BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Spirituality Pride and ego.

To Lestie,

You definitely have not understood,at all,,,,what this is all about.
Thank you for your agressive participation.

But you see, agressiveness does not affect me.

With compassion for those who suffer.
_/\_
a simple buddhist named
loong

To all
In french exists 2 words for pride ,one is :orgueuil: meaning pride ,like I AM, I,I, I, .Then there is the word :fierte:
meaning being proud of the graduation of one's daughter,proud of acheiving something.Proud for oneself ,not for others,which is the negative side of the word pride.

With Loving Kindness,
_/\_
a simple buddhist named
Loong.

Ok, so if you are going beyond the 'word' and into the spiritual meaning, the I, id, ego, does not exist when one becomes a part of the whole.

Pride in one's achievements is not conducive to reaching the point of fulfillment and humbleness -- to experience the rightness of the achievement is not pride, it is enlightenment.

My dear Phyllis,
35 years ago when I joined A.A. the word Pride:orgueuil: was the ennemy of humility.The word used for show-offs,the anti spiritual word of the time .One day someone comes up and takes pride out of the picture and puts the word/root EGO as the nemesis anyone on the path whatever it may be ,has to be rid off.

Like I asked you in my post # 755925,where in all your dictionnaries listed is Ego mentionned as being the villain,the
word to avoid.Again I repeat myselg ego means I or Self.What is bad in that ?

With loving kindness
a simple buddhist named
loong

Dear Loong,

Perhaps the confusion here is a lack of clarity. It is unclear to me what it is you are looking for as an answer or opinion from others. In your first post it is clear that in your opinion the word 'ego' does not exist. You expected rebuttals and got them, for the word 'ego' does in fact exist.

I will clarify my thoughts on the subject.

I see nothing bad about the words ego, I, or pride, if used in a positive way.

Pride has two meanings, one negative, one positive. On the positive side, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions. One can also have pride towards a whole group of people and therefore becomes praise, independent self-reflection, or a feeling of belonging. Pride in one's country or military, or family, is not a bad thing.
Pride from Wikipedia

Pride can become bad if used as an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments -- or an inflated ego.

Ego, I, id, self are not bad words, nor do they imply that the use of them is bad.

So, could you please clarify what it is you are looking for in a response to your posts?

Also, could you explain from what level you are coming from (ie: spiritual, religious, general as in appropriate language use, or ?).

This is an interesting subject, yet one that needs clarification so we, and others, can discuss it with validity in an amiable way.

To Phyllis,
since last nite I have been trying to find the words that will
make me understood.If we were on your porch with tea face to face,would be much easier.Here is what I thought of.
Let us clear the table ,if you do not mind,and start from my part to be clearer.
When we speak of pride ,you wrote:Pride can become bad if used as an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments -- or an inflated ego.
As far as the word ego you wrote:Ego, I, id, self are not bad words, nor do they imply that the use of them is bad.
So why is it for about the last ten years instead of using false
pride people use the word ego i.e. It is his ego speaking,meaning ego as a bad word ,when in reality,the word used should be false pride. That is all I meant.

I really hope this time i am clearer.False pride was used in religion,spirituality,every day use,now all we see is Ego this ego that.Again this is all I meant.

With loving kindness
a fan of yours(i do not suck up to people,I say what I think.)

loong

To Phyllis,

By the way, in Buddhism ,I and Self, do not exist!

With friendship

loong

Loong, I think I am beginning to understand. Here are my thoughts:

Pride, as I noted, can be positive or negative. It depends on what one is proud about. I am very proud of my grandson who has done very well in school this year. It is a grandmother's right to be proud of her grandson.

As for pride, I have not noticed that people use the word ego in place of 'false pride'. The word ego has come in to use much more in the last, say ten years, because more people are becoming more spiritual since the early part of the 20th century. I do not see a connection between ego and false pride. Ego, when I and many of my spiritual friends, use it is meant to be the physical part of us, the part of us that is grounded to Earth. In other words, we have our ego (physical) and our true self (spirit). Since more people are more open now about their spirituality, the word ego is used quite often.

Someone may say something like "my ego is getting in the way of my spiritual growth" which means, "my physical self, or mind, is preventing me from getting in touch with my spirituality, my spirit's progress".

Pride and humility walk hand in hand. True humility needs no outside confirmation or approval. False humility is to openly claim you are less than you really are so that others will disagree and begin praising you. False pride is (correction needed here: concealing one's arrogance) claiming you are more than what you truly are.

There is a very good write-up about this at Pride And Humility by Serge Kahili King

I cannot copy all of the article to put here for that would be a copyright violation. If you could, please read the full article. The last two paragraphs of that article make a lot of sense to me and is what I would write about the subject.

Peace

Yet, not everyone is Buddhist. The I and Self do exist in many other religions and belief systems.

With friendship indeed.

Yes, Loong. Sitting and discussing face to face, over tea, is a much easier way to understand each other.