Knowing the Inner-being and the ego-mind, which comes first??

Upon first knowing a person, I think we use the inner being to get to know them because isn't that first meeting a spontaneous situation? We don’t know what this person is like or how they usually act so we cannot plan a conversation with them and therefore we need to draw from our Spontaneity. However, our society today has socially conditioned us to have the same reaction whenever we meet someone new or else we will be thought of as impolite and not make any friends. Consequently, we are expected to go through the same, planned routine with our ego-mind every time we meet someone new. “Hi, how are you?” or “Nice to meet you. My name is _______.” This social conditioning suppresses our spontaneous inner being.

I think the feeling that you know someone really well even if you just met them is a result of the connection of our essence. Our essences are communicating. I’m actually not sure because I don’t think I’ve ever had that experience.

Hm... i think what joyce is saying has a lot to do why our minds--as filing cabinets. Remember that convo we had during class about the mind always analyzing, filing, labeling, categorizing, organizing information? Well, i think that's what josh is talking about--- when we first meet someone, we feel like we already know the person because somewhere in our filing cabinet, we already have information about someone like this person we're meeting. For example, like Ms. Kay said--we might automatically assume somone who's wearing the same ring or has the same tattoo as someone we already know will be exactly the same as the person we know if not very similar. Or someone who speaks kinda like a friend of ours, we would automatically assume that he/she is like the friend we know. Does this make sense? lol i dont know whether if it's the mind or the Being yet. Still thinking about this!! just a thought:)

joyceychen wrote:Hm...but this hugging act of hers (youre saying it comes from her essence? please correct me if I'm off) gets her labelled In a not-so-postive way. Why should she care of labels? Arent we not supposed to conform to society? I think of Hester from Scarlet Letter, but I can't think too straight at the moment, so I can't seem to complete this connection.

I never said she should care about labels. I'm just pointing out that other people will probably judge her thusly.

@ bradley

That's quite neat actually. Should've suspected something like that earlier. Heh.

@ ajk

Thanks. The example came to me rather suddenly and I'm glad I went with it.

I love your answer to my question, Soph. Nicely put

creative bradley!!

I never said she should care about labels. I'm just pointing out that other people will probably judge her thusly

hrm...judge...that word...it's the ego mind that judges, right? So Deliah shows her being and other people's ego minds judge it.

Well I used to be afraid of her hugs because I wanted to save my first hug for a girl that i liked. But she was very warm, and generous, to take my first hug away from me. Then i thought, that was a forced hug, so i can save my 2nd hug, still. But then she constantly raided me with hugs for 2 whole weeks in 9th grade. It reminded me of Hitlers plan in dismantling the will of the Brits by bombing the major cities everyday. The plan backfired, but in Delia's case, she was victorious. There is no cow level.

To emily:
Spontaneou/random situation in which we meet a new friend? Sometimes that might be true. Or probably it isnt true at all. I can only scrape up two examples atm. Th3 first one, emily, your 20, you have a brilliant life, school life at Stanford is like a breeze,zephyr, you nail everything from top to bottom an get straight As. You have great amigos, sustaining family connections. All you need is a Bf, and you ask a friend, she introduces you to one. The meeting was organized. Number 2: You walk down the street, see some guy and you feel not only his sex appeal but waves of....____. Then 1 week later your great friends. That seems to be rndom? But its not, atleast i dont think so. The law of attraction, like attracts like. These 2 lame cases are all the same, law of attraction taking action. If lame stuff like this is law, then imagine the hot stuff.

Next, how do we not meet witht he ego mind? Asking how are you, might be a being answer in caring for the other individual, but ask yourself, How is your eg mind, even if your being is more powerful able to connect with a stranger and really care for him/her in a split second? Then we ask the names? Konichiwa~ watashi wa Bradley desu, whats yours? That isnt being at all. To know the name is to classify, ts the beginning of the classifying that will then mutate into more classification of the person. In Peaceful warrior, the main character at firsts still has a powerful ego, he still wants to know how the hell the old man(Socrates) could jump so high. In the end, it doesnt matter at all. because he knows that there are no need for names, names arent important, names are black and white create rumors gossips, etc. What is important is the experience that you had with the stranger/friend.(all the same) Unfortunatly, that doesnt happen, because due to our need of interconnectivity, we probably misunderstand that urge insideof us and turn it into an easy walking route, dependency. That is why we ask names, so the gradual evolution of closeness is obtained. Even if we feel the essence connection with the other individ, we still greet them with polite(egotistic) greetings dont we?

Nothing personal againest you sista, just business...

JK lol( Jk as in, have nothing againest you, just did the business line out of intuition...dont ego mind it so much..= =)

joyceychen wrote:hrm...judge...that word...it's the ego mind that judges, right? So Deliah shows her being and other people's ego minds judge it.

