6 ms·

I know it’s a bit of a personal question, but can you elaborate on your ego diluting experience?

hshshshshsh 2y ago
I think it would be really hard to understand without experiencing it. But I will write down anyway. So before dilution I had this strong idea of who I was. I had this back story. There were certain things I do. And certain things I don't do. I used to judge everyone. I had a very high opinion about myself and used to constantly do or find things to validate that. Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Each and every moment is intense. Sunsets are absolutely beautiful that you cannot describe through words. Spending time in nature is surreal. You do the right thing instead of doing things to validate your narrative. The dopamine hit I used to get when I used to do certain things is gone( i use to confuse these dopamine hits as me doing something right). This unlocks doing things more from Intuition and less from memory. There is less fear. There is more flow. More creativity. No regard for authority or beliefs. Everyone is equal. You want to know and not believe. That said it's not all great stuff. You also have to work through some existential questions which you were previously isolated by the ego. Like mortality. Impermanence of everything. Aging body. What happens after death. Nature of awareness. Why I am aware. Is awareness eternal and it's implications etc etc.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  Happy to hear that worked out for you, that sounds like a great place to be. What facilitated the change though, or how did that happen? Was there a catalyst?
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this. For a lot of people this is triggered by something unexpected happening in life which breaks the narrative one has been building their entire life. You can search for Spiritual Awakening and find a lot of examples. Buddha at the Gas Pump is a great podcast to listen to for such experiences. As I sad it's not all great all the times. There were a lot of times in which I wished I could go back to the old mode. Though I think the overall change was for the better.
    - vasco 2y ago
      Isn't this just another meta level of ego? Now you're elevated above everyone in the rat race because you "dilluted" your ego. But that's still the voice in your head controlling you, it just convinced you it doesn't anymore. Buddhist philosophy always failed to click for me because of this.
      - hshshshshsh 2y ago
        Hmm. There is no voice which says the ego is diluted. The volume of the talk is lowered. Previously it was at 100. It lowered down to 4 or 5. Previously I used to listen to the voice and memories to make decisions. Since both got lowered in intensity , I now have to rely on Intuition to make decisions. And not recollection of what I did previously. Which makes things new. And sometimes give an almost child like curiosity. Even doing something as simple as going for a walk is amazing. Since the mind is not constantly trying to predict what is next and characterising things as I have seen this or not. You notice things you have never noticed before. The awareness is heightened.
    - snozolli 2y ago
      Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this. It's infuriating that you write all that about how enlightened you supposedly are, then conceal the manner by which you got there. This just feels like trolling or a creative writing exercise.
      - hshshshshsh 2y ago
        If it helps I have to say I am not enlightened. Nowhere close to what Ramana Maharishi has written or what UG Krishnamurthy talks about.
      - mc3301 2y ago
        I'll bite, and I'll be honest. I had similar results with: 600 micrograms of LSD completely alone in very a very secluded forest completely alone with a bug net, sleeping bag and basic food. About 24 hours. Motorcycling home in the morning, I wondered if I was the last human on earth... until I saw someone 30 minutes into the ride.
  - Tade0 2y ago
    Not the GP, but I can tell you right now that having children tends to have most if not all the mentioned effects.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  I've been heavily dealing with the existential questions you are referencing but it only gets worse. What helped you in resolving those issues or come to terms with them?
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Adyashanti helped a lot. End of your world book in specifically. I think one of the main takeaways was to instead of running away from these questions or thoughts welcome them and experience them. Don't try to distract yourself when a thought comes. Just embrace it. It will weaken the power of the thoughts or feelings. At the end of the day they are all mere appearances in awareness and not permanent. They go away. There is also a lecture series on Advaita Vedanta on YouTube. That helped as well. https://youtu.be/gEd22QZF_mM?si=iDIXY1oUhOC9PaHm https://youtu.be/gEd22QZF_mM?si=iDIXY1oUhOC9PaHm Meditation helped a lot. Spending time in nature a lot helped. Camping under trees helped.. Also Jordan Peterson's biblical lectures also surprisingly helped even though I was not brought up Christian. I know he is divisive but the lectures are not political. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE4zj0nQN08ewq9dl1e8MCz3Y8F2fZzbS&si=KmY3G1YDksyX0mox https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE4zj0nQN08ewq9dl1e8MCz3Y... Also just praying and believing in a higher power helped.
