Is the ego so prideful it thinks it deserves a majestic death?

[Crazy Louie]

Hello everyone and thank you for walking with me for a bit. I wonder about why we as americans think so much about the end. The ending of life as we know it, why do we think we are above living like the majority of the world now lives? I think we are in denial about just what we have done as a collective whole to the rest of the world if even half the revelations of our secret history are right. Regardless what you call it Karma and such - we have done some terrible stuff. By asking in the personage of an American I put it in the context of the Rammstein song - (only watch if you want to catch the flavor of what I am trying to say here) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvqkQvOWgeo - It's my thought that "Can we really complain? - in a nutshell for America it seems like its going to be bow down before the one you serve, your going to get what you deserve. Yet that does not stop me feeling a deep cosmic sorrow for the pain and horrible conclusions that will be inflicted on so many - eventually - those that never had a voice nor a say - those that were brainwashed and led into hell by a system they thought they were suppose to believe in. Those who had a slave life under the belief they were free. We have not just done this to our nation but we have planted the seed deep into the world - I mean even Star Trek has the ship named Enterprise. As in the capitalistic crap of free enterprise. A failed ego imposed system - man's choice - "Okay Adam and Eve you wanted that bike so bad didn't you - now get on it and ride!"

Why have we thought into existence so many possible endings - grand blueprints for destruction. My take is this, when we die this reality dies. No matter how we die. In the meantime why all the effort put into tomorrow? It seems to me without it - without all our grandiose thoughts of all the mega possibilities, we are left with a startling revelation - we are going to die a most boring unglorious death just like everything else. Dust in the wind. My thought is the ego loves to bath in some grand ending, the ego wants to be clever and come up with the best thoughtout ending for itself that is possible, in the vast complexities of this ego fueled delusion that THIS reality means anything at all besides the kindness and love given. Now you just read that run on and run on sentence and my ego is smirking. It is a human condition. I can be aware of it but the ego has us believing it is us. We have to have a physical death in order to get away from it. My ego talks to your ego - otherwise there would be nothing written here.
It is our way - our condition. So much talk about waking up - society is waking up - main stream media is a lie - blah blah blah - and then we think we are doing something to wake up more by going to the internet - but even that is now tainted. Talking heads wagging tongues and so much of it just another lie - delivered to us as this new thing this new way - waking up? Just more diversion and man's wisdom chasing it's tail.

I am not saying it is not interesting - beats superficial conversation with the clowns all dancing around town and in the houses where their lives are celebrated in various fashion. What I am saying is no one knows anything that is going to change anything about everything we thought we knew and now think we know because we woke up.

Sometimes you wake up from a dream and then find out you are in another dream - tell me that ain't happened to you. How many dreams deep are we? The heart of the matter is I think a nod of the head - a pat on the the shoulder when we meet another world weary worn down real person who despite all the vomit in their life can still take the time to try and see you as you also try to undertand them. How did we get here? This place that if its night and we are getting in our vehicle and we see a person walking up on us our first thought is "Oh crap" the last thought in our mind is they are bringing us our wallet we just dropped 30 steps back. Love everyone - trust no one.

So, I don't see what the all the fuss is about gold silver survival gear food supplies etc - what kind of world are we talking about - it won't be a game show. I think it will be just how it is. The end game. Quite possibly we won't even mind it once we are gone. I jest our ego has a way of projecting itself into the future - any future - including life after death - I think the ego knows - its not going anywhere past this physical realm - and that is why we think we fear death - it is the ego fearing its end. While the soul which in so many cases probably don't even know where it is at right now will finally have its existence restored to what it was prior to coming here. My thought is the soul was given a brain in this realm to help it conduct life and was suppose to be in union with the brain. The brain became infused with ego and screwed the soul and the battle has always been the ego trying to make the soul its slave. Apparently psychopaths have won that battle. However like the start of the nixon movie says - the bible quote - what benefit is it for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?

Sorry if I got lost in some bumper car thoughts in all this. I fight a war everytime I try to speak - ego versus spirit. I wonder if the soul winners of the ego soul fight ever say anything to anybody besides yes and no. They have no need to attempt to change anything because they understand. Understand the difference between the letter of the law and the spiritual law. The former having been infused with the ego of man and the latter being something that can only come about when the ego is seen and momentarily stopped so that a moment of enlightenment can happen.

