J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
Archbishop Sheen wrote about the ego, long before Echart Tolle started teaching about it.
Yet, some think it’s a New Age Concept.
Jim
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Yet, some think it’s a New Age Concept.
Jim
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
Ego is supported by pride, and fueled by excessive needs for security, power, and esteem.
C
christofirst
Guest
"Day by day we let the husk of the ego drop away and like a seed we die to self so that we can fulfil the destiny, our true meaning, in which the potential of life within us comes to full fruition." Fr. John Main O.S.B. from the book Monastery Without Walls.
"When you are in the now, the ego (me) dissolves, because it feeds on past and future. The little me is made up of the past." Brother David Steindl-Rast.
Putting aside the ego (as difficult as that may be), what is the other common link between Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen and John Main and Br. David? Mount Saviour Monastery! When Fulton Sheen became bishop of Rochester, NY, his jurisdiction included Mount Saviour, and he was always a good friend to them. Brother David Steindl-Rast is a monk of Mount Saviour, and John Main is buried there (a history lesson for those not yet inclined to let go the ego.)
"When you are in the now, the ego (me) dissolves, because it feeds on past and future. The little me is made up of the past." Brother David Steindl-Rast.
Putting aside the ego (as difficult as that may be), what is the other common link between Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen and John Main and Br. David? Mount Saviour Monastery! When Fulton Sheen became bishop of Rochester, NY, his jurisdiction included Mount Saviour, and he was always a good friend to them. Brother David Steindl-Rast is a monk of Mount Saviour, and John Main is buried there (a history lesson for those not yet inclined to let go the ego.)
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
Interesting about Saviour Monastery."Day by day we let the husk of the ego drop away and like a seed we die to self so that we can fulfil the destiny, our true meaning, in which the potential of life within us comes to full fruition." Fr. John Main O.S.B. from the book Monastery Without Walls.
"When you are in the now, the ego (me) dissolves, because it feeds on past and future. The little me is made up of the past." Brother David Steindl-Rast.
Putting aside the ego (as difficult as that may be), what is the other common link between Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen and John Main and Br. David? Mount Saviour Monastery! When Fulton Sheen became bishop of Rochester, NY, his jurisdiction included Mount Saviour, and he was always a good friend to them. Brother David Steindl-Rast is a monk of Mount Saviour, and John Main is buried there (a history lesson for those not yet inclined to let go the ego.)
Also, I didn’t know that John Main had died.
Jim
C
christofirst
Guest
He died in 1982, which seems like only yesterday depending on how old you are.Interesting about Saviour Monastery.
Also, I didn’t know that John Main had died.
Jim
"A Christian possesses power, the power of the Risen Lord, and it is power that consists in the liberation of spirit that is achieved through the cycle of death and resurrection, through our participation in the dying and rising of Jesus. What dies as we persevere in the opening of ourselves to the Spirit is our narrow limited ego and all the petty concerns and ambitions with which it boards over the shaft of our being; what dies is the fear we experience as we see the light emerging from this shaft; what dies is everything that obscures us from realizing life, life in all its fullness." Fr. John Main O.S.B., from his book Word into Silence.
(sorry if it seems I’m hijacking your thread into a John Main thread, but so far I haven’t read any Tolle, and Main had a lot to say about the ego too.)
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
No need to apologize. What you’re posting is spot on the subject the good Archbishop Sheen wrote about.He died in 1982, which seems like only yesterday depending on how old you are.
"A Christian possesses power, the power of the Risen Lord, and it is power that consists in the liberation of spirit that is achieved through the cycle of death and resurrection, through our participation in the dying and rising of Jesus. What dies as we persevere in the opening of ourselves to the Spirit is our narrow limited ego and all the petty concerns and ambitions with which it boards over the shaft of our being; what dies is the fear we experience as we see the light emerging from this shaft; what dies is everything that obscures us from realizing life, life in all its fullness." Fr. John Main O.S.B., from his book Word into Silence.
(sorry if it seems I’m hijacking your thread into a John Main thread, but so far I haven’t read any Tolle, and Main had a lot to say about the ego too.)
Jim
C
christofirst
Guest
The very idea of not being who we think we are can be disconcerting, to say the least. Understandably, most of us cling tenaciously to our concept of ourselves, myself included. As you have said before, Christian mystics and sages from most all of the world’s religions have spoken of the necessity of our letting go of the ego, the false self, though of course the word “ego” from Freud is relatively new. The idea is not. So it is good when you show a trusted source like Fulton Sheen using the term and saying what sounds threatening and suspect coming from some “other” source (“other” meaning “not one of us”).No need to apologize. What you’re posting is spot on the subject the good Archbishop Sheen wrote about.
Jim
Answer me this, if you can, where does ego end and True Self begin?
"What impresses me most - reading Shantideva - is not only the emphasis on solitude but the idea of solitude as part of the clarification which includes living for others: dissolution of the self in “belonging to everyone” and regarding everyone’s suffering as one’s own. This is really incomprehensible unless one shares something of the deep existential Buddhist concept of suffering as bound up with the arbitrary formation of an illusory ego-self. To be “homeless” is to abandon one’s attachment to a particular ego - and yet to care for one’s life (in the highest sense) in the service of others. A deep and beautiful idea" Thomas Merton from his journals, The Intimate Merton.
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
christofirst
When we love God and he draws us closer to himself, through Jesus Christ, we come to know our true self, the person God had in mind when he created us.
Jim
When we encounter the living God. For He knows only the true self of who we are.Answer me this, if you can, where does ego end and True Self begin?
When we love God and he draws us closer to himself, through Jesus Christ, we come to know our true self, the person God had in mind when he created us.