  - Bilal_io 2y ago
    I find that Islam has the most satisfying and complete answers about these existential questions.
    - hshshshshsh 2y ago
      I don't like idea of only one religion getting it right. There are multiple paths to truth. Pretending only one religion has it is ignorance and lying and not truthful. And truth is what we should strive for. Irrespective of which society you were brought up in.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        He didn’t say that had the answer, just the most complete one. Sorta makes sense when it’s the youngest religion I suppose? They wouldn’t make the same mistakes they made 600 or 4000 years previous.
- rsktaker 2y ago
  > Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Lately, I've had this intuition that we change by sort of tricking ourselves. The mechanism for that change is by settling on like this one kind of character, like someone out of a movie that’s playing in your head, and acting like that person. Then, as time passes, we simply forget who we were before we started acting and the only way we know how to act is as this one character. You say you've lost your 'story' and your 'character', that you don't 'act' anymore. But, it just feels like you've made another story and another character for you to fit into. You've got a new aesthetic, a new ideal, and your appreciating sunsets and nature is another thing you do because that's what the 'character' you try to fit would do. And by acting like that person in your head would, you start to feel the same way too. I think it's a lot more complicated than how I'm thinking. But I really do have a strong intuition that people feel the way they think the person they're acting like should feel, when physical feelings are non-factors. Really, I don't actually know. Like, what we actually do and what we say we do; what we actually think and what we say we think. What we say we do and think feel like things we're saying to trick ourselves into doing and thinking those things. That's I guess the core of my intuition.
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Did you experience this or are you guessing? Because I think you are thinking this again through ego. I don't have a thought that I appreciate sunset when I see one. The sunset looks magical. There is a shift in experience. Before watching sunset was like watching in 420p. Now it's 4k. The consciousness is heightened. You only see the sunset. You don't think of old memories of sunset. Or random events from past or thing you have to do. You just see the sunset. It's not the commentary that changed from hey yet another sunset to I appreciate sunset. The commentary is gone or minimised and the resolution is increased. And there are no memories from past to distract you from experiencing the sunset. And this applies to most things. It's just nature has a lot of stuff that work well with heightened awareness. You don't want to spend your time with a heightened awareness and live next to a highway. That works against you.
    - rsktaker 2y ago
      I'm guessing but it's not without some experience. I feel like I trick myself all the time - to guide myself towards becoming what I want to be. There was a time when I felt unintelligent and incapable of great, technical things. So I kind of just did things that it seemed capable people did. I felt like people who are smart, capable, and rich now, hacked things when they were young and were rebellious and broke the rules and did whatever they wanted and put lots of effort into random interesting things because they were interesting. So, because the end goal was attractive to me in a way, I tried to do those things too - maybe consciously, maybe not. I feel like that process made me different though. I have genuinely changed into someone far more capable technically, way more interested in super 'nerdy' things. Anyway, I don't know what it means to think this through ego. I don't really get it. But sunsets are nice - I like seeing them too. Yeah I suppose what I mean was that the commentary changed. Interesting that for you there's no commentary, I think I've felt like that before. Sometimes I feel like I just exist in a nice feeling - no words, nothing. Just experiencing. But that doesn't last very long, or it turns into something negative like boredom or something. Then I get up with a bad feeling lol
- GistNoesis 2y ago
  How did abandoning your ego impact your morality compass? Is there a not caring anymore dimension to it?
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    It's actually the opposite. I found ego was what was stoping me from doing right things. When I had the opportunity to do a right thing previously I used to think someone else will do it or it's not my job or what If I fail. Now I just do it.
    - GistNoesis 2y ago
      How do you define "right"? From an exterior point of view, your behavior seems potentially dangerous, like a disinhibited illuminated drunk that any people or situation can easily point any way as they see fit. How do you make sure you don't become an "awful" person for those around you ?
      - hshshshshsh 2y ago
        I think more from Intuition than more from how I approached this situation in past. It helps in becoming better at sports. But I also got into trouble a few times for opposing some authority figures who didn't like the way I acted.
- junglegreen 2y ago
  I really enjoyed this post; thank you. "No regard for authority or beliefs. Everyone is equal. You want to know and not believe." I am often amazed / in awe of the internet for leading me toward this place. My mind and equanimity opened much further as a result of the knowledge share that occurred over the last 20 years. Much less judgment, more curiosity. Paradoxically this has led me to revisit areas, like religion, that are often dismissed as irrational. Although, I try not to use words like that because I am still working through it. How are you working through: why I am aware?
