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I know that I think fast, and type faster than I think, so those messages were long weren't they? I wanted to make sure that I was understood and sometimes more words helps. I'm glad it did.
More sport if you want to play.....
Interesting that you should say that your life is of no importance and that you wish to make others happy instead of yourself and that you are male. That is an attitude more usually held by women than by men. The selfless, self denying caretaker role. Whenever a woman has said such a thing to me my response is usually, why are you less important than anyone else? And, in order to make others happy one has to be happy oneself - or at least it's much easier that way. Happiness is usually shared with others from a place of happiness. It's harder to make others happy if you are not.
I studied Eastern Philosophy in college and since and the Mahayana idea that you are supposed to forgo your own enlightenment and only help others made no sense to me... here I go with that pesky logic again. Wouldn't someone who had gained enliightenment themselves be infinitely more capable of helping others to gain it?
Let me see if I interpreted a sentence of yours correctly. You said that you find the loss of ego as prescribed by some eastern religions is an excellent way to live. Does that mean that you think that not thinking of yourself as important and only wanting to make others happy to you means loss of ego? That wouldn't be what is meant in terms of Eastern Philosophy or psychology (I've also studied psychology - I like to study) so that is a bit confusing to me. Do you feel that you have been able to experience living without ego? If you have been able to dissolve your personal ego into Superconsciousness then you would be at the most advanced mental/spiritual state according to some forms of Eastern religions. If you have not had the experience of living without ego, how do you know it is an excellent way to live? I personally have not met a fully enlightened person or anyone without an individual ego that I have been able to discern (no Mahayana Buddhist like the Dalai Lama would ever claim to be enlightened for the reasons stated above) and so I do not know that the ego really must be denied, or that you must put yourself lower than everyone else on the planet in order to get there. I actually hardily doubt it. In Eastern Philosophy it is said that one must first have a very strong ego before one is capable of letting it go.
It sounds like not only do you think you need to wean yourself off food, but also your ego???
If my ego needs to go to reach the highest heights, well then I'll say goodbye when I get there. In the mean time I'm going to be happy myself AND make others happy (if I can - making others happy when they can't or won't make themselves happy is quite a challenge) and enjoy and make use of my mind and my entire self AND other people's minds and their selves. I do not believe that that makes me a lesser being. I believe that it gives me more to share and more tools to help.
I also love that I can give other people in my life the gift of making me happy. I'm so happy already that it's easy for people to make me even happier. That way they get those good feelings. I think happy all around is better choice. At least it has been for me.
Greenbunny
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