. i mean,most of us are somnabulant (spell check says somnolent,but that seems like a different word. in any case,i think you know what i mean. spell check also didn't like your 'concretizing' or 'temporality'...i think it has its limitations) in so many ways!

e-prime gets me thinking back to nlp. i think you've mentioned that before. have you used nlp in any way? i guess one could use it for 'self-talk' as well as dealing with others.

Jesus said something about circumsizing the heart rather than the penis.

i've never heard that,and i'm pretty familiar with the bible.is it from the gospel of thomas?

I say practice e-prime in your soul, but use as many is-es as you want!

i really like how you put that!
it comes down to awareness,doesn't it?

NLP was directly influenced by Korzybski and e-prime--a number of the early NLP authors say so. I haven't had a lot of success with NLP--I'd like to take a class but they always cost $1000 or (much) more and I just don't have that much to risk. I do own a couple of dozen NLP books but need help getting over the experiential hurdles.

As for the Bible quote--my bad--it was Paul. Romans 2:25 to the end of that chapter. Specifically: 2:29 "He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal..." I wish someone had told that to my parents! :-)

I think that linguistic exercises are an excellent entree to most systems of spiritual (or psychological) change/growth. In this regard I am one with Aleister Crowley, who saw the value in such matters. As did Wm. Burroughs (PBUH). (Not that I agree with much else in Crowley!) If you can, try to e-prime for a week. The results of the exercise have little to do with the e-priming itself! :-) (In fairness, I've never really succeeded in e-priming for a whole week, but trying tells me a lot about my habitual patterns of thought.)

ergo no ego

Interesting

1,2,3

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e-prime

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