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    The best I have got so far is to just treat if it as another thought. Another appearance in awareness. I don't have an answer. There is a line in Upanishads that say something like why even the god doesn't know why it was created.
- stana 2y ago
  Interesting what you say about having to face some existential questions if you remove some ego enforcing ideas about yourself. Ernest Becker's book 'Denial of Death' suggests that this 'narrative' we have about ourselves is to deny our mortality, which we really got me thinking.
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Yes. That makes sense. But sometimes I wonder whether the ego is there to deny the immortality of the awareness. https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakr...
- pmarreck 2y ago
  So basically, you were an opinionated functional-language developer and now you can throw down Python or PHP (ok, let's at least be realistic... JavaScript) with a straight face of eternal calm? (I mean this partly in jest of course) Your new enlightenment sounds like the product of a productive drug trip (no judgment implied whatsoever, possibly some jealousy though)
- psychoslave 2y ago
  Mortality of the self is not a big deal, at least if the illusion of ego was already overcome. On the matter there is for example Epicurus classic thought that self death is not a concern as while alive self won’t experiment it’s own death, and once dead there is no longer any self to observe death. That one requires accepting there is no "afterlife" for the self. Thus, only death of others is a relevant topic of concern, but taking care of them while they are alive is certainly far more important. Impermanence of everything "only" applies to contingent matters. So statements like "everything (that happens through some contingency) is impermanent" always match some absolute truth. So the apparent contradiction that "if everything is impermanent was true, so should be impermanence and then not everything would be impermanent", is only indeed apparent.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    People who have thought about more than Boltzmann brain explanations of the origin of the universe will always be disappointed by people who claim that there is no such thing as an afterlife. After all, it means that the universe emerges upon birth and disappears upon death, aka the classic Boltzmann brain. Meanwhile for anyone who believes in the continued existence of the universe after death is going to need an afterlife. Sure, it might not be the classic Christian afterlife that so many people have in mind. It could be even as simple as having the experience of a corpse, but an afterlife nevertheless.
- sameoldtune 2y ago
  That’s a lot of “I” statements for the egoless commenter.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

I think it would be really hard to understand without experiencing it. But I will write down anyway. So before dilution I had this strong idea of who I was. I had this back story. There were certain things I do. And certain things I don't do. I used to judge everyone. I had a very high opinion about myself and used to constantly do or find things to validate that. Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Each and every moment is intense. Sunsets are absolutely beautiful that you cannot describe through words. Spending time in nature is surreal. You do the right thing instead of doing things to validate your narrative. The dopamine hit I used to get when I used to do certain things is gone( i use to confuse these dopamine hits as me doing something right). This unlocks doing things more from Intuition and less from memory. There is less fear. There is more flow. More creativity. No regard for authority or beliefs. Everyone is equal. You want to know and not believe. That said it's not all great stuff. You also have to work through some existential questions which you were previously isolated by the ego. Like mortality. Impermanence of everything. Aging body. What happens after death. Nature of awareness. Why I am aware. Is awareness eternal and it's implications etc etc.

Etheryte 2y ago
Happy to hear that worked out for you, that sounds like a great place to be. What facilitated the change though, or how did that happen? Was there a catalyst?
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this. For a lot of people this is triggered by something unexpected happening in life which breaks the narrative one has been building their entire life. You can search for Spiritual Awakening and find a lot of examples. Buddha at the Gas Pump is a great podcast to listen to for such experiences. As I sad it's not all great all the times. There were a lot of times in which I wished I could go back to the old mode. Though I think the overall change was for the better.
  - vasco 2y ago
    Isn't this just another meta level of ego? Now you're elevated above everyone in the rat race because you "dilluted" your ego. But that's still the voice in your head controlling you, it just convinced you it doesn't anymore. Buddhist philosophy always failed to click for me because of this.
    - hshshshshsh 2y ago
      Hmm. There is no voice which says the ego is diluted. The volume of the talk is lowered. Previously it was at 100. It lowered down to 4 or 5. Previously I used to listen to the voice and memories to make decisions. Since both got lowered in intensity , I now have to rely on Intuition to make decisions. And not recollection of what I did previously. Which makes things new. And sometimes give an almost child like curiosity. Even doing something as simple as going for a walk is amazing. Since the mind is not constantly trying to predict what is next and characterising things as I have seen this or not. You notice things you have never noticed before. The awareness is heightened.
