Thought Blog

I always think that the best way to do it would be to somehow enter into ego and out of it without exactly knowing which "state" you were in. Or maybe something like in western scripture: "Take care not to do your good deeds in such a way as to draw attention to yourself; you could lose the reward your Father has for you. When you help people, do it without fanfare, without that ostentation hypocrites employ to get the admiration of others. The truth is, they've already had all the reward they're going to get. That way is not for you. When you help someone, don't let your left hand know what your right is doing. Keep it secret, and your Father who knows all secrets will reward you.

To evaluate selfishness and selflessness implies that we occupy some zone of inbetween or neither. But sometimes, paradoxically, it would seem that people in that midst of selfish actions have very little sense of self. How do you explain this? Or often people who give alot of themselves are hiding an inward bitterness and resentment that is at bottom very selfish: they have a very enhanced sense of self. This is a hard conundrum to unravel.

I think there is both a 'good' ego and a bad ego, and we should try to cultivate the good one.

Hi Ben,

Yeah thats right. Selfish people sometime feel a little unaware of self, and selfless people appear to have very high awareness of self.

I think that it is very difficult to define what is selfishness and what is good. Because being selfish might be good... being good might also be selfish. In other words, good and selfish are not opposite adjectives in all ways.

Hence, I think it is difficult to understand what exactly is being selfish and being selfless... One thing is that if a person becomes aware that he is being self-less, then I think even that awareness means that he understands what a self is, and consequently, I feel that he also then has a "self", and self's desires and other characteristics. Since, ideally, a selfless person should not be able to distincguish himself as having this characteristic.

Secondly, about the scriptures. Even the eastern scriptures and traditional culture says such things. But I am skeptical of such advises per say -- which say that "Dont expect a fruit for your actions, and then you will get one". Like the scripture you mentioned said that dont do good things for a reward, since you might loose it. So in order to get a reward, dont do good things for a reward. This I think is a paradox in its own way. I think, both egoistic and scriptured way's goal is the same -- getting a reward -- but only the means in the bible are more clever or something.

Btw, all actions of humans can probably be considered as selfish, since we as conscious beings, do things we want to. For example, if I want to the other room, I will walk towards it. Thus even in this example, I am doing targetted decisions.
(Incomplete)

I never got over the paradox of 'self' in Buddhism which is very similar in the Christian scripture I quoted, which was a modern adaptation of Matthew 6. Buddhism says that all suffering is the result of desire (craving or attachment). The Buddhist vows to get rid of all suffering by getting rid of all desire. But if you desire to rid yourself of desire...how is desire extinguished? Like the 'good' and 'bad' ego, clearly there is some hierachy at work. We can have good desires that lead us to higher more blessed states, and bad desires that lead us down lower. All desire can't be bad, only a certain kind of desire, that goes by the designation 'desire' for convenience sake. The same with 'reward'. There is the 'reward' of the hypocrites and the 'reward' of the father in secret, and I don't think they are equivalent.

Hmm.. That gives me something to think about. I was always stuck with this thought of desire equivalence and never made any progress after that. I will rethink....

Thanks Ben.