from Nick | by Nick

It’s usually healthiest to cultivate persistent self-love before trying to persistently dissolve the ego t.co/vbZd2ISUdE

Though temporarily dissolving the ego can be helpful in building self-love. Usually this happens via MDMA, but it doesn’t need to. By stepping outside yourself you can see more clearly, then fall in love, and when the ego reforms it’ll hopefully have love welded into it

One reason why self love is a good initial goal is because the only good way to persistently dissolve the ego is by letting go of it. You can’t sit eyes closed and try to destroy it, you cultivate equanimity and release your grip. This is easier when the baseline is one of love

I think persistent egoless state has a lot of benefits, but it’s also a pretty major phenomenological surgery. Whereas self-love is basically just good, few tradeoffs. Better to initially aim for things with few tradeoffs when you can