Yup.

First please tell me what the ego mind is? I always thought the ego mind was our most basic human instincts and the aspect of each person that makes us who we are. And the greater being or whatever you call it, is something we all share. If this is incorrect, please notify me. I have little knowledge in this subject.

if my guess is correct than what does the saying that experience makes us who we are mean? If we all have the potential to become the higher being which makes us the same, when does that mean we lose all of our experience?

.

@Gray
Check out the "Intuition and the Collective Unconscious" discussion thread. I have a brief explanation of the ego mind posted there.

Upon reading all the replies, i think i have came up with several different ideas rooting from my original question.

I think what Bradley and Lee along with other people have said about the importance of label is rather true: the labels are not important, rather, the experience with the person is more important than that of his/her label. However, our ego mind makes us try to classify the person upon meeting, and this classification most definately changes once one meets and came upon the experience of their essence.

As Sophia had said, i also agree that the Chinese comformity caused the people raised in the Chinese culture to be more passive and puts on a heavier mask or even not knowing their own stand at all because of the society's value.

Joyce, I think that it is possible for our ego mind to judge other people's essence, in this case we are talkin about labeling Dehlia's essence (hugging). Since most people are over driven by the ego-mind they simply try to judge and classify other people's essence.

When we are meeting up with someone, as Lee questioned along with others, about how true one is to the person, i think that upon meeting others, it is about trust, trusting the others' essence, trusting them as a person of the same root, this quiets the ego-mind and makes it easier to notice their presence of the essence. This connects to the very first point that the name of someone and their other information may not be important but the important aspect is the experience with them.

Afterall, the experience is both the mind and the essence, which are both components to humans and are both needed, or used in everyday life and are interdependent.

Whenever I meet someone, my ego-mind goes into overdrive and starts evaluating them. this is bad bad bad. which is why i try not to do it. so if i do this, then other people probably do it too. when they meet me, their ego-mind probably starts evaluating and comparing me. as most of you probably know, it takes years to really understand and connect with another person. it takes years to become true best friends with someone. this probably hints that it takes years to connect with another person's being. because if some people can't even control their ego-minds and connect with their being, how are they going to connect with someone else's?
however there are times when you meet someone new, and suddenly you guys hit it off. is this because both of you guys are already proficient enough in connecting with your respective beings? or is it because your ego-minds think alike? and then there are times when two people become best friends in a short while, then they break it off. is this because their beings start emerging? or their ego-mind?

So now you've pretty much got your answer
Oh but there's one part I want to comment on, the Chinese culture mask thing. I don't think that this more obvious conformity in the Chinese culture means we have a heavier mask than any one else. Even the Americans, while they encourage speaking your mind and being "different," maybe there are just some people who prefer to live in their own worlds like Thoreau, those people that aren't extroverts get labeled as losers in American culture, so people also work to conform as well, to that whole "cool kid" image. And also, when these people are pushed into conforming by being "rebellious" and trying to come up with unique ways of presenting themselves, a lot of time they come of with crappy ideas that have no life to them, look at the emo scene, or break dancers or rock bands, most of these people only do this stuff to fit in, to avoid being labeled as a loser by "shining." Hardly anyone does it because they actually appreciate the beauty that lives in the art. That gives them a mask jsut as heavy as Chinese people's.

And yeah, I'm liking pretty much everything else, especially that part where you realize that the ego mind is just as important. Bad comes from misuse of it, good comes from smart application, it's not bad in itself, we're the ones to blame if we ever find ourselves dealing with an ego-mind run wild. Gj

And when you said "JK lol" to what you said that basically meant "it's personal, totally against you and not just business" correct?

Th3 first one, emily, your 20, you have a brilliant life, school life at Stanford is like a breeze,zephyr, you nail everything from top to bottom an get straight As. You have great amigos, sustaining family connections. All you need is a Bf, and you ask a friend, she introduces you to one. The meeting was organized. Number 2: You walk down the street, see some guy and you feel not only his sex appeal but waves of....____. Then 1 week later your great friends. That seems to be rndom? But its not, atleast i dont think so. The law of attraction, like attracts like. These 2 lame cases are all the same, law of attraction taking action. If lame stuff like this is law, then imagine the hot stuff.

haha...that wasn't what I exactly had in mind when I said "spontaneous situation." I was referring to say you are sitting next to a stranger on the bus and decide to strike up a conversation with that person. Isn't that meeting totally a surprise and calls for spontaneity? Or when your friend suddenly comes up to you at a party dragging her/his old acquaintance with them that you have never seen before. Isn't that spontaneous? You weren't even thinking about wanting to know someone so how can that be law of attraction?

