Are you TRULY killing your ego? Or just pretending?
Let’s put it to the test.
Some people would argue that it’s not bad to like “the idea of” doing something — since it indicates that you at least consider it. Well… I’m not here to argue against it. If you’re into this fake-it-til-you-make-it game, go for it. However, in that case, maybe don’t waste your time reading this article.
Occasionally, as you may know, I bring you personal stories to illustrate my point. Today I won’t, I’ll just keep to the common threads I’ve been observing over the years in people who claim to be seeking death of the ego, but in actuality are holding on very tightly to their egos. Is that bad? Is that good? I don’t know. That’s for you to decide, and I thank you in advance if you don’t put words in my mouth. I’m just being matter-of-factly here: the article is about pursuing death of the ego. Therefore, I won’t be going on tangents to protect people’s sensibilities. You can’t eat the cake and have it too.
Please note I’m a Buddhist. There are two things you should keep in mind. 1) We don’t have dogma, and we don’t believe in shame and guilt. This is not a “do as I say or go to hell” deal. 2) We’re not the biggest fans of duality. We prefer nuance. So, does death of the ego mean “super-ultra-mega-blaster enlightened and transcending the human existence?” No. That would be EXTREME death of the ego. Buddhism doesn’t concern itself with extremism (in fact, it was born as a counterculture to Hinduism because some Hindu figures of authority at the time — and some would argue, even today — were too extremist in their views and methods). I’ll repeat: we prefer nuance. If this is hard to grasp, that’s ok, your Christian conditioning can be hard to get detangled from. Just have patience, is all I ask. Patience with yourself, above all.
And if you disagree with Buddhism, nobody is forcing you to stay here.
So, you claim to be for death of the ego… But you idolise your masters.
Isn’t that interesting?
Buddhism as a whole is similar to Christian Protestantism in that it stands against idolatry (yes, even Tibetan, because the idea of “idols” doesn’t necessarily mean statues made of clay and painted. That would be taking the concept literally and dumbing it down. We’re not dumbing things down. We’re adults). It’s ok to have statues. It’s ok to have art, to represent things visually. It’s only real if you make it real inside your mind. And nobody can invade your mind and police that. So, the choice to use sacred art properly or improperly is in your hands. I’ll repeat: we’re adults. We’re not toddlers. We don’t need religous leaders to babysit us and to do all the thinking FOR us.
What’s more: even if you make the personal choice to go WITHOUT sacred art… What’s stopping your mind from idolatry? If it wants to idolise, it will find a way. For example: you might look at the Dalai Lama giving a speech and idolise him to the point that you think he’s beyond mistakes or reproach, he’s superhuman, anyone questioning any small thing he might have said or done is just “a hater”, etc. That’s idolatry, my darling. I’m not telling you to scrutinise the Dalai Lama, no, he’s an authority for a reason, he’s not perfect but he does his job better than others. You can very well agree with everything he’s ever said and done and that’s ok. But you can, and probably should, open up to the possibility that he is capable of failure.
This might be hard to hear, but: although cults are predatory and bad, some cult victims have a parcel of responsibility when they stay because they have this tendency to idolise human beings. If they didn’t idolise, they would leave much earlier.
If you want death of the ego, you must break your idols. Not physically (that’s optional and not always fruitful), but inside your mind instead. There’s a reason why if you see Buddha on the road, kill him.
Enough said. Moving on:
So, you claim to be for death of the ego… But you won’t allow anyone to disapprove of you, reject you, or otherwise say “no” to your help.
Ironic.
Disapproval is a valid choice. Nobody pleases everybody: that’s a common maxim for a reason. Listen to it. Repeat it like a mantra if you must.
The need to be always right, or always have the last word, or always be in control is notoriously associated with the ego. Across religions. It’s in literally every kind of holy scriptures.
This isn’t about objectivity. You could be objectively right, it’s a real possibility. You could know for certain, based on experience and evidence and a bunch of other things, that you’re right and the person going against you is wrong. But why want to be in command and in control of whether or not the person learns that right here and right now? Why can’t they learn that some other time on their own?
Sometimes, you know you’re right, but somebody disagrees. I’m bringing your attention to the need you feel of verbailsing that; of making it known that you feel bothered by the disagreement.
Why would anyone feel bothered by it and make it known?
Because the ego is in command.
So you claim to be for death of the ego… But you think your way is the only way.
