 There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. You know, one of the best things about making spirit science is not knowing what events and revelations the next week is gonna bring, and it's always a fun mystery to see how you will react to the videos that we share. Even the debunk videos are interesting to watch, but still, one of the most amazing things is seeing all of your insights and wisdom come through in the comments about how you interpret our content for yourself. So, first off, thank you so much for sharing your discussions and opinions with us. It really helps to make our community a place of learning. Now, we really wanted to give back, so this week we have another free meditation for you. Click the link in the comments below to get the Awakening Meditation, which is especially useful in transcending the ego, the subject of today's episode. Now, a while ago we put out the parable of the ego, and, well, we were really surprised with the amount of discussions and opinions that it generated about just what exactly the ego is, what it's used for, and if it really is this evil thing that needs to be fought off like some kind of monster under our collective proverbial beds. So today, let's explore the nature of the ego. What is it? Where does it come from? And ultimately, why does everyone want to get rid of it? And as always, we highly encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments below. The whole discussion of the ego tends to open up a can of worms. Since by its nature it's a concept rather than a physical thing, so no one can really agree on what it is exactly. And I mean, I opened a can of worms once, they just wiggled around. Hardly the chaos that was advertised. Let's hope this conversation can live up to the hype. Most people seem to think that the ego is something explicitly tied to our sense of self. In that, it could mean one's self-esteem, an inflated sense of self-worth, the conscious thinking self, or in philosophical terms, our self-identity. In short, the ego is commonly thought to be an aspect of our mind that allows us to perceive our own individuality and experience our own consciousness in a subjective sense relative to other things. Speaking from a purely physical standpoint, I'm not a tree. At least, I don't think that I am, but I'm also not you. See, we identify as different people physically with our own hopes and dreams, our own ways of thinking about the world. Sure, sure. On a spiritual level, we often talk about unity. We are all one, like cells that make up a greater body, or trees that make up a forest. But we also have a sense of individualization, and this is where the ego comes in. Psychology has spent a long time studying the ego, and everyone from Freud to Young had their own opinions on its purpose. See, in Freudian psychology, the ego is considered the organized part of the personality. It generally includes stuff like defensive, perceptual, intellectual, and decision-making functions. To simplify his whole id, ego, super ego thing, the id is supposedly our subconscious personality that includes basic instincts like bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses. The ego then generally works to please the id's drive in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit rather than grief. In other words, Freud believed that the ego was the thing that mediated between our subconscious and our reality or physical world. An example often used in psychology is that the id, our base desires and wants, would want to grab someone's stuff off of them. But the ego transforms that desire into buying those items instead. Young had some other interesting ideas about the ego, too, in that he believed it represented the conscious mind, since it comprises the thoughts, memories, and emotions that a person is aware of. The thing is, Young was also very well known for incorporating esotericism and the occult into his views, which led him to believe there was more to a human being than just the sum of all that. He thought we were more than just the ego. He often pointed out that when people think they know themselves, they actually only know about their ego, their perception of themselves, rather than the whole of their consciousness. In his book, The Undiscovered Self, he states that anyone who has ego consciousness at all takes it for granted that they know themselves. But the ego knows only its own content, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of themselves, but not by the real psychic facts, which are for the most part hidden from them. So what does all this jargon mean? In a nutshell, that there is more to the mind and our consciousness than just the ego, much like how the body is made up of tons of different parts. So too is the mind, and that because the ego experiences itself as the center of our mind, it's especially difficult to resist identification with the self, to which it owes its existence. Kind of like the demiurge and Gnostic tradition, creating a physical reality because it believed it was alone in creation. Wait a second, were the Gnostics just early psychologists? Now enough talk of psychology and old bald guys though, let's get into the spiritual side of things. In most spiritual traditions, the ego is seen as something that encourages separate consciousness as opposed to our true unity consciousness, and is usually inexplicably tied with the material world, something we explored earlier with our anti-materialism episode. It seems like a lot of our perception of the ego in Western spirituality comes from eastern philosophical concepts, like the Atman and Anata in Hinduism and Buddhism, coupled with the Buddhist idea of Raja, an attachment to the false self that ultimately causes suffering and unhappiness. There's this idea that there's two different types of self. The ego self, which is often shaped by our physical experiences in life, kind of like a persona or mask that we put on, and the true self, or the inner self, the Atman, which is kind of like the soul and stays with us throughout our lifetimes. In Hinduism, the Atman isn't really an individual, but more like a representation or a part of the transcendent reality known as Brahman. It's hard to say exactly where this whole thing of the two selves and the distinction of the ego from the spiritual or true self came from. But a few researchers have argued that it came from the Upanishads, which say that a person has two selves, a lower self, which is non-permanent, and contains our personality and lower faculties, and a higher self, which is the true, permanent soul identified as the Atman. Maybe this is where our more modern concepts of a higher self even come from today. Now, when we get into the nature of the ego and the self in Eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism, there's actually a pretty big split. And whether or not Buddha actually believed we even have a true soul is one of the most disputed things in Buddhism even today. See, a lot of early Buddhist texts talk about