Tim Freke
"I want to suggest that the ego is actually necessary and desirable. This will be heresy for some spiritual folk. But for me, spiritual awakening is not about denying our humanity. I want to celebrate our individuality and appreciate the poignant beauty of the personal life."- The Mystery Experience
"The idea of eradicating the ego seems misguided and holds no attraction now. My experience of awakening makes me want to fully engage with the human adventure, not escape it. This has compelled me to conceptualize the spiritual ideal to which I aspire in a new way. I don’t aspire to be an enlightened master, rather I aspire to be a humble ‘lover of life’. - The Mystery Experience
On eradicating the ego..."When I was younger I took this idea very seriously. But now it seems like the ultimate paranoid conspiracy theory. It doesn’t awaken us, it merely encourages us to wage an internal civil war against ourselves. And that’s disastrous."
"Indeed it seems to me that, far from being the problem, the personal self is our foundation in the world, from which we can spiritually awaken. It is a gloriously particular expression of the infinite potentiality of being, through which the primal oneness of awareness can experience life."
"I used to have the crazy idea that I should permanently inhabit an ultra-conscious state. When I failed to do so, I regarded it as a spiritual failure because I imagined that I was being seduced into unconsciousness by my perfidious ego. But I don't see things like that anymore. And this feels good, for it has liberated me from chasing an unattainable ideal.
"The idea of eradicating the ego seems misguided and holds no attraction now. My experience of awakening makes me want to fully engage with the human adventure, not escape it. This has compelled me to conceptualize the spiritual ideal to which I aspire in a new way. I don’t aspire to be an enlightened master, rather I aspire to be a humble ‘lover of life’. - The Mystery Experience
On eradicating the ego..."When I was younger I took this idea very seriously. But now it seems like the ultimate paranoid conspiracy theory. It doesn’t awaken us, it merely encourages us to wage an internal civil war against ourselves. And that’s disastrous."
"Indeed it seems to me that, far from being the problem, the personal self is our foundation in the world, from which we can spiritually awaken. It is a gloriously particular expression of the infinite potentiality of being, through which the primal oneness of awareness can experience life."
"I used to have the crazy idea that I should permanently inhabit an ultra-conscious state. When I failed to do so, I regarded it as a spiritual failure because I imagined that I was being seduced into unconsciousness by my perfidious ego. But I don't see things like that anymore. And this feels good, for it has liberated me from chasing an unattainable ideal.
"There is truth to the notion of transcending ego: it doesn’t mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. As I said, to lose that ego is to become a psychotic, not a sage." - Ken Wilber
"Ego transcendence does not mean “less than personal,” it means “more than personal.” Not personal minus, but personal plus—all the normal personal qualities, plus some transpersonal ones." -Ken Wilber
"Ego transcendence does not mean “less than personal,” it means “more than personal.” Not personal minus, but personal plus—all the normal personal qualities, plus some transpersonal ones." -Ken Wilber
"The point of view that ego structure can/should be summarily, suddenly dropped, seems to contradict the already established fact that the lack of ego structure results in mental disorder." - A.H. Almaas
"Depersonalized spirituality is an anemic undertaking in which hollowness is confused with transparency, ungroundedness with altitude, flimsy boundaries with openness, and emotional flatness with equanimity. When we’re in its grip, we usually don’t bother differentiating between egoity and individuality, keeping ourselves busy fueling and marketing the Oneness Express and the Transcendence Monorail, preaching the gospel of nonseparation even as we advocate separating from or getting rid of ego." - Robert Augustus Masters
Jason Shulman
"From the point of view of true nonduality, which does not split the world in any way, we understand that this self-sense we call our ego-personality is one part among all the parts of the natural world. We see that it is a valid, important part of our lives, especially as it heals and reveals more and more of its true nature: as part of creation. The need to “see through it,” destroy it, see it only as an illusion, disappears. It is, after all, an important partner in our spiritual search and not only the impediment it is sometimes characterized as being."
"And yet, the ego is real. It is just as it is. The path of the nondual voyager asks us to not disrespect the ego—even if it is a temporary manifestation--but instead heal it, so it can aid us and be our best part instead of our constant adversary. "
"The existence of a self, that is having a self, is not a problem any more than breathing or sleeping or waking is a problem. There is a concept that we should transcend ourselves, or erase ourselves or somehow annihilate ourselves but this is not the case. The body is designed to breathe, the legs to walk, the arms to reach out, the eyes to see and the body-mind-spirit is designed, it's programmed to create a self.