Jim
N
nuntym
Guest
+JMJ+
I have always wondered about Jesus’ use of the passive voice in describing our prospects for salvation: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (e.g., Matt. 22:14). The parables show a great deal of choosing, of exactly the day-planning and life-determining kind that we now deem central to human existence.
When the king proclaims a feast for the wedding of his son (Matt. 22; Luke 14:16-24), a lot of people choose not to attend because they have already chosen better ways to be the busy deities over their own time; they have already chosen their nap in the lair of the dragon. One man chooses to tend his field, because he has already chosen that good harvests of grain will direct his life. Another man is busy with his merchandise. Another has recently married. Finally, the angry king sends his servants out to find those whose very poverty and debility have sundered them from the illusions of important business: the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
Jesus does not sum up such parables by saying what we might expect, “Many are called, but few are they who choose to attend.” That is certainly because salvation lies in God’s choice and is a gift of his grace alone: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
But it is also, I think, because some people have chosen never to be chosen. They have hooded themselves, have plugged up their ears. They are too busy, in the godlike disposing of their means and of their lives, to be put at God’s disposal. Many would cry out, “Lord, Lord, we chose you!” What they did not do, what they thought it beneath their dignity to do, was **let the Lord choose them. **
“The Lovely Dragon of Choice”
I would say it’s where one stops making choices on who he can be and starts realizing he was chosen.Answer me this, if you can, where does ego end and True Self begin?
I have always wondered about Jesus’ use of the passive voice in describing our prospects for salvation: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (e.g., Matt. 22:14). The parables show a great deal of choosing, of exactly the day-planning and life-determining kind that we now deem central to human existence.
When the king proclaims a feast for the wedding of his son (Matt. 22; Luke 14:16-24), a lot of people choose not to attend because they have already chosen better ways to be the busy deities over their own time; they have already chosen their nap in the lair of the dragon. One man chooses to tend his field, because he has already chosen that good harvests of grain will direct his life. Another man is busy with his merchandise. Another has recently married. Finally, the angry king sends his servants out to find those whose very poverty and debility have sundered them from the illusions of important business: the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
Jesus does not sum up such parables by saying what we might expect, “Many are called, but few are they who choose to attend.” That is certainly because salvation lies in God’s choice and is a gift of his grace alone: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
But it is also, I think, because some people have chosen never to be chosen. They have hooded themselves, have plugged up their ears. They are too busy, in the godlike disposing of their means and of their lives, to be put at God’s disposal. Many would cry out, “Lord, Lord, we chose you!” What they did not do, what they thought it beneath their dignity to do, was **let the Lord choose them. **
“The Lovely Dragon of Choice”
M
Mystical_Seeker
Guest
Maybe the True Self as evidenced in this physical life is the limit that the ego has if completely self-effaced. So one can come ever closer to the True Self; also the ego can have mysterious hiding places that even when it seems to be out of the way of the True Self, the right trigger could cause them to expose themselves in our thoughts, words, and actions.
So there may be an experience of “True Self” and for me it is more of an experience of an incremental increase more than attaining some level of consciousness that gives me “sufficient” fruit of the spirit to consider that to be the Final End Point. And since testing is not complete, I cannot presume there are not hidden places in my soul which have not surfaced through testing by life’s vicissitudes or other spiritual exercise, at least to the degree anybody noticed and called it to the attention of my consciousness portion of me ego/Self.
So we may not even actually “know” our true selves, but if we get as much ego off of it then we may get some general shape. For me, the important part isn’t so much to understand it, as to exploit it, to help other people find their own fruit if they want, and ever-improve my own.
MS
So there may be an experience of “True Self” and for me it is more of an experience of an incremental increase more than attaining some level of consciousness that gives me “sufficient” fruit of the spirit to consider that to be the Final End Point. And since testing is not complete, I cannot presume there are not hidden places in my soul which have not surfaced through testing by life’s vicissitudes or other spiritual exercise, at least to the degree anybody noticed and called it to the attention of my consciousness portion of me ego/Self.
So we may not even actually “know” our true selves, but if we get as much ego off of it then we may get some general shape. For me, the important part isn’t so much to understand it, as to exploit it, to help other people find their own fruit if they want, and ever-improve my own.
MS
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
The thing that Archbishop Sheen is pointing out is that we can not hide our true selves from God. The masks the ego creates God does not know, but only the true person behind the mask.
In the story of Adam and Eve, after they had disobeyed God, they felt exposed and sought to cover their nakedness. But God knew them and saw through what they sought to hid.
The nakedness Adam and Eve were ashamed of, was not their physical bodies being naked, but their true being being exposed. They sought to cover their sin via the ego, which took over the moment they sought to eat the forbidden fruit and be like God.
The allegorical story in Genesis has a deeper spiritual message behind it than just the eating of the forbidden fruit, but the immediate effect of sin on the true being God created.
When we have the experience of faith in Jesus Christ, He begins the process of stripping away the ego, through His transforming grace.
He brings us to the being God had in mind when he created us. We become whole persons, or in other words, holy because we are now one with Him who is Holy.
Jim
In the story of Adam and Eve, after they had disobeyed God, they felt exposed and sought to cover their nakedness. But God knew them and saw through what they sought to hid.
The nakedness Adam and Eve were ashamed of, was not their physical bodies being naked, but their true being being exposed. They sought to cover their sin via the ego, which took over the moment they sought to eat the forbidden fruit and be like God.
The allegorical story in Genesis has a deeper spiritual message behind it than just the eating of the forbidden fruit, but the immediate effect of sin on the true being God created.
When we have the experience of faith in Jesus Christ, He begins the process of stripping away the ego, through His transforming grace.
He brings us to the being God had in mind when he created us. We become whole persons, or in other words, holy because we are now one with Him who is Holy.
Jim
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