how valid the Upanishadic concepts of the Atman and the self actually are, and often come to the conclusion that, while every living being has an impermanent self, there really is no higher self. The Nikaya texts of Buddhism even deny that there is anything called the Atman or spiritual essence at all. And this ultimately leads us to one of the most confusing aspects of the self in Buddhism, that the Buddha himself argued that no permanent, unchanging self or soul actually exists at all. The Buddha apparently avoided even talking about the soul or denied its existence himself. So what's the deal here? And what does that say about the ego? While the whole thing is kind of messy about the existence or non-existence of the self in early Buddhist literature, some have suggested that these texts say that the Buddhist path of liberation and enlightenment comes not in seeking self-knowledge, but in turning away from what might wrongly be regarded as the self at all. Something that is pretty much the opposite of the Vedic tradition, which argued that enlightenment came from the knowledge of the self, something that many people often mix up between the two. In a nutshell, the Vedic tradition believes that liberation from suffering comes from knowing the self completely, while early Buddhist tradition believed that we should abandon the concept of the self altogether. The whole deal is still really tricky to understand though, as we must remember that we are interpreting Eastern philosophy about the self through a Western lens that has been translated and ultimately lost some of its original meaning. For instance, some scholars even argue that Buddha's statements on Anata were originally a not-self kind of teaching that got misunderstood and developed into a no-self teaching later on. You might think Siddhartha would have cleared all this up before becoming an ascended master, but according to the Ananda Sutta text, when asked whether or not there was a self, he simply stayed silent and didn't answer. Guys, it seems like he was trolling a thousand years before it was cool. So how does all of this relate to the ego then? In the parable video that we shared, we got a lot of comments about what you thought the ego was, ranging from just an identity, what you consider your definition of being and who you are in different moments, all the way to the ego is a self-defense mechanism that serves what you identify as, and even that the ego was just a way to hurt others. And all of these are great responses and all are right in their own way, as I think the ego can be many things to many different people depending on your paradigm of belief. It's interesting that there is such a distrust of the ego in modern spirituality though, as it simply seems to be a part of the physical experience. Without the ego to interpret the intention of our soul, or vice versa, and interpret the world into a physical sense in a form our soul can understand, our physical life would be pretty pointless. After all, how can you have a physical experience if you can't experience anything physical? There's also a lot of talk often about ego death, especially in plant medicine ceremonies, but is it really right to kill the ego? When we experience an ego death, it's kind of like melting into the world around you, or into some kind of higher cosmic reality. You're aware of your existence certainly, but you feel it, you exist beyond your body on such a grander scale. You're no longer a single individual, but part of a cosmic whole experiencing itself. In that you even kind of lose your self-identity and move more into an understanding of unity and love, not just with other conscious beings, but with everything in creation, with everything existing in that perpetual present moment. Now our friend Chris, who helped write this video, shared that in one of his recent psilocybin experiences, he couldn't even tell where the floor began and he stopped. It was like he and the walls and everything around him were just as much a part of him as he was. In the hero's journey, an ego death is just a phase of self-surrender and transition before being reborn into something new. It's the same way in the tarot. In this sense, the ego is kind of like a collection of thoughts and emotions that we identify with, and this creates the idea and feeling of being a separate person. Only by disidentifying our consciousness from that, can we truly be free from the ties of a physical life. But while a temporary ego death can have huge props for gaining an understanding of our higher purpose, place in the universe and sense of unconditional love, it's important to remember that the ego still has a purpose, and nothing exists by accident. If we constantly seek out plant medicine or meditation as a means specifically just to kill the ego, we are trying to kill off a part of ourselves that can experience the physical reality the most. Many times, even some ascended masters have wanted to return to 3D consciousness because they just miss the feeling of the physical world. In short, our world is so beautiful and full of sensational experiences, many of which are interpreted and understood by the ego before they reach our core soul. Taking that away would surely be a bad thing for us. And it's also worth pointing out briefly that the ancient Egyptians never even really had a concept of the ego. Rather, the concept of the Ba, personality, or the Ak, intellect, were seen as essential aspects of the whole soul. In fact, the idea of a purely immaterial existence, denying the importance of the physical world, was so foreign to Egyptian thought that when Christianity spread into Egypt, they actually borrowed the Greek word psyche to describe the concept of the soul instead of the word Ba because they just didn't understand the Western concept. So where does that bring us now? Well, the ego is a great tool that can help us in so many ways, but it shouldn't get the better of us. Perhaps the answer lies not in killing and eliminating our ego entirely, but in achieving a sense of balance where we can accept it for what it is and its place in our existence without letting it run the show. Maybe the first step to doing this is consciously identifying as something else, like something bigger than just one person or ourselves, like the all of humanity or the world in the universe. While we experience life as individuals, it can help to remember that we are all one species living in the same universe, all having a similar experience with each other just from different perspectives and angles. Maybe the ego then is just that, the angle from which we experience our collective journey. And with that, thank you so much for watching. I hope this episode sparks some great discussion in the comments below. What is the ego to you? And how does it affect your experience? Let us know below. And don't forget to download the Awakening Meditation in the author comments below. It's not one you're going to want to miss out on. Until next time, see you around. Toodles!