A common conception in the psycho-spiritual field is that the Ego is bad and that we ought to kill it. While this belief holds some truth, I’ll show you in this article, a different viewpoint on the matter. But first thing first, let’s begin with the definition of the Ego.
In the Oxford dictionary, they say:
« A person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.
"he needed a boost to his ego"
In PSYCHOANALYSIS
The part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.
In PHILOSOPHY
(In metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject. »
To Carl Jung the Ego is the centre of the field of consciousness which contains our conscious awareness of existing and a continuing sense of personal identity. It is the organiser, or the “commander in chief” as he calls it, of our thoughts and intuitions, feelings, and sensations, and has access to memories which are not repressed.
And etymologically, Ego is the latin version of « l », like in « l am ». In simple words, my words, Ego does just represent yourself, the conscious part of who you are, everything you know to be you, whether you show it or not.
Now, what is the issue with the Ego? Well, you know, if you’re walking on your spiritual path, you know that spirituality belongs to the whole realm that is beyond the Ego. In this sense, the Ego is what prevents you to connect to your true Self, it is the mirage that blocks you from accessing Yourself. In the psychological journey to mental health and balanced psyche, the Ego represents all those traits and characteristics of yours that you see as bad, toxic or unwanted. It may also be the narcissistic aspect of you, in the form of over-pride, power games and what is called “ego-trip”. Of course these behaviours may be seen as impurity to clean up. So for these reasons you may want to eradicate this so called Ego, and well, you may be right.
That being said, if you’ve already done tones of work on yourself, you may come to understand that you can’t kill the Ego, because it does this thing where as soon as you think you’ve gotten rid of it, it sneakily reappears, somewhere else, with new clothes. That is exactly what happens to spiritual people, meaning people who have been diligently working at erasing the Ego and accessing their true spiritual Self. It reappears in the form of the "spiritual Ego”. Yep, you’ve heard it, spiritual Ego. The spiritual Ego represents all the traits and characteristics you identify to as a spiritual person. You will say things like “I am spiritual, I am connected to my true Self, my Ego has vanished” because now you identify, as a spiritual person, to those spiritual attributes. And you’re not wrong. I mean, you indeed have worked a whole lot on yourself and you deserve recognition, sure, but the thing is, those attributes now represent the new who you know you are. That’s the Ego right here.
Now if you aren’t conscious of it, your newly created Ego will run the show, but in the background, all beyond your awareness, and as Carl Jung says it “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will run your life and you will call it fate”. You also will start to over pride yourself as perhaps being a great ego-less master, you will dress like one, you will talk like one, you will behave like one, you will for example suffocate your anger because anger is not spiritual, deny your own needs or reject anything that you do not deem as good and spiritual. You may start playing passive-agressive power game with people, gaslighting them, projecting rage on them or ego tripping over your goodness and devotion. While it may be to some extent benign, it may also hurt other people and yourself. And on the spiritual note, you won’t actually be connected to your deep Self, unlike you thought, as the road is being blocked by the Ego.
Ok, so now, you tell me that everything I have written so far, all goes in favour of annihilating the Ego. Well, you’re right, but now here’s the point of this whole article. One, you cannot kill the Ego, as I just showed you, and two, you don’t need to. Why, because you actually do need your Ego. The Ego is mandatory to survive in this world and experience a specific and singular experience here on this Earth. It also is what allows you, as the Universal Consciousness to experience contrast and play the game of knowing Itself.
We don’t need to kill the Ego, and we also do not need to master it. We merely need to observe it think, feel and move, in other words to be aware of it, and to remind ourselves that we are everything we think we are and everything we think we aren’t, as a larger Self and thus both Everything and Nothing. Fighting the Ego equals fighting ourselves, and fighting ourselves is an act of self-hate. What we want is love, Self-love, so let’s love Ourselves and to be Conscious. Namaste🙏🕊️
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