So ya, why do we think we deserve a majestic cosmic ending to this life instead of going soprano? (recent actor death in news) And in closing whats the deal with rapture? Where are all those fine souls that are going to be raptured? After a life time of working as a social worker in so many places that others did not want to work - I found more clients that were worthy (and that was few) than any of my co workers and all the professionals sucking up the bucks, coffee, and butt space on a herman miller office chair. What I am saying is if all these rapture people were real and existed life would be a whole different experience wouldn't it? - Side note: Once as a CPS worker I sent out letters to every church in town asking those in charge to ask their flock if anyone would be interested in being an emergency foster care provider when we had to take a kid into protective custody - 19 letters went out. ------ you know reading this what the response was.

this is my first post - apparently I have had some thoughts stored up.

[Freed Fox]

Kurt Vonnegut describes WWI & II as humanity's unsuccessful attempts at suicide.

He writes in the novel Timequake;


Henry David Thoreau said most famously, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

So it is not one whit mysterious that we poison the water and air and topsoil, and construct ever more cunning doomsday devices, both industrial and military. Let us be perfectly frank for a change. For practically everybody, the end of the world can't come soon enough.

[...]

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that, to quote the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, "being alive is a crock of sh!t."

I'll take whatever death comes my way. I'd prefer it to be relatively quick, though, to be honest. I don't give a sh*t about whether or not it's majestic.

[Mark]

You do have some thoughts stored up. Thank you for sharing them and welcome to Avalon. You have some salient thoughts and questions in regards to human ego and the state of humanity. Is empathy dead? What is it all about? I find that question of the highest importance. As an ode to your thoughts on Life and Death, I'd like to share a poem I wrote as my response:

The Shibboleth of Fears

When I die, just let my body lie, right there, on the ground. Don’t bury me and don’t burn me, let me remain where I’m found. Let my corpse fester, bloat, molder and rot, let the Insects eat me, let the Birds and Animals feast on my flesh till nothing’s left but bones and ground. Let Nature have me, let Life consume me, returning me to the essence of Creation itself. The endless process of Birth, Death and Rebirth, nothing is wasted all is gained, as I return to the Earth. A smorgasbord, real wealth, every morsel enjoyed, creatures large and small benefit as my cells are redeployed.

Don’t waste time on grieving, or mourning my loss, my Essence will be in the Wind, my Soul is not lost. Energy cannot be destroyed only transformed, that much is true. In the gaze of a Vulture or the sheen of a Fly, my genetic material will return by and by. The smell, it will pass, the grotesquery is not for long, the efficiency of Nature is a bounteous and beautiful song. Waste not an ounce of artificial preservers, no embalming fluids at all, the Stars, Dirt and Trees deserve the bounty of my Fall.

As my eyes glaze over and my vision is dimmed, a single, solitary blade of Grass shall be my last friend. So beautiful, so wild, so perfectly formed, as Darkness closes in that sight shall keep me warm. As feelings grow distant and movement grows faint, I look forward to the clarion call of Angels, the bass bellow of the Saints. The only Church I need are the Trees grown so tall, their crowns like wondrous temples, that beckon one and all. I seek not large Funerals, not accolades or words, the gratitude of the Ants is enough, or even the Birds. To give back to life is the highest of destinies, to return to mere Dust and to float on the Breeze.

Think of me when you look to the Sky and the Stars, when you hear a faint voice on the Wind, from afar. If ever your Thoughts should in my direction turn, remember my Words and my spurning of Urns. Of Coffins and Burials, of Ceremonies and Grief, to return to the material of Life itself eases my Journey Beyond, no more do I ask, because Love is Eternal and sharing our task. To some this may sound crazy and it is to you I speak now, this is no form of vanity but a norm of the Tao. We belong to this Planet this is known beyond doubt, our bodies are Stardust coalesced sent to scout out the vagaries of Life to seek Strife to seek Pain to live Joy to live Hard to live Right from the Start.

My Blessing was to be here and perhaps yours was too, to experience the bounty of Life’s fatal Brew to drink deep to drink long to eat, dance, sing and sleep, to greet the Morn with a smile to walk long and lonely miles, to find Companionship and Hate, to have Babies and to await the arrival of Death upon our Shores, to be thankful for everything and much more. These are the most transcendent Gifts as we approach that fateful Rift between Life and what lies Beyond, those places we go when we break our last bond with all that remains here in this fateful Vale of Tears, the recognition of true Origins, that Shibboleth of Fears.

