Ego vs. Higher Self
Ego is running our world and it has to stop.
In this email, I’ll explain how I understand ego vs. higher self dynamics, and why this is super important in our daily lives and crucial to save the world.
What is EGO mind?
Ego mind is a phase in evolution consciousness. It’s an important one - animals don’t have it (and that’s why we love them so much btw). Ego brings us early stage of self-awareness: When I see myself in the mirror I know it’s me and I know that I have spinach in my teeth. Emergence of self-awareness advanced our capacity to cooperate and form coherent groups. From that awareness evolved self-evaluation, power structures, competition, specialization etc. Without EGO we wouldn’t achieve the civilization we have. Without EGO an individual wouldn’t survive in the world we created.
Surviving is the primary job of our Ego mind - NOT THRIVING (!)
At this point, our over-identification with our EGO is causing a lot of harm. Human-centric view of the world is hurting the ecosystem and posing a threat to all life, including human life. Since we cannot survive without the EGO, it’s time for us to evolve beyond it. Our survival actually depends on our capacity to evolve beyond the ego. And this is what we learn to do in my class.
Think of your ego as a 2-year-old who thinks she runs the world. Charming and all, in order to thrive she needs boundaries. Our EGO thinks it’s running the world, but luckily for us, this is far from the truth. Many of us invest a lot of effort into up-keeping a facade of running the world. We manipulate self and others’ perceptions of ourselves, tirelessly striving to gain external acceptance/status. At the root of this ego-validation game is a premise that we are not enough, and have to EARN being accepted and whole. I propose that we invest our efforts where we are going to gain a lot higher returns: TRANSCENDING THE EGO.
The ego mind is the most recent evolutionary layer. In order to transcend it, all we need to do is remember what’s beyond it. This allows us to step outside of just trying to survive and open the doors to thriving in our lives.
If you imagined the universe as a set of nesting dolls, our Ego is the littlest doll inside of many bigger dolls. We don’t need to get rid of it or exile it (we can’t). The only thing to do is to surrender this part when overactive and causing us harm, to the bigger parts beyond it.
LOOSENING CONTROL and surrender will get us out of trouble. Everything beyond the EGO, I refer to as HIGHER SELF. Our individual mind, the mind of culture, the mind of nature, the mind of ancestors, the mind of culture the mind of the universe (& more fields that I failed to mention). This diagram shows how small & limiting our EGO mind is, compared to all the other fields.
Ego will have you convinced that everything beyond its control is a THREAT. Until we wake up to this function of ego, it has a hold on us. Ego is most afraid of loss of control. In the collective field, the ego creates a human-centric view of the world where other beings, nonhuman species are marginalized. Human has evolved to have the most advanced level of consciousness (on this planet). So instead of being conquistadors and controllers of the earth, our duty is to be her guardians.
The main question to save the world today is: How to best decentralize our EGO power inside of us and give power to higher parts of self?
Awakening to the ego already happening, it’s unavoidable. We have options though, we are either gonna choose to evolve beyond it, or the pain of being driven by it will force us to awaken.
Depression, pain, darkness, and lack of joy are messages from our higher self mind. These uncomfortable symptoms mean that something bigger is trying to wake up. When we ignore the signs, they just get louder. It’s similar to when we ignore signs from our body that there is sickness, and the symptoms get worse.
Most of us have to experience a lot of pain before we start searching for help, but the pain is optional. We can awaken before the pain gets us. There is a lot of help out there these days.