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EGO
Intro
"Perfection"
I don't have an Ego problem.
I'm too perfect to have an
Ego problem.
Aren't I.
Tumbleweed
It seems that humans
exert every effort to protect their Ego. Apparently it is the most
delicate part of our makeup. The Apple-of-our-eye you might say. I
wonder what the Sages of the Ages have to say on this topic.
*
Here
is a proverb that Christianity and Judaism shares:
"Pride
goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."
*
Sikhism
apparently shares the view:
"The
mightily proud ultimately rot in their own arrogance."
*
Here
is a harmonious view from Theosophy:
"We
say that 'Good' and 'Harmony,' and 'Evil' and 'Disharmony,' are
synonymous. Further we maintain that all pain and suffering are results
of want of Harmony, and that the one terrible and only cause of the
disturbance of Harmony is selfishness in some form or another."
*
This
is an African tradition, that taken out of context may be a bit default
to apply:
"Nzame
(God) is on high, man is on the earth. Yeye O
Yaleke, God is God, man is man. Everyone in
his house, everyone for himself."
*
Two
more shared by Judaism and Christianity:
"The
pride of your heart has deceived you, who live in the clefts of the
rock, who's dwelling is on high, who say in their heart, 'Who will
bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar like the eagle, though
your nest is set among the stars, thence I will bring you down, says
the Lord." (And)
"All
your righteousness are as filthy rags."
*
And
a Shinto view:
"If
you desire to obtain help, put away pride. Even a hair of pride shuts
you off, as if by a great cloud."
*
Also
a Buddhist opinion:
"Traveling
powerless, like a bucket traveling in a well: First with the thought
'I,' misconceiving the self, then arising attachment to things with the
thought 'mine'."
*
Here
is an insight from Jainism:
"Not
knowing the consequences of good and evil karmas, he is afflicted and
hurt. Nevertheless, he, due to his egotism, piles up karmas and
undergoes births and deaths again and again."
*
And
this, another from Buddhism:
"The
fool who thinks he is wise is called a fool indeed."
*
"Confucius
said, A faultless man I cannot hope ever to meet; the most I can hope
for is to meet a man of fixed principals, yet were all around I see
Nothing pretending to be Something, Emptiness pretending to be
Fullness, Penury pretending to be Affluence, even a man of fixed
principals will be none too easy to find."
*
Informative,
to be sure.
Let
us now take the subject to our Aged Sages.
(Vanity)
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