Egos are simple creatures. Let’s keep this in mind. If you’ve been reading this article and concluding that the ego response to every scenario is always the same (to be in control, to be victorious, to undermine and create top-down dynamics…) you’re right. It’s always the same. That makes it easy to identify.
Now, this is a tricky one, because you could argue that every religion (even the ones without dogma) thinks it “knows the way”. Tao, for example, literally means “the way” in Chinese. It’s not just a Western thing.
Is that ego?
The answer is yes. That’s ego.
That’s ego, because we’re all human and have egos. Religions are communal institutions created for humans. You could claim a god created yours, and to some extent that’s true — but who translated this divine message? Human beings. With egos. That actually resonates with me a lot, I’m an oracle, I translate divine input into human language, from my ego to the ego of who is consulting. This filter will always exist, love it or hate it.
That’s also why death of the ego can’t be absolute — but we can strive for the absolute ideal anyway as long as we stay realistic.
Death of the ego is difficult, and the biggest evidence of this difficulty is the fact that inflated egos exist WITHIN RELIGIONS. Ideally, they shouldn’t, but they do.
Now… there are spiritual communities with greater or smaller degrees of that problem. I have a theory that the bigger is the ego problem, the more likely you will be to suffer trauma and label it “a cult”. On the other hand, the lesser the ego problem in this spiritual community, the more likely you will be to enjoy staying (or leave in good terms) and label it “a religion”.
So you claim to be for death of the ego… But you want “the shrooms” to do all the heavy lifting for you.
Mind-altering substances found in nature have long been part of religious ceremonies and I have no right whatsoever to criticise that.
The problem is, some people think these substances are a shortcut to ego death. And no, they aren’t. They open the door, but you must do the walking.
Otherwise, you might become one of those shallow people who tell stories of temporary ego death via entheogens, and on the same breath gossip about people, judge this person, judge that person…
Sorry, this ain’t it.
This is a path. You walk it, or you leave it. Walking it implies staying on it even when you’re going about your perfectly mundane, sober, ordinary 9-to-5.
*This section of the article was put together with help from an Ayahuasca student based in Iguazu I talk to. My own path is fully sober.
So you claim to be for death of the ego… But you oppose problems more than you stand in favour of solutions.
Or alternatively: you dismiss possible solutions based on who proposed them, not on how valid they are.
I have this shadow too! High five! I’ve been working more on it lately.
Let’s first clarify that spirituality isn’t about conformity. It’s ok to protest. It’s just not ok if all you ever do is protest. There’s a fine line between call outs and unproductive negativity. And in the end of the day, if you can’t propose solutions to every problem you’re calling out — no matter how impractical or utopic — why are you calling them out? To feel smarter than the majority? To diminish the “sheeple”? Guess what. That’s ego.
In truth, it’s a lot harder to propose solutions than it is to criticise the problems (or the person you perceive as the perpetrator of your chosen problem). When you make a commitment to always have an idea about how to find a win-win solution BEFORE you criticise anything… You start realising that actually, you don’t have the right to oppose so much. Sometimes you will! Don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t half as often as it was before.
A hard-to-swallow pill most people need to hear is that usually, when you’re looking at a radical activist of any kind (regardless of what flag they wave — “right” and “wrong” alike), what you’re looking at is a person with narcissistic traits.
Not always. But usually. In the overwhelming majority of cases.
It’s not so much about raising awareness of a problem, it’s actually about gathering a crowd in admiration.
This is also about non-violent and non-confrontational radical activists. For example, people who claim to be so pure, so empathetic, so kind-hearted, that they cry when trees are cut; But ironically, don’t have enough empathy to even do as much as asking “what’s wrong” if a stranger near them is sad. Oh, how ironic! All the empathy for trees, but none for human beings outside of their close-knit circle. I see. That’s not real empathy, you know? It’s attention-seeking. It’s a cry of “please notice me, senpai”. Narcissistic.
When you’re REAL, when you’re focusing on charity and not on yourself, you do the work. You don’t necessarily talk about it. What’s the saying again? Empty carts are the loudest.
The above hidden ego traits are things I noticed in some of my previous gurus, and why I let them go. There are some I reconnected with much later — everybody has the capacity for growth and learning! — but as a rule, ego comes shrouded in pride, and pride is hard to let go of. Most don’t bother to ever do that.
Like the Irish saying goes, ní thagann ciall le haois. Maturity does not come with age. Maturity takes work. It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have or how much of an authority you are — you’re not immune to immaturity and ego problems. Nobody is.
The guiding questions above are far from exhaustive. Feel free to suggest your own.