  - snozolli 2y ago
    Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this. It's infuriating that you write all that about how enlightened you supposedly are, then conceal the manner by which you got there. This just feels like trolling or a creative writing exercise.
    - hshshshshsh 2y ago
      If it helps I have to say I am not enlightened. Nowhere close to what Ramana Maharishi has written or what UG Krishnamurthy talks about.
    - mc3301 2y ago
      I'll bite, and I'll be honest. I had similar results with: 600 micrograms of LSD completely alone in very a very secluded forest completely alone with a bug net, sleeping bag and basic food. About 24 hours. Motorcycling home in the morning, I wondered if I was the last human on earth... until I saw someone 30 minutes into the ride.
- Tade0 2y ago
  Not the GP, but I can tell you right now that having children tends to have most if not all the mentioned effects.
ajmurmann 2y ago
I've been heavily dealing with the existential questions you are referencing but it only gets worse. What helped you in resolving those issues or come to terms with them?
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Adyashanti helped a lot. End of your world book in specifically. I think one of the main takeaways was to instead of running away from these questions or thoughts welcome them and experience them. Don't try to distract yourself when a thought comes. Just embrace it. It will weaken the power of the thoughts or feelings. At the end of the day they are all mere appearances in awareness and not permanent. They go away. There is also a lecture series on Advaita Vedanta on YouTube. That helped as well. https://youtu.be/gEd22QZF_mM?si=iDIXY1oUhOC9PaHm https://youtu.be/gEd22QZF_mM?si=iDIXY1oUhOC9PaHm Meditation helped a lot. Spending time in nature a lot helped. Camping under trees helped.. Also Jordan Peterson's biblical lectures also surprisingly helped even though I was not brought up Christian. I know he is divisive but the lectures are not political. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE4zj0nQN08ewq9dl1e8MCz3Y8F2fZzbS&si=KmY3G1YDksyX0mox https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE4zj0nQN08ewq9dl1e8MCz3Y... Also just praying and believing in a higher power helped.
- Bilal_io 2y ago
  I find that Islam has the most satisfying and complete answers about these existential questions.
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    I don't like idea of only one religion getting it right. There are multiple paths to truth. Pretending only one religion has it is ignorance and lying and not truthful. And truth is what we should strive for. Irrespective of which society you were brought up in.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      He didn’t say that had the answer, just the most complete one. Sorta makes sense when it’s the youngest religion I suppose? They wouldn’t make the same mistakes they made 600 or 4000 years previous.
rsktaker 2y ago
> Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Lately, I've had this intuition that we change by sort of tricking ourselves. The mechanism for that change is by settling on like this one kind of character, like someone out of a movie that’s playing in your head, and acting like that person. Then, as time passes, we simply forget who we were before we started acting and the only way we know how to act is as this one character. You say you've lost your 'story' and your 'character', that you don't 'act' anymore. But, it just feels like you've made another story and another character for you to fit into. You've got a new aesthetic, a new ideal, and your appreciating sunsets and nature is another thing you do because that's what the 'character' you try to fit would do. And by acting like that person in your head would, you start to feel the same way too. I think it's a lot more complicated than how I'm thinking. But I really do have a strong intuition that people feel the way they think the person they're acting like should feel, when physical feelings are non-factors. Really, I don't actually know. Like, what we actually do and what we say we do; what we actually think and what we say we think. What we say we do and think feel like things we're saying to trick ourselves into doing and thinking those things. That's I guess the core of my intuition.
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Did you experience this or are you guessing? Because I think you are thinking this again through ego. I don't have a thought that I appreciate sunset when I see one. The sunset looks magical. There is a shift in experience. Before watching sunset was like watching in 420p. Now it's 4k. The consciousness is heightened. You only see the sunset. You don't think of old memories of sunset. Or random events from past or thing you have to do. You just see the sunset. It's not the commentary that changed from hey yet another sunset to I appreciate sunset. The commentary is gone or minimised and the resolution is increased. And there are no memories from past to distract you from experiencing the sunset. And this applies to most things. It's just nature has a lot of stuff that work well with heightened awareness. You don't want to spend your time with a heightened awareness and live next to a highway. That works against you.
