What Is Spiritual Ego, and How Do You Let It Go?

In spiritually based conversations, we often hear the term Ego. We are always being told how we must let go of our Ego in order to progress spiritually and ascend. But what exactly is this Ego? And what does it mean in spiritual context?

There are two different schools of thought when it comes to Ego. There is Psychological Ego and Spiritual (or Theological) Ego.

In a nutshell:

• Psychological Ego is projected upon you by others.

• Spiritual Ego is projected upon you by yourself and prevents spiritual growth.

Psychological Ego (“You are…”)

The psychological meaning of Ego is the identity of oneself that the individual person has projected upon them by others. Outwardly, it is the center of your awareness and the framework of your being. Whatever other people, institutions, entities, society project onto you as a “You are (adjective)” is your Psychology Ego. “You are a mother.” “You are a schoolteacher.” “You are Hispanic.” “You are thin.” These are all manifestations of your Psychological Ego that ARE PROJECTED ONTO YOU.

You may have studied psychology in high school or college psychology, and it focuses on the Id, Ego, and Superego. They tend to lump both Psychological and Spiritual Ego together when they should not be.

In our day-to-day conversations with our friends and family, we tend to focus also more on the behaviors of Psychological Ego which can mean being perceived as overly self-assured, “egotistical,” self-centered, proud, loud, overbearing, and grandiose. In a more positive vein, it can also be seen as be proud, self-confident, self-aware. But overwhelmingly, Psychological Ego is what is projected upon you from other people and society and may or may not have any basis in fact at all.

Spiritual Ego (“I am…”)

Spiritual Ego is the false self-perception of who we are. And that is what we will be covering in this article. Thus, I will go into it more intensively.

Spiritual ego is what is inside you, and it is what you project upon yourself about yourself. Preface a trait with “I am (fill in adjective)” and that is your Spiritual Ego talking. “I am a mother.” “I am white.” “I am female.” “I am a doctor.” “I am a neighbor.” Holding onto self-definitions such as these prevents you from truly being one with humanity because by its very nature it allows you to self-define yourself with specialness and uniqueness. It prevents you from becoming ONE and keeps you from furthering your spiritual journey and ultimately attaining ascension.

It is the root of all suffering and pain in this world because it prevents people from truly seeing others as part of themselves, part of all of us, and it makes it very difficult to be truly kind and compassionate. It denies you the ability to truly experience the beauty of life in this realm.

Your ideas, your beliefs, your ideologies, social and national affiliations, attachments to people and things all constitute your Spiritual Ego.

Exercise:

1. Take a sheet of paper and write the numbers 1–10 down the side.
2. At the top of the paper, write the words, “I Am”,
3. Now list ten adjectives about yourself.

This a small picture of your Spiritual Ego.

“Who Am I?”

If I allowed my Spiritual Ego to answer that I would answer ““I am a writer.” “I am a mother. “ “I am a UK and US citizen.” “I am a straight woman.” These are all Spiritual Ego constructs that really do not have any relevance in the grand scheme of the Universe and my potential as a loving human. These are just “outfits” that I wear.

To become free of Spiritual Ego, I have had to let go of those mortal constructs of who I am and recognize that I am the same as all. Simply put, “I am.” “I am.” “I am.”

Unfortunately, Spiritual Ego is very comforting and soothing. It provides a framework, structure and identification of who we THINK we are — providing us with motivation, identity and a structure we feel we need to succeed and survive. It is very hard to let go of. You may take a few steps forward; and then find yourself thrown back. But no matter how difficult the journey is, you have to remember it is hindering your growth and ascension.

The ultimate goal with releasing your Spiritual Ego is to get rid of the adjectives and just be, “I am.” I will get into that concept more in a later article. But that is the ultimate goal. You will hear the concept of “I am.” a lot through your spiritual journey.

Letting Go of Spiritual Ego

So, what does it mean to let go of your Ego? It means letting going of our self-constructed sense of self and identity. Whoa. You are not you as you think of you anymore.

It means letting go of beliefs, ideas, attachments, and desires that we have been taught defining us and who we are and what matters. It means stripping our self-identity down to the bare bones and rebuilding ourselves as all loving and universal. In this process, we eliminate the root cause of suffering and allows us to move into a higher consciousness.

The three highest goals of human existence are:

1. Being free from pain and suffering.

2. Being united with Universal experience and higher consciousness.

3. Becoming limitless.

Removing spiritual Ego allows these three things to happen.

Removing Spiritual Ego/Ego Death

So how do you get rid of Spiritual Ego? How do you manifest a so-called Ego Death?

Ego Death is one of the most important life assignments and experiences to have. It will allow you peace of mind and freedom to move on spiritually and ascend to the next higher realm.

Keep in mind, up to this point in life, you have spent a tremendous amount of energy in defining “who you are.” You set goals. You developed your own personal, self-identifying, self-valuations and have strongly identified yourself within a small boundary of earthly existence and experience. But none of these things are YOU. They are not the REAL you.

Then one day, you realize it is all a façade and you experience what is referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. It is perhaps the most powerful moment in an individual’s life because you have just experienced Ego Death. It is painful, it is traumatizing, it can happen spontaneously. And it can happen over and over again. My initial Ego Death/Dark Night/Descension did not happen because I provoked it by letting go of Spiritual Ego, I was forced to let go of Ego when I spontaneously went into Dark Night through a traumatic experience. Which is why it is important to understand the concept of Dark Night and how it affects releasing your Spiritual Ego.

