Waaaaiiit a minute Coelho, are you Buddha?


But in all seriousness, I think what you're talking about is ego-death, or at least ego-deflation. I couldn't agree with your post more, and it's a damn excellent one! :thumbsup:
I referrence Buddha because this is essentially what he was saying too; that the attainment of enilghtenment results in the "extinction of self" (ego), and it will result in infinite compassion for all life. "Life is suffering" doesn't mean it should be suffering, or that it inevitably will be suffering; but simply that suffering is the defining characteristic of all living beings, the universal factor that we all have to deal with no matter how hard we try to avoid it.


Why do I bring this up? Because suffering (and on the inverse, having everything given to you) is the food for the ego. It is experienced more directly and more intimately within yourself than anybody else, and thus so long as your ego remains strong, deep down you'll believe that your suffering is the only true real suffering. For this reason, I think empathy is the most important aspect of the human condition for the benefit of the overall human species. It's an utterly remarkable psycho-ability, almost like a primitive form of psychic power. Really, just think about it; everything we feel and experience gives feedback as to our own suffering and pleasures. Empathy is the only internal feeling that allows us to experience the external feelings.

So it would rightly follow that when one achieves the extinction of the ego-self, ones empathy would go through the roof and we would be able to experience and grasp other's suffering as much as our own. Could you imagine a world where we all had such developed minds? Suddenly wars, thievery, murder, and just schoolyard bullying wouldn't be so casually done. Actually I'm not sure any of these things would happen at all. We might actually understand how and why the other person is where they are.


I'm not sure how you can teach the whole of humanity, or at least a whole lot more of it, how to develop a keen sense of empathy though. Lately the opposite seems to be happening, and IMO the prime example is how disrespectful and downright nasty kids are getting these days. My younger brother is only 5 years my junior, and already I can see how much more terrible kids of his generation are than kids of my generation. And my generation was freakin' horrible! News stories abound about this issue as we've seen a rise in a total bullying pandemic (wait, would that be an "epidemic" considering the lack of known cause?). I know there's wars, there's murders, there's genocides all more terrible than this, but somehow bullying seems like the core of the issue. It's how all these non-empathetic human beings start out; torturing other students and getting a kick out of it. Little bastards will tease, beat, and humiliate the weaker ones 'till total nervous breakdown, and actually get a kick out of their reactions! Then when one of 'em finally snaps and shoots the place up, or kills themselves, it's all their fault.


And you know, I don't think we'd need half the drugs any of us are on, if we all lived in an empathetic society. When I was in grades 6 and 7 I got bullied horribly. My grades were all F's and D's, and the docs thought I needed to be put on Ritalin to help me concentrate. Helped, but just barely. Then halfway through grade seven my parents transferred me to a Christian school where the kids actually helped and supported each other. The ciriculum was WAY more intensive, yet I literally jumped to strait-A's in every course. This to me says that a supportive environment, not a competetive and agressive one, is far more conductive to success. If we could somehow apply such an environment to work, government, foreign policy, and anything else, we'd all be a lot better off. (no I don't mean to sound like a total "just love each other" hippie, I know there are many evil folk out there beyond redemption who just need a good ass-kickin').
Gandalf_The_Grey Reviewed by Gandalf_The_Grey on . The monster called self-importance Why does people makes war, steal, lie, kill, betray, etc? If you were to point one reason that explained all the evils of mankind, what it would be? For me, it seems this reason is called self-importance. That feeling that we, our wishes, desires and needs are more important that everybodys else. Take the wars, for example. The usual reasons for war is when two (or more) nations wants the same thing (like oil, or land, or ideological/religious supremacy, etc). Then each nation thinks that Rating: 5