  - rsktaker 2y ago
    I'm guessing but it's not without some experience. I feel like I trick myself all the time - to guide myself towards becoming what I want to be. There was a time when I felt unintelligent and incapable of great, technical things. So I kind of just did things that it seemed capable people did. I felt like people who are smart, capable, and rich now, hacked things when they were young and were rebellious and broke the rules and did whatever they wanted and put lots of effort into random interesting things because they were interesting. So, because the end goal was attractive to me in a way, I tried to do those things too - maybe consciously, maybe not. I feel like that process made me different though. I have genuinely changed into someone far more capable technically, way more interested in super 'nerdy' things. Anyway, I don't know what it means to think this through ego. I don't really get it. But sunsets are nice - I like seeing them too. Yeah I suppose what I mean was that the commentary changed. Interesting that for you there's no commentary, I think I've felt like that before. Sometimes I feel like I just exist in a nice feeling - no words, nothing. Just experiencing. But that doesn't last very long, or it turns into something negative like boredom or something. Then I get up with a bad feeling lol
GistNoesis 2y ago
How did abandoning your ego impact your morality compass? Is there a not caring anymore dimension to it?
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  It's actually the opposite. I found ego was what was stoping me from doing right things. When I had the opportunity to do a right thing previously I used to think someone else will do it or it's not my job or what If I fail. Now I just do it.
  - GistNoesis 2y ago
    How do you define "right"? From an exterior point of view, your behavior seems potentially dangerous, like a disinhibited illuminated drunk that any people or situation can easily point any way as they see fit. How do you make sure you don't become an "awful" person for those around you ?
    - hshshshshsh 2y ago
      I think more from Intuition than more from how I approached this situation in past. It helps in becoming better at sports. But I also got into trouble a few times for opposing some authority figures who didn't like the way I acted.
junglegreen 2y ago
I really enjoyed this post; thank you. "No regard for authority or beliefs. Everyone is equal. You want to know and not believe." I am often amazed / in awe of the internet for leading me toward this place. My mind and equanimity opened much further as a result of the knowledge share that occurred over the last 20 years. Much less judgment, more curiosity. Paradoxically this has led me to revisit areas, like religion, that are often dismissed as irrational. Although, I try not to use words like that because I am still working through it. How are you working through: why I am aware?
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  The best I have got so far is to just treat if it as another thought. Another appearance in awareness. I don't have an answer. There is a line in Upanishads that say something like why even the god doesn't know why it was created.
stana 2y ago
Interesting what you say about having to face some existential questions if you remove some ego enforcing ideas about yourself. Ernest Becker's book 'Denial of Death' suggests that this 'narrative' we have about ourselves is to deny our mortality, which we really got me thinking.
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Yes. That makes sense. But sometimes I wonder whether the ego is there to deny the immortality of the awareness. https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakr...
pmarreck 2y ago
So basically, you were an opinionated functional-language developer and now you can throw down Python or PHP (ok, let's at least be realistic... JavaScript) with a straight face of eternal calm? (I mean this partly in jest of course) Your new enlightenment sounds like the product of a productive drug trip (no judgment implied whatsoever, possibly some jealousy though)
psychoslave 2y ago
Mortality of the self is not a big deal, at least if the illusion of ego was already overcome. On the matter there is for example Epicurus classic thought that self death is not a concern as while alive self won’t experiment it’s own death, and once dead there is no longer any self to observe death. That one requires accepting there is no "afterlife" for the self. Thus, only death of others is a relevant topic of concern, but taking care of them while they are alive is certainly far more important. Impermanence of everything "only" applies to contingent matters. So statements like "everything (that happens through some contingency) is impermanent" always match some absolute truth. So the apparent contradiction that "if everything is impermanent was true, so should be impermanence and then not everything would be impermanent", is only indeed apparent.
- imtringued 2y ago
  People who have thought about more than Boltzmann brain explanations of the origin of the universe will always be disappointed by people who claim that there is no such thing as an afterlife. After all, it means that the universe emerges upon birth and disappears upon death, aka the classic Boltzmann brain. Meanwhile for anyone who believes in the continued existence of the universe after death is going to need an afterlife. Sure, it might not be the classic Christian afterlife that so many people have in mind. It could be even as simple as having the experience of a corpse, but an afterlife nevertheless.
sameoldtune 2y ago
That’s a lot of “I” statements for the egoless commenter.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]