So pay heed to my words and listen closely I plead, they come from my spirit and the highest of needs. To give back to Earth Mother and to seek the Father’s ear, to look forward to Judgement with the highest of cheer. We are not our bodies these are but vehicles indeed, that served us as needed as we followed our Creeds. When I go to rest I care not regarding flesh, but if I have a say in it I prefer to nourish weeds. This is the Greatest of Loves, this Truth I assert, to witness the flight of a Dove, to forget harms and hurts, before my eyes close forever and my flesh returns to dirt, to you I send all that I ever claimed as mine as I surrender to the Divine. My laughter echoes Heavenward as my spirit climbs aligned with the Stairway to Heaven and the Highest of High. And the last you will hear from me shall be a well-contented sigh.

[ghostrider]

I was just thinking today, how many people have been killed by war, world war I and 2 , Korea, Hitler and the germans killing jews, Bush's Iraq wars etc ... we think killing humans and bombing cities solves anything ... We have allowed it, re-electing the same maniacs who always go along to get along ... I think our generation has done more harm to earth and to mankind than any other generation ... Not speaking of members of avalon, speaking of the sleeping masses who care not for the future but what can they get for their own greed and ego driven top of the pyramid mindset ... Earth really needs a reset, if the whole enchilada was tossed down the lue , on one level , it is could be the right thing to do ...

[deridan]

one word for you: 'fumarole : an opening on volcano through which hot vapours escape.'
..I agree that the rapture or what it entails is not for those that can sit on butts and consider (or merely accrue it to a repertoire of known things, ..perhaps direct a silent meditation towards achieving it), but for those who really deserve it, [& might never hear of it].
,,,just to add more magma, ..the ego would be that part which becomes engrossed with mobility in an environment. those who have split personalities suffer under the ego (i.e. would it be better to play this role, or that role,,,,to get what i want or to survive),
..the soul would be the medium from which the original man stretches, across many time phases, which is why one of the greatest wisdoms is to be still

[Crazy Louie]

Freed Fox - I think it was Vonnegut who informed me of how Dresden was so over bombed during the second world war that more innocents were killed than when we nuked japan - I like the Kilgore Trout quote - I think Bukowski once found a guy dying and the dying man last's words were "Nothing is worth it." I think in terms of dying non majestic I was refering to our nation as a whole - why are we unable to grasp that we really have seperated ourselves from what ever it was that once made us special and now we will become as in the book "The Road" - some buddist sects eat out of human skulls - not because they are morbid but so they are always reminded of death because they think life is all about the moment of death. Birth into the real reality. Thank you for your thoughts.

[Crazy Louie]

ghostrider - I think the reset will have to include the dead of what we call ego - the ego seems to be the main problem with ever getting anything fixed or corrected in any type of system we invent as a whole - all the wonderful concepts and ways to live are useless as long as there are slobs (psychopaths in charge) who only have their eye on power - again and again I run this circle in my mind about why why why are their people who think anything here is of value in the next life - for me its like trying to find this peace in soul that then floods the mind so I can reach the point that when they run a sword into me and I look down I can really think "this too is okay" -- I feel this crud you know - and I believe that we need a reset so bad I am willing to be part of the death that will find so many in the end - maybe I won't be alive - I don't know - everyone has their own theory of timeline - I try to do the jesus thought when he said "why worry about tomorrow when there's plenty to worry about today." Of course he also said to "Watch" - I want to be aware but at the same time its very hard to find real awareness when there are so many ---- well it's like when macdonalds had those kids play areas and that big pit of balls - all different colors - and kids would jump in - and that was fun I guess - but now adays you get on Utube and start looking and one thing leads to another and pretty soon your wondering why the clowns are making so much noise on your roof at 4 in the morning. I think we are on the right track at least we are trying. Which is really strange to feel when your all awake to so many ideas and then you get around people and forget they prefer sleep - was I ahead of my time when 30 years ago people where saying don't rain on my parade and I was saying I don't want to rain on your parade I want to drop a thunderstorm with wind and hail on it. -- and yea ole - "you think to much" and me back to them - "No, you don't think enough." Anyway thanks for responding appreciate it.