And remember Emerson said that you don't need to go through formalities or be courteous to a true friend? Isn't that because they are connecting on a level deeper than the ego-mind and deeper than the pretense of social guidelines?
Also, I don't believe that everything that happens in a split second is necessarily the doing of the inner being. How does a computer search engine find what you are looking for in a split second or calculate something in a split second? Obviously these objects do not have an inner being so I think it is safe to say that if we go through a routine and practice it enough, it will become almost like a reflex and we can do it with the ego-mind (that can be compared to a computer) quite quickly.
I'm sorry but the other half of your paragraph did not make much sense to me therefore I cannot reply to it.

my posts are an attempt to let you see from my perspective and trying to understand you perspective and absolutely not personal (unlike yours, right? jk ) it's been nice sharing ideas with you

haha i love you guys for raising the example with Delia.. shes such an interesting character

I think she acts on her Spontaneity most of the time and that is what causes her to hug even the strangest people. I would consider that spontaneity as display and exposure of her essence because she is just doing what she wants and not really even thinking about it with her ego mind. Therefore if it doesnt come from the ego mind, where does it come from? The being and essence perhaps?

However, as people (cant remember who) have talked about before, about the social conditioning and the expectations of the society for us to behave in a certain manner and to conform to certain customs or regulations, people are expected to behave in much the same way. For example, we are expected to be polite and have manners when we first meet someone, we are expected to respect people's personal spaces and boundaries of their comfort zones and not to violate them under any sort of circumstances. These are all what is called common sense in our society and people are expected to know and adhere to these principles. However, spontaneity is not conformity and doesnt have to follow any set of doctrine or anything. Therefore, Delia's hugging, which is totally out of spontaneity, is considered weird and intimidating by most of the people. This is because our social conditioning and teachings have taught us that we should not behave this way because it violates certain rules or regulations etc. But we are only judging with our ego minds.
What if we were able to just drop that ego mind perspective and view this act of hugging with our essence? Would it be seen as something perhaps normal? But right now most of us think that this hugging is out of spontaneity, therefore stemming from her essense and inner being. What if it werent? What if this hugging is just a trademark of hers and she just likes being known as the hugger, therefore she continues to hug strangers? What if she is just used to the consistency? Would that change anything? What if it is yet another mask that she is hiding behind in order to conceal a certain part of herself (not that I am saying that she is, just raising a question)? Is it possible to know another person's true motives for doing something? Is it possible to determine whether an action or idea from another person came out of spontaneity and the inner being, or the ego mind?

Kenny wrote:So now you've pretty much got your answer
Oh but there's one part I want to comment on, the Chinese culture mask thing. I don't think that this more obvious conformity in the Chinese culture means we have a heavier mask than any one else. Even the Americans, while they encourage speaking your mind and being "different," maybe there are just some people who prefer to live in their own worlds like Thoreau, those people that aren't extroverts get labeled as losers in American culture, so people also work to conform as well, to that whole "cool kid" image. And also, when these people are pushed into conforming by being "rebellious" and trying to come up with unique ways of presenting themselves, a lot of time they come of with crappy ideas that have no life to them, look at the emo scene, or break dancers or rock bands, most of these people only do this stuff to fit in, to avoid being labeled as a loser by "shining." Hardly anyone does it because they actually appreciate the beauty that lives in the art. That gives them a mask jsut as heavy as Chinese people's.

You mean scenesters, not emo scene. By emo scene, you're implying emo being a genre of music (music scene, as in the punk scene, metal scene) which it very much isn't, at least not anymore.

Are you sure that the sole reason why people fit themselves in these boxes though is to fit in? It might be the reason for some people, definitely, but oftentimes people label themselves like that, adopt the look and mannerisms because they feel it fits them more than anything else. They don't necessary try to come up with new unique ways of presenting themselves, they just go for whatever way they see out there that fits them the most, isntead of trying to develop and discover their own individuality. There's probably as much of an element of conformity in American culture as much as Chinese culture as you point out, though I think its different. I suppose an easy way to put is that American culture offers more masks, while Chinese culture offers less. That would explain the perceived greater conformity in Chinese culture and the illusion of individuality in American culture.

This is a really really interesting question.

I've thought about it and I really think that it depends heavily on culture background as well as personality of the person. Let's take...me for an example. When I went to GYLC Europe for 2008 summer, I kinda freaked out because well, everyone, save like less than twenty out of 400 students that went were asians. Perhaps it was that I've been living in the eastern hemisphere for my whole life and never really got much contact with the western hemisphere that I freaked out about having to get to know so many white people. And trust me, I wasn't trying to be racist but more like I was scared to reach out. Because of this fear, on the first day, I was more reserved (haha unlike me, I know) and kind of stood off on the side and watched how things interacted. Then, I took the courage and got to know this one girl that seemed to be not that surrounded by other girls. As I talked to her at first, you could say my ego-mind took over and I didn't dare to let my true self come out just yet. JUST YET. Then, after I got to know her better and better, I began to show her my true self and we got along fine. More than fine, actually, because she became my best friend throughout all of camp.

