Spiritual progress depends on shedding of ego

One endeavours to give up the ego in spirituality usually by endeavouring to become more something, more loving, more forgiving, more grateful, more compassionate, more peaceful, more aware and on it goes, somehow, what you are right now has to be changed into something more spiritual. This is the ego/Self pride. The Self that needs time to exist otherwise who am I without a story of me. The story of my spiritual experiences. My lucid dreaming, my third eye opening, my spiritual journey ahead. That story is time.

Time is never here where I, life am. Spirituality needs time, time to ascend, time to evolve, time for chakras to align, time to let go… it's all the sense of self becoming. The self doesn't become anything in the dying of self and the dying of self happens only one place.. Here As the timeless.. Now. Solitude is the background to the stillness of being. By being here as the beautiful sensing body, there is an inherent goodness. A natural goodness that's here as the body sensation. Be still and know that I am God. That's a wonderful statement.

God is not a self… Its what remains when I am not. There is nothing spiritual in being. Spiritual anything is just another label of the mind. The mind is always swinging from special or worthless, don't believe a word of what's thought. Hold all thoughts in an open hand, they can blow away any minute. The ego/self pride is just a bunch of thoughts and in fact the ego/Self is so fragile it has to continually endeavour to prop itself up by thinking and identifying to the thoughts. That's why it's so incessant because it's an effort to maintain a lie.

Being here as the truth of this.. this.. this…takes no energy. The self meanwhile is exhausting. Its overrated this spirituality lark. Its a way in which many micro manage the self with the self. Over thinking everything. Asking questions like what's the spiritual meaning of standing on a dog turd this morning? It means to let go and surrender the old self so the new self can emerge. Like a snake shedding its outgrown skin, surrendering ego is part of the evolutionary process that every human being has to go on to come home to itself and to live from a place of wholeness & unity.

However, ego itself is not discarded during the transformation process, only its unyielding skin. A spiritual awakening occurs when the vessel that is ego has reached its limit and can no longer contain all that the Self is striving to become. When the old version of self expands beyond its comfort zone, it butts heads with the new/emerging self, setting in motion the evolutionary process of transformation. This butting of heads is the face-off between the material self and the spiritual self. It is the meeting of the head and the heart.

The friction that is generated through the encounter of these opposing energies aids the arising of the new self and helps the ego-self to slough off its tight parasitic skin. As the new self emerges, its essence penetrates the old self’s calcified defences dismantling its outgrown belief system and offering up a new (divine) purpose that’s in service to the whole. In order to expand & evolve, ego must now leave the womb of its existing state of consciousness and allow itself to be birthed into a more expanded level of consciousness.

This is the evolutionary move from identifying Self as a separate individual to identifying Self as part of a bigger whole. Despite the initial face-off, the material self and the spiritual self must now work together if there is any hope of achieving that which they both ultimately desire. During this evolutionary process, ego burns through different versions of Self until all that remains is the One Without Identification.

By this point, ego (the perpetual ‘old’ self) has softened & dissolved into the background of one’s experiencing; thus the question of its existence and “who’s running the show” ceases to be relevant. Attempting to kill ego, as is recommended by some spiritual schools is a futile endeavour and creates more suffering in the long run. It can also lead to more complex psychological problems if underlying personality disorders are not first resolved. Surrendering ego heralds the fulfilment of that which the Self has been longing its entire existence.

I am going to suggest, that it means: ‘integrating’ your ego in a way that it can then fulfill its true function = for example, briefly: a) If I see a green car, the true job of my ego is to ‘filter’ / ‘report’ that back to me i.e. “There is a green car”. b) But, if I ‘filter’ / ‘report’ back to myself something like: “Look at that ugly green car, who would buy that? And the person driving it … well, who does he think he is …?” then I have a deflated / inflated ego and, the ego’s true role has become ‘distorted’ (e.g. judgemental) … an example of an ‘altered ego’ = altered from its authentic ‘job’.

c) re: oneself … I can say, “I am a very good musician” [= a) above i.e. an accurate fact, if that is true. But if I say, “I’m the best musician in the world” [when that is not true] then I am b) above. In the same way, if I say, “Oh! Don’t be so silly, I could never do a painting that good”, when in truth I know I can because I’m a well-known professional painter, then my ego is again, out of balance. There’s more to a), b) and c) above but I hope I’ve given enough to communicate the overall picture.

And, the ego is a tool that enables us as humans, to ‘see’ and ‘interact’ with our world but, if not ‘handled correctly’ as we grow up for example, then it forms opinions about itself, us and the world, which become un/imbalanced, distorted, inflated, deflated etc. and ~ it can then collude with other aspects of our being e.g. the mind, shadow, emotions, other aspects of the inner child etc. to ‘play games’ / assert itself / destroy / build / inaccurately promote / make you believe you are your ego (and not spirit)! etc. Cheers!