I don't think Eckhart has fully awakened

[steve247]

Ego is a repository of preferences. Given a choice I'd choose vanilla ice cream over anything else (more specifically, Breyers) but when ego can't have its preference whatever else is available will be just fine. Once awake, preferences can be met or not and it makes no difference because the conditioning that put them there no longer holds sway, yet they remain.

Is ego a repository of preferences? I don't think that is the case at all. Does a bird have an ego because it prefers to eat worms rather than grass?

[Marcel Franke]

> I don't think Eckhart has fully awakened

Of course he hasnt !
I mean, look at him, at the left top corner of this webpage, just out of bed,
drowsy, pale, unshaved, small-eyed,
mumbling something with a Schwarzenegger-accent, like: ..... ooooowe, ... yes, mmm, jah, .......
look at dowse ..... beautifool ... low flaaing painbodies at de horaaizon.... mmmm........yes....

[johny]

Of course he hasnt !
I mean, look at him, at the left top corner of this webpage, just out of bed,
drowsy, pale, unshaved, small-eyed,
mumbling something with a Schwarzenegger-accent, like: ..... ooooowe, ... yes, mmm, jah, .......
look at dowse ..... beautifool ... low flaaing painbodies at de horaaizon.... mmmm........yes....

And not not mention he sleeps with clothes and spects on and keeps adjusting his hairstyle throughout night.

[steve247]

How come you know him so intimately?

[steve247]

Sounds like you may know him a little "too" well

[johny]

No. Just a bit of my uncanny common sense.

[steve247]

so that's what you call it?

[domokato]

Maybe that's just what Eckhart considers to be egolessness -- dissolving his ego the moment it crops up. He gets butterflies, becomes present, and bye bye ego. Therefore, he is egoless.

It doesn't really matter anyway.

I'm with eputkonen on this one -- everyone has a little ego. You need it to survive. Without it you will die eventually. It's the disidentification with it that matters to someone who's trying to awaken.

[steve247]

Maybe that's just what Eckhart considers to be egolessness -- dissolving his ego the moment it crops up. He gets butterflies, becomes present, and bye bye ego. Therefore, he is egoless.

It doesn't really matter anyway.

I'm with eputkonen on this one -- everyone has a little ego. You need it to survive. Without it you will die eventually. It's the disidentification with it that matters to someone who's trying to awaken.

I don't understand why you think we need an ego to survive? The ego is an illusion. Spiritual practice is aimed at dissolving it. We don't need it, that's the whole point. The ego will convince you that you need it.

If Eckhart was egoless then he wouldn't get compulsive thinking and feelings. If he was fully realised that wouldn't happen. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that if spiritual practice is dissolving the ego, which lessens it's hold on distorting your perception of reality, full realisation is when the ego is fully dissolved.

[samadhi]

If Eckhart was egoless then he wouldn't get compulsive thinking and feelings. If he was fully realised that wouldn't happen.

But can you ABSOLUTELY - beyond a shadow of a doubt - know that's true?

[steve247]

We can't know anything with that amount of certainty, but everything he teaches points to it. Disidentifying with compulsive thinking and feelings lessens the intensity at which it will return in the future. Eckhart teaches this. Dissolving the ego. If it did nothing then what would be the point of it. If it lessens then why can there not be a point at which compulsive thinking and feeling never return. That's what I see as fully awakening, or fully self-realising.

It reminds me of the story he tells in the same audio cds about the abbot of a monastery who experiences hand-sweating before meeting a dignitary who is visiting. He then leaves the monastery to become a student of another master for another 10 years, after which he fully awakens.

[johny]

The other day I was listening to Barry Long and he said that the ego is not bad. It protects your body.

[steve247]

The other day I was listening to Barry Long and he said that the ego is not bad. It protects your body.

How's that?

[steve247]

Stress, which is caused by the ego's compulsive tendency to worry, is a massive killer. It plays havoc with your immune system which hinders it's function to protect the body.

If ego is good then why try to dissolve it through disidentification with mind? All is fine.

[johny]

A kid learns to ride bicycle and another learns to fire a gun. The mind learns both through repeating. One learning is considered good and another bad. Mind is just a tool and it's not the problem. You are the problem. What enabled humans to know that there is such thing as enlightenment? Of course the mind.
The story of humankind is evolution of consciousness. And the evolution of consciousness is the evolution of mind. Nothing in the world has evolved so much as the mind has. I would go nature's way.
In the current state of consciousness mind does not understand enlightenment. Awakening experiences have been reported to occur in state of no mind or less activity of mind. But it's going to change. Because consciousness is always evolving. True enlightenment will be when the mind will be one with consciousness. Negation is not the way of nature, addition is.