[Crazy Louie]

deridan - would agree on soul - in one of the psalms it says god set eternity into the soul of man. which to me means the soul was someplace existing before there was something called eternity - the problem I run into in trying to define soul is I am so small and stupid and a speck in this universe which is a speck of something that is another speck of etc etc etc. I use to think children would be a shoe in for rapture but then I realized the god (valis) our god - well he knows how what children will become. I mean maybe little ted bundy had a Lost in Space lunch pail and was good at math in third grade -- I remember years ago I was was a recreation center and I was looking at the books in a small book area they had there that you could check out - and it was the old system of signing the card in the book and low and behold I found a book that had been checked out by charlie starkweather - if you know the name you know the city - anyway what was the book about - it was one of those little kid books with pictures and short descriptions - it was about birds.... so okay - how does a kid who wanted to know about birds go from that to what he eventually became - - - and Hitler lavished his dogs with love. fumarole - does the vapor ever stop - well ya - ego - does the evil it creates ever stop - well ya - when you die. but while both are active how much crap does it spew. thanks for your thought.

[Justintime]

Interesting first thread OWL, lots of different thoughts and I do believe the ego thinks it deserves a majestic death indeed. To die a martyr is the ultimate wet dream of the ego. And yes it does seem that we focus on the end of days to the point of pornographic obsession. If the proverbial poop starts to hit the fan why would anyone want to live through and in a post apocalyptic world. So, yes, why focus on trying to survive, I don't get it either. I think the final stanza of the poem below is the egos worse nightmare.

TS Elliot " The Hollow Men"
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[naste.de.lumina]

In the Western world, the creation of the ego begins at birth of the baby.
How is his name the doctor asks the slap on the ass baby?
Someone answers 'John Doe'. The spirit trapped in this body and brain training newly formatted understands nothing. Who the hell is 'John Doe'?
And so it goes. John Doe, John Doe, John Doe, John Doe, throughout his childhood, and worse, even if you end up believing this is such a 'John Doe'.
Soon after the death of 'John Doe', he was so attached to ego thinking it really was 'John Doe', that his spirit continues to believe that it is 'John Doe'.
Note that this same spirit was already previously 'Peter', 'Paul', 'Maria', 'Joan', etc., but now he believes is 'John Doe', and suffer in the spiritual world the vices and desires that 'John Doe' had as incarnate.
I think the problem is not the ego itself, because it is a fundamental tool for the existence of the spirit embodied..
The big problem is the intensity of 'attached' in which the ego appropriates in terms of things, situations, beliefs and relationships.
A glorious death is nothing more than one of these attachments. How will the world be without 'John Doe'?
Beyond thinking, feeling and acting is the 'being'.
Hug.

[Violet]

I'm going to go on a stream of consciousness here. Please, do not feel that I am personally targeting you, this idea is about a very general group of people. Here goes.

The Americans think much more about the end than -say- Europeans simply because they are still more Christian and religious than most of Europe where the overall religion is atheism. Eastern Europe is probably still the most religious part.

People that don't know will only suffer half as much as the people that do know. If you lead your entire life believing you are free, then believe you me, you led a free life. Freedom is a relative term and so, you, in that other person's life might have felt very unfree and to your standards that would have been a very depressing life.

Striving for tomorrow is a must because if everybody goes and just sits on a mountain nothing will happen indeed and that is both a good and a bad thing. I think humanity has generally decided it's more of a bad than good thing and so working for a better tomorrow has been instilled in us generation after generation after generation.

Unfortunately we have gotten to a state of "too much" without being able to turn back. There's certainly enough people that can and want to turn back, but there's much more powerful people that will not let you turn back.

The thoughts you describe - to me - sound to have sprout from a spirit missing some spirituality. Without immediately jumping to the part where all the good people go to heaven and all the bad people go to hell...If you do not have a basic acknowledgement that there is something in the universe that is stronger and more powerful than you and all humanity, you'll never be complete. That is my opinion. Something, someone caused you to be and that makes us subordinate. We don't mind being subordinate when we're watching a great artist perform magic on stage. We'll stand up, applaud him and give him lots of credit and respect. But we abhor the thought of having to show respect to something that has managed to put this whole cycle of existence into motion.