Let's just realize that the universe never made a mistake creating cells over and over again, galaxy cells, planet cells, rock cells, tree cells, human cells, everything has a self, the secret is how we are going to relate to that self, what are we going to do with it what do we believe this self is, and how can we use it to connect to all, to connect to other people, to nature, to the world, to our most authentic self, and how can we not use it to remain separate and isolated but completely inter-connected."
The Non-dual Shaman
"But, unlike traditional non-dual approaches, we do not seek to exile the ego as illusory, useless, or an eternal inhibiting obstacle. Instead, with an abiding belief in nonviolence, we try to heal it so that its true function can be free to operate for the good of all. We include the ego, as well as our imperfections, in our work, mixed with the kindness we need to see this journey through. This is a path of flesh and bones, the hard and the soft."
"Even the sense of a personal self is something created by the universe itself. It is not a perversion of our destiny, and, when healed, is the perfect vehicle—indeed the only vehicle— to take us to what wholeness actually means. Healing this ego rather than trying to transcend, ignore or destroy it, brings us to a place in which all of who we are is important.
Re-breathing the Buddha's 4 Noble Truths
“It has not yet occurred to us that the ego, when healed, will find its rightful place in our body, the way our hands and feet, eyes and lips find their own place as well, or that this entire vision of the spiritual path is a projection of an unreliable reporter, the unhealed ego itself."
The Magi Process
“The personal ego is still allowed to exist: we have not negated it. But we have begun the process of healing it, seeing it for what it is: a pinwheel of beauty, shooting out sparks of individuality, in an immeasurable and unified universe."
Beyond the Now
“The one and the many are forever joined in the act of creation. Existence implies that oneness and separateness are a single thing, co-arising and co-dependent. Our ego is not our enemy but our vehicle to wholeness. Our individuality and separateness are equally as important as our abiding oneness with everything.”
"For many years I have been saying that the human ego, or sense of a separate personality, should not be ignored, transcended, done away with, seen through, or otherwise wasted. I have suggested that the ego is only a problem when it is not healed or integrated into the being, and that wholeness cannot be found by cutting away parts of ourselves. I have further said that the healed ego is beauty itself and that rather than making a mistake over and over again, the universe keeps making egos because that’s what the universe is: the urge to be, united with the before-the-before, the great silence."
"My point then, is to point out how any path to awakening must include the ego-personality, taking its health and well-being into account, realizing that without the ego being brought back into the fold of the bodymindspirit, we cannot have true awakening and true enlightenment. Without this part of the whole, true union becomes impossible. Potential and vital allies—like the ego—are left as enemies."
"But through misunderstanding and miseducation, the healthy ego’s importance in creating and sustaining human wholeness has been denied. The consequence of doing this is to enter a spiritualized fantasyland where who we are as separate and whole individuals is erased in favor of some foggy notion of goodness. We don’t tell a mountain not to be a mountain, but we constantly tell ourselves not to be people. People—individuals—only exist because of and with—an ego. There is no person without an ego, though there can be a person with a healing ego."
"Spiritual work is always work on and with the ego. Our whole spiritual journey is about healing our unhealed egos which do not know how to partake of the world as it is. The world is not safe because people do not do this sort of thing and instead believe the propaganda their unhealed egos broadcast to them day and night, that survival requires the death of otherness; that freedom means supremacy and that only the conqueror is free. All of the messages of the unhealed ego are really cries for help from the ego in the only language it knows: resistance, fear, pride, self-will and pain. Our job as spiritual seekers is to listen carefully for the message underneath so that we can give this ego what it truly wants: to be free; to be love itself; to be kind. To be wise. To be unshackled. To walk upright with dignity. To help. To trust life. Our small self does not need to be violated or killed for this to happen. It simply needs to find a home."
"It is the same with the ego. I say “the ego,” because there is no enlightenment without the ego. It is the ego that gets enlightened!"
"Remember, the unhealed ego likes nothing better than to think of some state in which attainment is constant, unvarying, without defect or change. This is simply the unhealed ego’s dream of nirvana."
Until this day, paths abound that try to abolish the ego, some gently and some with force. Some paths like to dissolve this ego in love and some in hate or judgement. But there is a tint in the majority of paths that I have encountered of the need to modify the ego into some sort of transparency, leaving out who it is who wants this, in other words, who’s ego has this desire to be invisible!
Manual for Receiving God
"The human ego—our sense of separateness—is not negative in and of itself. The cause of the additional suffering we all are prey to is the unhealthy ego, the ego that only knows separateness and that tries to maintain this separateness in the face of a much subtler truth."
