SelfRealization
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“Ego Traps • If you think it is more “spiritual” to ride a bike to work or use public transportation, but then find yourself judging anyone who drives a car, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to stop watching television because it rots your brain, but then find yourself judging those who still watch TV, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to avoid reading gossip, tabloid or news magazines, but then find yourself judging those who do read those things, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to listen to classical music or soothing nature sounds, but then find yourself judging those who listen to mainstream or pop music, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to do yoga, become a vegan, buy organic, buy healing crystals, practice reiki, meditate, wear hippie/thrift shop clothing, visit ashrams and read enlightened spiritual books, but then you judge anyone who doesn’t do those things, you’re in an ego trap. Always be aware of the feeling of superiority. Self-righteous superiority is your biggest clue that you are in an ego trap. The ego loves to sneak in the back door. It will take a noble idea, like starting up yoga, and then twist it to serve its own ends by making you feel superior to others; you will start to look down on those who are not following your righteous “spiritual” path. Superiority, judgment and condemnation. That is the ego trap.”
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Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others
“What’s so interesting is that we seem to intuitively understand that if we can get ourselves to believe something first, we’ll be more effective at getting others to believe it,” says William von Hippel, a psychologist at The University of Queensland, who co-authored the study. “So we process information in a biased fashion, we convince ourselves, and we convince others. The beauty is, those are the steps Trivers outlined—and they all lined up in one study.”
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“Ego Traps • If you think it is more “spiritual” to ride a bike to work or use public transportation, but then find yourself judging anyone who drives a car, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to stop watching television because it rots your brain, but then find yourself judging those who still watch TV, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to avoid reading gossip, tabloid or news magazines, but then find yourself judging those who do read those things, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to listen to classical music or soothing nature sounds, but then find yourself judging those who listen to mainstream or pop music, you’re in an ego trap. • If you think it is more “spiritual” to do yoga, become a vegan, buy organic, buy healing crystals, practice reiki, meditate, wear hippie/thrift shop clothing, visit ashrams and read enlightened spiritual books, but then you judge anyone who doesn’t do those things, you’re in an ego trap. Always be aware of the feeling of superiority. Self-righteous superiority is your biggest clue that you are in an ego trap. The ego loves to sneak in the back door. It will take a noble idea, like starting up yoga, and then twist it to serve its own ends by making you feel superior to others; you will start to look down on those who are not following your righteous “spiritual” path. Superiority, judgment and condemnation. That is the ego trap.”
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“In a recent Ditch the Label study, we spoke to 7,347 people about bullying. We asked respondents to define bullying and then later asked if, based on their own definition, they had ever bullied anybody. 14% of our overall sample, so that’s 1,239 people, said yes. What we then did was something that had never been done on this scale before; we asked them intimate questions about their lives, exploring things like stress and trauma, home lives, relationships and how they feel about themselves.”
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“The world is not driven by greed, it’s drive by envy.”
— Charlie Munger
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The Voice of Happiness
After Bankei had passed away, a blind man who lived near the master’s temple told a friend: “Since I am blind, I cannot watch a person’s face, so I must judge his character by the sound of his voice. Ordinarily when I hear someone congratulate another upon his happiness or success, I also hear a secret tone of envy. When condolence is expressed for the misfortune of another, I hear pleasure and satisfaction, as if the one condoling was really glad there was something left to gain in his own world.
“In all my experience, however, Bankei’s voice was always sincere. Whenever he expressed happiness, I heard nothing but happiness, and whenever he expressed sorrow, sorrow was all I heard.”