What I'm trying to say from that piece of experience is that the ego-mind is out there in the beginning because as much as we try not to, our ego-minds will be out there trying to evaluate the other person and try to pre-see what kind of a person the other is. To cope with that, bringing out the ego-mind a little to cope with that ego-minded judgment is kind of characteristic of some of us to do when meeting a new person to become friends with them. I think that this little upbringing of the ego-mind is okay as long as it starts to recede and the Being and the essence comes out. So it's like....a tug-o-war kind of thing, if you guys get my drift.

With the ego-mind being way out there when getting to make friends, it's basically like a lie twisting into a newer and more mixed up lie. An analogy would be something like you entering a dark cave. The more you go in, the more twists and turns you have to go through and by the end you won't know how to get out so you die and rot in there. HAHA HOW MORBID. Anyway, that's what it's like to venture too far with the ego-mind. The mind is there for a certain purpose, of course, but pushing it that far into overdrive only makes things in the end more and more disastrous.

You could always say it's the person's inner decision, in the end, to decide whether they want to let the ego-mind take over or not while getting to know another person.

Then again, all of us have that side of us that tries to judge another with the ego-mind. Goodness I try so hard to get rid of that but tis hard hard hard. Anyway, if it was possible for this side of the ego-mind to disappear, then it'd be much easier for everyone to let their essence flow and create that "vibe" to connect with similar ones etc. However, realistically speaking, I think that this part of the ego-mind is always there.

Fionaaa wrote:
however there are times when you meet someone new, and suddenly you guys hit it off. is this because both of you guys are already proficient enough in connecting with your respective beings? or is it because your ego-minds think alike? and then there are times when two people become best friends in a short while, then they break it off. is this because their beings start emerging? or their ego-mind?

oh hm...good question. so what lets two people be able to hit off immediately, upon the first meeting? that's part 1. part 2 is how long does this sudden connection sustain?

when you like someone, even just as a friend type of like, how do we describe the whys and reasons? a lot of the time, for me, it boils down to how much i fun i have when i'm hanging out with that person, or maybe how i can be myself (and show my being?). when i think about it, the people i truly enjoy being around with, what is it about them that makes their company so enjoyable? their personality? or is it that deeper being connection? if it is, i dont think i can label it then. is that why it's hard to put in words the reasons why we like someone? it's a feeling (is feeling created by the ego mind or being?)

what really interests me is the last question fiona mentioned, of what happens when a sudden close relationship dies out. the feeling disappears, perhaps we see the true side of that person that didnt shine out in the beginning. so, as fiona said, if it seems to take years for stable friendships to be made, maybe that's why there are short friendships. the true self wasnt there just yet and once it did show, it wasnt compatible with our being. so does that mean our beings have choice/different compatibility levels?

i feel like i'm constantly going in a circle here. my barrier is at where our differences are created, and as proey's picture in her thread depicted, what determines which arrows we are.

i'm sorry if this post wasnt very meaningful in content, because as i said, i feel like the same problem wall is hindering me from fully understanding.

I think feeling is a product of the soul, and emotions are a product of the mind. Feeling is the product of the soul because touch and feeling is like the soul always being there, experiencing every physical contact with everything. It is ourselves being 'conscious'. Emotion is a product of our minds because it is the constant thoughts that it never stops producing. It is our artificial minds constantly producing emotions such as anxiety, fear, excitement etc...and our emotions result in the effect of our BEing/Soul. Our being and our soul is always present within us. But we get effected by our emotions (such as fear) thus we limit ourselves (or the other way around) and we dont fulfill our goals and reach using our "fullest" unlimited human potential (such as not going into the new, or not taking risks because we have fear within us)

Thanks everyone for the contribution, not only did my questions get answered, there were alot more questions discussed in relation to my inquiries, which is all very interesting too since it also made me think and consider them too. Conclusion to my question though is that we meet both the ego-mind and the essence but which one comes first depends on both the person that i'm meeting as well as myself. Some of the communications between us are not evidental, such are the communications between the essence and the ego-mind as a tool tries to classify the other's essence, yet, it can never be done, and that the most important thing upon meeting someone is the experience with them, which is essence combined with ego-thoughts. Another important lesson is that we have to treat friends sincerely, and with confidence to show my essence and not hide behind the mask.