It seems to me - when one looks at the world and its regimes and how powerful kings and queens enslave their peoples leaving them no choice - a bit unthankful considering that the entity that made us a you/me/they with a unique character, with a mind of our own to think free and the most creative thoughts (you were not put here programmed with a universally homogeneous script), we got freedom at birth and the gift of earth and nature and what do we do?

We sit here being angry with the cosmos, with what's behind it, its originator,...for a mess that we the humans created. Beats me.

The rapture people, as you yourself already answered are at the bottom and from there they can be of no nuisance to the worthless superiors. From the bottom too, it's probably harder to create a "whole different experience".

So what I'm trying to say, I guess, is: yes, the human ego has exceeded many boundaries and has become too proud of comparatively little achievement.

Not too sure what you mean with majestic death though. As in rapture? From what I know most people who believe in it actually hope to never live the rapture. People who don't believe in the rapture/majestic death...why would their egos ardently desire something they don't believe in anyway...:confused:

[Crazy Louie]

Violet wrote [The thoughts you describe - to me - sound to have sprout from a spirit missing some spirituality. Without immediately jumping to the part where all the good people go to heaven and all the bad people go to hell...If you do not have a basic acknowledgement that there is something in the universe that is stronger and more powerful than you and all humanity, you'll never be complete. That is my opinion. Something, someone caused you to be and that makes us subordinate. We don't mind being subordinate when we're watching a great artist perform magic on stage. We'll stand up, applaud him and give him lots of credit and respect. But we abhor the thought of having to show respect to something that has managed to put this whole cycle of existence into motion.

It seems to me - when one looks at the world and its regimes and how powerful kings and queens enslave their peoples leaving them no choice - a bit unthankful considering that the entity that made us a you/me/they with a unique character, with a mind of our own to think free and the most creative thoughts (you were not put here programmed with a universally homogeneous script), we got freedom at birth and the gift of earth and nature and what do we do? ]

Then I write -
This is not a rebuttal to you the person but more of my own personal opinion --- Spirit missing from spirituality? - You know who will inherit the earth? Something about the meek - translated to poor in spirit - translated to the beaten up and worn down and those people who lived it real - the ones so tired they forgot how to smile or look up. Who can know the weight height and dimension of anothers spirit? Who can know where anyone stands with god - when none of us know where we stand with god. Unless the ego tells us so - lol - the ego kind of embellishes everything. Is there a list someplace of what spiritual looks like? No foul Violet I get what your saying but it came out misplaced. I never seen the pictures of mother theresa juggling babies in calcutta because she was so damn spiritual she couldn't help herself - whats the reality there - when she got the noble peace prize in 79 she used the money for the babies and kids. From her acceptence speech of the prize -- "I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." she was not luminous in her speech nor was there much smiling - she had forgotton how.

And I have to kind of say I don't agree with the freedom of life - there are too many places where kids are born and die a week later because they don't have food and water and a bit of sugar and salt . Gift of earth? Everything here dies. I have not reached any conclusion that this was a gift - for all I know my soul did something that made god peeved - and this is the reality I live now because of that - I think you answered the question when you said if people believe they are free then they are free - likewise if they want to see their life as a gift on mother E - I guess it is - however I myself see a place of lies and corruption and most people who calls themselves enlightened are like a person I once worked with in a 30 million dollar building. We were asked for ideas about how to cut operating costs and the person said -- " we could turn out the light when we leave our office." she was talking about one office with three fluorescent tubes in it.

My majestic death heading had nothing to do with rapture - rapture is not death if it was to happen - majestic was a play on words of what the ego does to conjure up grandiose where none exists for the sake of that very same ego - the ego does not want a dull regular death from something boring when its sniffing astroids and earthquakes and solar flares and economic collapse fema camp and civil wars in the air. Now see my point about all that was - how many people are getting on Utube nowadays with the next big cool end of world download - and then a bunch of others jump on the bandwagon. Now all these egos are eager to die in a " see I told you so" moment rather than saying - ya I guess I have to do the heart attack or cancer deal.

[Violet]

Yes, Owl, we can't see that deep. So much is true.

It's a fin de sièclish and romantic feeling that is getting widespread now.

If you can be born in a country having no food, little sugar and salt etc. then surely somebody made a choice that was very much to their own personal benefit and very much to many other's disadvantage. It would be strange to believe that earth simply decided to give no water or food in that particular country.