"Many spiritual paths ask us to leave the ego—the sense of a separate, personal self—behind. They ask us to find that place where—they believe—the ego does not exist. But everywhere I look in the universe, from the farthest galaxies to the smallest vibrating strings creating the harmony of the quark and proton, I see the beauty that can only be uttered in the language of separateness. The problem is not in the ego but in the fact that the ego doesn’t see itself as the beauty it truly is."
"Our job is not to destroy the ego’s ability to review the past, but to educate it, inform it, and heal it. The healed ego will always bear the signs of its history, but we will begin to see the difference between living while looking into a rearview mirror and living in the shining of the ever-unfolding present moment."
"True spiritual growth is impossible without a healthy ego. The ego arises as a natural consequence of incarnation. In other words, coming into being created the sense of a separate self. The ego is not a mutation, error, or anomaly that needs to be eliminated. Instead, the ego needs to be healed in order to take its rightful place in our lives."
"There is no reason to make believe the ego is something bad that one must “overcome,” “transcend,” or “get beyond” in some way in order to be a good spiritual student. The simple truth is that the ego, as much a part of our body, mind, and spirit as are our hands and eyes, needs to be healed."
"Here is a truth: You are a being who has an ego. When the ego is unhealthy, it can be a troublesome thing—so pay attention to it, listen to what it is trying to say. Then get teachers for it, kind teachers who know the route from the past (where the unhealed ego lives) to the present moment (the place of the ego’s healing)."
"Have compassion for your ego. It is doing two important jobs at once, which often puts it in agonizing conflict with itself. The ego’s first job is to maintain the integrity of the individual, personal self. It simultaneously has the job of seeking out the larger view in which the personal self is only a part. Both are needed."
"Though the ego will eternally want to improve, improvement itself will not bring us to God. This is an important moment. It can lead to a level of acceptance of the personal self that is so profound it even includes the ego’s continual desire to “improve.” Self-improvement is not a problem when it is seen as just one aspect of life. The last step on the ladder is to abandon the belief in the ladder as the only road to heaven."
"The ego is God’s version of human beauty. It does not disappear when it is healed and takes its rightful place within the body, mind, and spirit of a human being."
"And yet, the ego is real. It is just as it is. The path of the nondual voyager asks us to not disrespect the ego—even if it is a temporary manifestation--but instead heal it, so it can aid us and be our best part instead of our constant adversary. "
"The existence of a self, that is having a self, is not a problem any more than breathing or sleeping or waking is a problem. There is a concept that we should transcend ourselves, or erase ourselves or somehow annihilate ourselves but this is not the case. The body is designed to breathe, the legs to walk, the arms to reach out, the eyes to see and the body-mind-spirit is designed, it's programmed to create a self.
Let's just realize that the universe never made a mistake creating cells over and over again, galaxy cells, planet cells, rock cells, tree cells, human cells, everything has a self, the secret is how we are going to relate to that self, what are we going to do with it what do we believe this self is, and how can we use it to connect to all, to connect to other people, to nature, to the world, to our most authentic self, and how can we not use it to remain separate and isolated but completely inter-connected."
The Non-dual Shaman
"But, unlike traditional non-dual approaches, we do not seek to exile the ego as illusory, useless, or an eternal inhibiting obstacle. Instead, with an abiding belief in nonviolence, we try to heal it so that its true function can be free to operate for the good of all. We include the ego, as well as our imperfections, in our work, mixed with the kindness we need to see this journey through. This is a path of flesh and bones, the hard and the soft."
"Even the sense of a personal self is something created by the universe itself. It is not a perversion of our destiny, and, when healed, is the perfect vehicle—indeed the only vehicle— to take us to what wholeness actually means. Healing this ego rather than trying to transcend, ignore or destroy it, brings us to a place in which all of who we are is important.
Re-breathing the Buddha's 4 Noble Truths
“It has not yet occurred to us that the ego, when healed, will find its rightful place in our body, the way our hands and feet, eyes and lips find their own place as well, or that this entire vision of the spiritual path is a projection of an unreliable reporter, the unhealed ego itself."
The Magi Process
“The personal ego is still allowed to exist: we have not negated it. But we have begun the process of healing it, seeing it for what it is: a pinwheel of beauty, shooting out sparks of individuality, in an immeasurable and unified universe."
Beyond the Now
“The one and the many are forever joined in the act of creation. Existence implies that oneness and separateness are a single thing, co-arising and co-dependent. Our ego is not our enemy but our vehicle to wholeness. Our individuality and separateness are equally as important as our abiding oneness with everything.”
"For many years I have been saying that the human ego, or sense of a separate personality, should not be ignored, transcended, done away with, seen through, or otherwise wasted. I have suggested that the ego is only a problem when it is not healed or integrated into the being, and that wholeness cannot be found by cutting away parts of ourselves. I have further said that the healed ego is beauty itself and that rather than making a mistake over and over again, the universe keeps making egos because that’s what the universe is: the urge to be, united with the before-the-before, the great silence."
