What might the mirror of the ego look like for you?

That's very Zen. The Ego is something that needs to be maintained and balanced as does the flow of chi between yin and yang. One one had they have the power to destroy from greed and negativity. On the other it can focus on being minimalistic and create happiness and spiritual abundance. Using your heart, faith and the lessons we learn in the journey that is life helps us to perfect our Egos.

I think it's in Rumi somewhere that he speaks of the image of a dead man's body immersed in a rushing stream. The head turns this way and that, the arms and legs both move here and there ... but it is all an expression of the Current.

That image comes to mind with your question, as do a number of Zen images ... an iron branch blooming, a stone woman dancing, a breeze with nothing to say answering without being asked.

I can't quite get a hold on it, but another analog is the experience of the lucid dream. Here now one is awake within one's own creation -- the dream setting, the other dream characters, and "you" yourself in the dream -- they are all no longer occasions for illusion. You see them as kindred expressions. You see them as the Family of the Silence, the Source that generates and dances them.

There is a River in the Ocean. That River places an ego in motion, too. It's just that we have to give that bugger a good soaking from time to time in order to have it remembered to its Source and Current.

It must a times be eclipsed and darkened 'afore a key is to be found in a light of communion and thereupon some proper care and vehicle is apt to carry it forward in dancing dancing laughing silly blessed on-goingness ... what with a wink wink and a nudge nudge and all ...

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Your wish is my command, O Sacred Fried One. :-)))

As you have noted, such answers ! What a question, the thing is that if you set a banquet before a crowd of starving people they will sit down and scoff the lot, double quick time !

My view ? The Ego is a highly misunderstood, and regularly over-maligned individual. It's poor old Ego that gets these monkey suits of ours through the day. (S)He takes care of all the basic 'survival' stuff like heart beat, breathing, digesting, systems surveillance, and systems control, everything from peeing to unleashing those deadly white corpuscles on any unsuspecting invaders, frequently with more damaging results on the monkey suit, than the invaders !

That some branches of spiritual wisdom have chosen to pinpoint all the blame for the 'negative' perceptions on Ego is hardly a surprise, and in a sense it's not really 'wrong' per se. It's just a bit of an over-statement.

Ego is the part of us that most closely aligns with our animal genetic donors, those organisms through which we developed these 'vehicles' for driving through the physical, our monkey suits. Together with the usual features we, unfortunately got a heavy dose of 'Fear', the trigger mechanism for the 'Fight or Fly' syndrome, the basic protection program for individual animal safety from predators. In our case we have these big brains, so we go way over the top in response to the 'Fear' and that is why it seems that Ego is the villain.

Spare a thought for the poor old sod, and all that adrenaline gushing through his operational environment.

It's not surprising really, but once we 'remember' who we really are, we also real-ise that 'Fear' is not necessary, and therefore we can release Ego from the vice-like grip of the 'Fear, and (s)he will be able to get on with the job of keeping the monkey suit ticking over like a well-oiled Swiss cuckoo clock ! ;-)))

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cosmic Cuckoos}}}}}}}}}}}}

The mirror of the ego would seem to me like a house of mirrors at a carnival. As I move through the house, Life, the image changes, but it is always a distortion. I look at each mirror trying to see myself, but what I see is not what I would like to see, so I move on. I come to the mirror that makes me look quite good, shapely, young and alive, but it, too, is an illusion. Moving from mirror to mirror I become more "disillusioned" wondering when I will look into a mirror that will reflect the "real me." I run out of this house of mirrors, to a quiet place, beside a lake or stream. I sit silently, listening, first to the birds, the water....then I hear it. The "real me," a voice inside, my voice, saying, "Don't despair, you will never find yourself in any of those mirrors. They only distort the true beauty of what you are. Look inside, and the beauty you see will bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart."

I've enjoyed reading all the above insightful responses.

But, ego is not a mirror, or friend or enemy - simply learned patterns of belief with accompanying misperceptions.

It is Reality that is the accurate mirror of consciousness.

Either I am fully conscious, 'aware of being,' experiencing eternal aliveness OR I'm identifying with the programmed ego and in 'hell'. The learned egoic thought system is only an insane impediment to clarity of vision, reason and creation. Any remnant of ego distorts perception. However much one tries, "You can't ride two horses, or pull two bows." (G.of Thomas)

Excellent question!

While my ego functions, it is the one that judges and presumes itself worthy to do so. The best mirror is to watch yourself decide the worth of friends and family internally then consider what we accuse them off. No one hates the proud like the arrogant. While not all works so easily there is a very good chance that a person that bugs you because of a trait shares that trait with you. If you are a smoke there's no one worse to associate with than an ex smoker and ViceVersa.

I doubt if it could be called a mirror so much as a pond because the vision is distorted by all manner of other things.

Enjoy the view because it shifts constantly, it's the natural forces in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-1JVctSOY

♥Agape♥

♥Blessed Be♥

♥=∞

I'll answer the question, the mirror of ego is broken and reflects a different image of the one image as many faces or types. Mine pieces many of them have been glued back into their proper place and they reflect the image more clearly and they reflect the light much clearly, but some pieces still remain in the shadows, if they didn't I wouldn't be here, would I? :p

But nevertheless it will all be brought into the light harmony. The organic consciousness will become a fullness instead of a divided defect. A kingdom divided can not stand, a kingdom united will rule over all.

Like Val, and CV & CD & others, I can see some great inconsistencies in my ego.

One minute it wants A, the next it's doing B - there's just no consistency; it's a mess. :-)

The only time I'm consistent, I walk my talk, am genuine; is paradoxically when I'm 'not me'.

I can see 'me' (my 'conditioning'), but I'm 'not me'.

That's the only time when I'm a coherent whole. I make sense...

The rest of the time I'm just a fool.

As CC says - to find the self, you must forget the self: and be Enlightened by All Things. (Zen Master Dogen).

Am not 'not-me', at all times yet. Will have to continue 'training'.

But you guys help; and Yahoo! Answers - and other factors, people.

Thank You!

Arjuna :-)

P.S.

Osho speaks of being 'possessed' by the Holy Spirit, and letting it flow through us, as if we were hollow bamboo.

This simile, probably is illustrative of what / how things can be, potentially.

Thanks Cosmics! :-)))

What is ego? When a man is truly dead to the world so too is his ego. What does it matter what someone says, or thinks, or feels about you? Who are they? I know what, and who I am, and I don't need any approval, or disapproval from any person. I know that the Lord knows what I am doing and I can not get away with anything. I stopped trying a long time ago. Character with experienced integrity replaces ego.

Only when I have a real and lasting sense of abundance can I be truly charitable. To my ego, to give anything implies that I will have to do without. "Giving to get" is the inescapable law of the ego. My ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. So fear based, unlike my Spirit which bypasses perception and judgment, because it lives in the Undivided Truth of Unconditional Love. Wake up Spirit! Take the helm!

Peace