Why kill the Ego?
Often times you’ll find spiritual “gurus” talking about the Ego, and they don’t have very nice things to say about it. They’ll tell you that you must transcend the Ego, shed it, leave it behind, or even that you must kill the Ego! *gasp* “Death to the Ego!” is their chant. They tell you its the “only way” to enlightenment. They believe the Ego is a dirty little mistake that is too selfish and materialistic. This slothing mess just wants to greedily lust its way through a prideful, gluttonous life fueled by envious wrath. What a nasty little bugger!
Frequently people refer others as being “egotistical”, where they think having an ego is equivalent to thinking highly of yourself. More common these days they prefer to call them “narcissists”, but its all a bit more complicated than that. Its any wonder in a world where “thinking highly of yourself” was labeled a bad thing that we’ve become a culture completely plagued by depression. Sure if you put others down in order to make more high of yourself, thats unhealthy behavior – but we totally missed the definition mark there! The reality is, these kinds of behaviors are really just projected defenses of the Ego. Something people learned due to their various environments as children so that they can merely survive in this crazy world. Maybe we can have a little more compassion?
Don’t kill the messenger!
Well I’m going to tell you a slightly different story. I argue Ego merely falls prey to these “seven deadly sins” in the absence of a true connection with Unconditional Love which emanates through Spirit from God. Ego is not inherently evil, but can be corrupted by it.
We are born Ego. As babes, we cry for milk, as we grow older, we identify as individuals living physical lives in a material world. We are also spiritual beings, as the spirit joins with our body, but unless we put a lot of attention toward it, we will be completely unaware of our Spirit-self. For this reason, I don’t wholly agree with those that say we are “Spiritual beings”; I would add to it that we are “Human-Spiritual Beings”. Yes, “Human” first, because from the very perspective of ourselves, we are FIRST self-aware of HUMAN, then later can become aware of SPIRIT. There are those that would argue that “HUMAN” doesn’t really exist, its all SPIRIT, and to those I’d say PPAAAAAHHHHLEEEEEAAASSSSEEEEE stop the rhetoric or I’ll argue SPIRIT doesn’t really exist either because when you ride truth all the way up there is ONLY BEING, which cannot be defined only known. 😘
Ego is the self-awareness of the physical body, you could say it IS the body. Left to its own devices, it is driven by survival and you can’t blame it. The Ego rules from a dark place when it is unaware of the spirit and God. When it believes itself to be alone, individual, separate, it cannot help but to perceive our world as hostile. Place that same Ego-being in a “Garden of Eden” and it can live blissfully without the taint of darkness. But when struggle, strife and cruelty come into play, darkness grabs hold of the innate fear of the Ego and infects it to varying degrees. Can we really blame Ego for this? Thats not very enlightened 😝
Our goal should not be discarding the Ego, but rather integrating Spirit with the Ego! You see, you are BOTH Spirit Being and Ego Being! ENJOY the wondrous experience of the merged beings by practicing INTEGRATION not separation! Makes sense right?
But how do we integrate?
Ego rejects Spirit until it sufficiently experiences the unconditional love from it. You have to understand, Ego has been a one-man show, and its built up some serious defenses around it so that it can navigate this hostile world. Now you are trying to tell it that there’s SOMEONE else in there?!? No no no, I don’t think so, that does not fit into my world view, and therefore is scary, therefore I reject it with every fiber. I will come up with a thousand reasons thats nothing but hogwash until you give up and continue our humdrum defensive lifestyle.
But you persist. You meditate. You read. You contemplate. You KNOW there’s something more. THEN it occurs to you, wait, who is “me” and who is Ego? Awe damn! PROOF of more than one being! “No no no, thats just me talking to myself!” 😂
It can be a long journey of this back and forth. Then you have breakthroughs and your Ego starts to accept that there’s a Spirit being somewhere in there. Then you start experiencing your Spirit being, and now your Ego is straight up offended! Quite frankly, Ego doesn’t really like some of the views Spirit has. But you persist, you dig deeper, and as you do, the light and love becomes unmistakable. It is this when the Ego begins to let down its guard. It is intrigued by this light and love, its is drawn to it, it really wants it.
As we journey inward, our Ego becomes more and more exposed to Unconditional Love, and with that, it is able to heal old wounds which were responsible for the defensive shields laid around it. Given enough exposure to this, and enough healing, eventually the Ego is ready to give up the drivers seat.
Giving up the drivers seat.
This is a very important time in one’s spiritual journey. It is when the Ego has complete faith and trust in the Spirit being, and asks it to take over the reigns. You see, the Ego never actually liked driving. It was forced behind the wheel because, well, who the hell else is gonna drive this thing? Ego knows very well its ill-equipped for the job, but it had no choice, and so reluctantly it did what it had to do and drove this life, for better or for worse.
But NOW… now Spirit is here! Spirit intuits and can see far more than I – its a no-brainer, Spirit should be the one driving! With a happy plop it throws itself from the drivers seat into the sidecar with a detached fake steering wheel and grins as the loving Spirit takes up the call. Ooooohhhh how nice it is in the passenger seat! The Ego chuckles at the Spirit for hogging the sidecar for so long, “you cheeky bastard! you knew this was the luxury seat!” Spirit smiles warmly, giggling at the humorous Ego.
Its rightful place.
You see, once the Ego has found its rightful place, it flourishes as the beautiful and marvelous being that it is. It was never well-suited for driving this life, too much stress, not enough vision. From the sidecar it shares such delightful humor, such wonderful flair. It truly adds the SPICE to life, it brings in all the color! The unique flavor of the Ego is what the Spirit finds so delicious about this experience – don’t waste it by trying to displace your Ego in favor of the Spirit!!!
This is a story of Faith.
I’ve always said, “a man without faith is lost.” What particular faith is up to the individual, but you gotta have something! Without it, the Ego is alone, individual, fearful, and lost. Ego will try to cover up that gaping hole by filling it with worldly things, but it’ll never fill, the emptiness will always prevail.
When you go on your spiritual journey as described here, your Ego is learning to have faith in the Spirit, which is the immortal soul, connected and aware of our source, God, the Universe. That faith allows it to “surrender” control over to the higher power… to “let go and let God”… and from that space, finds true inner peace and a joy of life no matter what the physical reality surrounding it.
An Ego that has achieved this level of integration can be incarcerated in the worst conditions and still levitate in peace. Don’t miss out on the most wonderful opportunity of truly discovering the joys of your little ego! Love it!
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