You can go through the Dark Night many times in your lifetime, each time letting go more and more of Spiritual Ego. I went through my first Dark Night when I was nine years old and had no idea what was happening. And neither did my parents making a rough situation, thousands of times worse. It was horrifically frightening. My oldest daughter experienced her first one early also. Early Dark Nights are not common, but they do happen. There is no one size fits all. Usually, it happens in adults, however. And is often triggered by a traumatic event.

Dark Night is enlightening and beautiful and, yes, frightening. And it is necessary to go through before you can embark on your journey to ascension. Some call the Dark Night, Descension, but it is really the first step in Ascension.

For some people, Ascension means reuniting with a split soul/twin flame and others must go through the process alone. Reuniting with a split soul/twin flame is more complicated and you will experience what is called Kundalini Rising when you start reunification.

Because the event is so frightening, disconcerting and soul stripping, many people will spend their entire lives avoiding Ego Death and the Dark Night and backing away from it when it starts to happen. The fear of the loss of control and the change is just too much to many. Unfortunately, it is ultimately just putting off the inevitable and does not prevent it from happening. Everyone will eventually have to face the Dark Night if not in this lifetime, in a future one. (Or even during a different timeline in this lifetime which will be a different article).

For others, like me, I had no choice. All of my Dark Nights have been triggered by traumatic events, and I could not have stopped them. If necessary, the Universe will absolutely force the experience on you. Many people deny it and self-medicate with alcohol, drugs, and legal medication because it is so much easier to follow man-made constructs than to listen to Source and the Universe. However, not facing the Dark Night and Ego Death only causes more suffering.

Conclusion

We are all born with a spiritual center (hate to break this to you atheists, but you have one also and you will be forced to face that truth at some point). It is a point of consciousness that reflects the true self with no self-identification, boundaries or definitions. It is pure self. It is where we begin at birth, and unfortunately, almost immediately start moving away from.

Ego death and/or dissolution means ridding yourself of your sense of identity that you start to accumulate shortly after birth. You need remove your mortally constructed beliefs and ideologies that you have been taught over your lifetime. It is a “false” identity and prevents you from fulfilment and becoming who you truly are. You must remove individualization from your life. Then you will be your true self.

How does the Spiritual Ego take hold?

In our western society, we have developed constructs in which our Egos are developed reactively as opposed to proactively. Whereas a young child, we should be taught how to maintain a balance between our Spiritual Ego and Spiritual Center, we are forced into a material world that demands this hungry Spiritual Ego is fulfilled. You are taught “winning at all costs,” “this outfit makes you look important,” “this job is better,” “you are what you own.” Your salary and job title can define you. Your SATs define you. Your college defines you. Even your favorite football team defines you. So, the Spiritual Ego runs amuck with no proper spiritual guidance. What you have manifested as self-identification is false.

The Spiritual Ego then becomes very strong, eventually taking over the Spirit and dominating it and pushing it to the side when it should be front and center. “I am (adjective)” becomes more important than the simple, pure “I am.” However, eventually the Spirit will take control back.

How Can I Start to Release my Ego?

• Practice forgiveness of both others and yourself.

Whenever I feel the need to forgive someone, I say to myself, “I release and forgive you (person or situation I am forgiving), and also release and forgive myself for any hurt, damage, or pain I may have caused or contributed to in this interaction. I take responsibility for my part.”

• Allow yourself to be fully vulnerable.

You need to open your mind to other points of view and allow yourself knowledge and acceptance. If you find yourself easily triggered and lashing out at people, seemingly with no control, you need to release that. If you constantly blame others, you are not letting yourself be responsible for your own actions and thus lose the ability to be fully vulnerable. If someone says something on the internet that you do not like, or you perceive someone has offended you, or even if an opposing political statement is made that makes you go “crazy,” you need to let it go. You can disagree. You cannot like a point of view. But if your first step is to attack, even passive aggressively, you are holding onto “your specialness” and not letting go and being fully vulnerable.

• Be grateful and embrace gratitude.

Never let yourself say things like, “this is the worst thing that could happen.” “I hate going to work.” “Nothing is going to get better.” Instead focus on the positive aspects and being grateful for them. Instead say, “this is not good, but it certainly could be much worse and for that I am grateful.” “We have some unpleasant chores at work today, but I am grateful knowing I have the skills to overcome them.” “I have faith that this is a minor setback, and I am grateful that the Source will guide me through this.” Be grateful for everything. It is all about perspective.

• And stop trying to control everything. That is not your job.

Some of the behaviors you need to avoid allowing yourself to become fully vulnerable is to let go of control. You need to let Source handle it. It is not your job to “run” everything. Let yourself be guided, and always ask to do the “right thing.” Let go of worry.

• Keep in mind that both the Spiritual and Psychology Ego, if kept under control, can be your friend.

Face it, you aren’t going to be able to pay your bills, keep a job, stay healthy and enjoy life without having some Ego. It is part of the human experience. But it needs to be kept in check.

As humans, we will never be able to fully release all Ego because some is necessary for our survival in this realm. But you can certainly let go of a lot of it and can move forward spiritually. You can declutter your Ego basement, if you will.

But remember, ultimately, your goal is be…

“I AM.”

Enjoy your journey.

Please check out my other writings at www.writinitdown.net