"My point then, is to point out how any path to awakening must include the ego-personality, taking its health and well-being into account, realizing that without the ego being brought back into the fold of the bodymindspirit, we cannot have true awakening and true enlightenment. Without this part of the whole, true union becomes impossible. Potential and vital allies—like the ego—are left as enemies."
"But through misunderstanding and miseducation, the healthy ego’s importance in creating and sustaining human wholeness has been denied. The consequence of doing this is to enter a spiritualized fantasyland where who we are as separate and whole individuals is erased in favor of some foggy notion of goodness. We don’t tell a mountain not to be a mountain, but we constantly tell ourselves not to be people. People—individuals—only exist because of and with—an ego. There is no person without an ego, though there can be a person with a healing ego."
"Spiritual work is always work on and with the ego. Our whole spiritual journey is about healing our unhealed egos which do not know how to partake of the world as it is. The world is not safe because people do not do this sort of thing and instead believe the propaganda their unhealed egos broadcast to them day and night, that survival requires the death of otherness; that freedom means supremacy and that only the conqueror is free. All of the messages of the unhealed ego are really cries for help from the ego in the only language it knows: resistance, fear, pride, self-will and pain. Our job as spiritual seekers is to listen carefully for the message underneath so that we can give this ego what it truly wants: to be free; to be love itself; to be kind. To be wise. To be unshackled. To walk upright with dignity. To help. To trust life. Our small self does not need to be violated or killed for this to happen. It simply needs to find a home."
"It is the same with the ego. I say “the ego,” because there is no enlightenment without the ego. It is the ego that gets enlightened!"
"Remember, the unhealed ego likes nothing better than to think of some state in which attainment is constant, unvarying, without defect or change. This is simply the unhealed ego’s dream of nirvana."
Until this day, paths abound that try to abolish the ego, some gently and some with force. Some paths like to dissolve this ego in love and some in hate or judgement. But there is a tint in the majority of paths that I have encountered of the need to modify the ego into some sort of transparency, leaving out who it is who wants this, in other words, who’s ego has this desire to be invisible!
Manual for Receiving God
"The human ego—our sense of separateness—is not negative in and of itself. The cause of the additional suffering we all are prey to is the unhealthy ego, the ego that only knows separateness and that tries to maintain this separateness in the face of a much subtler truth."
"Many spiritual paths ask us to leave the ego—the sense of a separate, personal self—behind. They ask us to find that place where—they believe—the ego does not exist. But everywhere I look in the universe, from the farthest galaxies to the smallest vibrating strings creating the harmony of the quark and proton, I see the beauty that can only be uttered in the language of separateness. The problem is not in the ego but in the fact that the ego doesn’t see itself as the beauty it truly is."
"Our job is not to destroy the ego’s ability to review the past, but to educate it, inform it, and heal it. The healed ego will always bear the signs of its history, but we will begin to see the difference between living while looking into a rearview mirror and living in the shining of the ever-unfolding present moment."
"True spiritual growth is impossible without a healthy ego. The ego arises as a natural consequence of incarnation. In other words, coming into being created the sense of a separate self. The ego is not a mutation, error, or anomaly that needs to be eliminated. Instead, the ego needs to be healed in order to take its rightful place in our lives."
"There is no reason to make believe the ego is something bad that one must “overcome,” “transcend,” or “get beyond” in some way in order to be a good spiritual student. The simple truth is that the ego, as much a part of our body, mind, and spirit as are our hands and eyes, needs to be healed."
"Here is a truth: You are a being who has an ego. When the ego is unhealthy, it can be a troublesome thing—so pay attention to it, listen to what it is trying to say. Then get teachers for it, kind teachers who know the route from the past (where the unhealed ego lives) to the present moment (the place of the ego’s healing)."
"Have compassion for your ego. It is doing two important jobs at once, which often puts it in agonizing conflict with itself. The ego’s first job is to maintain the integrity of the individual, personal self. It simultaneously has the job of seeking out the larger view in which the personal self is only a part. Both are needed."
"Though the ego will eternally want to improve, improvement itself will not bring us to God. This is an important moment. It can lead to a level of acceptance of the personal self that is so profound it even includes the ego’s continual desire to “improve.” Self-improvement is not a problem when it is seen as just one aspect of life. The last step on the ladder is to abandon the belief in the ladder as the only road to heaven."
"The ego is God’s version of human beauty. It does not disappear when it is healed and takes its rightful place within the body, mind, and spirit of a human being."