Can Your Ego Ever Die?

Greetings beloved being of love and light. As people learn how their ego is the cause of all their suffering, naturally, a common question that is then asked is, “Can my ego ever die?”. To answer this question, let us first remind ourselves of what the ego is. Your ego is a program within your subconscious mind. It is a set of beliefs of who you think you are in relation to the world around you. So it will usually comprise of the belief that you are your body, that you are the voice in your head, that you are a male/female, that you are a father/mother, that you are a particular age, nationality, job title and sexual preference. All these labels and identities make up your ego.

However, who you truly are is none of those things. Who you truly are is the Divine, oneness, source, God, but you are just pretending to play this individual character. In reality, you are the only thing that ever exists, has ever existed, and will ever exist. But suffering arises when you forget who you truly are, and believe that you are nothing more than your ego. Believing in the idea that you are separate from the world around you is at the root of all suffering. But separation is just an illusion, because you are everything and everyone. So it is not actually your ego that causes suffering; it is your association with your ego and your belief in the illusion of separation that is the true cause of your suffering. Your ego is just a figment of your mind’s imagination, and it is not actually real. However, your senses and brain have filtered the reality you experience to make you believe in this idea of separation, because you wanted to experience what this would be like. So the ego could not possibly die because it was never alive to begin with. What changes as you spiritually awaken is that you break down your association with your ego, and you gradually give less energy to uphold this illusion.

Who do you think it is that asks, “Can my ego ever die?”? It is the ego itself asking this. The Divine would never ask this for 3 main reasons: 1) The Divine never asks questions, it only gives answers, 2) It knows the ego is not real, and 3) It knows there is no death. It is typical aggressive ego behaviour to want to kill a problem rather than work through it and grow from it. So, essentially, the ego is unknowingly wanting to commit suicide. It is a silly little illusion playing games with itself, and the Divine within you is simply watching it all unfold.

The ego is not your enemy. Your ego allows you to play a part in this grand movie of life. It is the character you agreed to temporarily play. Every human has an ego, even if some people deny this. However, eventually there comes a point on your spiritual journey when you experience a moment in time where your ego takes some time off and goes on vacation, and in those moments, you fully remember who you truly are. Your ego is not there, yet YOU still exist. Without the distraction of your ego, you are able to know yourself as the Divine/consciousness/awareness. This is what is known as an enlightenment experience.

But after this experience, you must come back into this 3D reality, and so you must put back on those layers of disguise and continue playing your character. The difference now is that you know you are playing a fictional character rather than believing this fictional character is real. You know you are the actor rather than the character. And so you use your character to convey the truths that you have discovered in a unique way. For instance, I love to make jokes when I am teaching people at our retreats. To make jokes, I need my ego. The joyful energy behind the joke, and the intention to make people laugh, comes from the Divine, but to convert that energy and intention into words to make a specific joke, I need my ego. Another way I use my ego is by using examples from my life in order to help people understand what I am talking about. The Divine can speak many truths through me, but I use my ego to help convey these truths in a more understandable and relatable way to people. Therefore, I actually enjoy my ego, and I enjoy what it has to offer to the world. The difference now is that I have allowed the Divine to be in control and to use my ego when it needs to, rather than my ego being in control of everything and the Divine just waiting in the background till I wake up.

So you do not need to get rid of your ego, nor can you (except upon your physical “death”). It is an illusion, but it can be an enjoyable illusion. All that is needed is to break your association with it and realise it is not real. And that happens as you gradually detach from your body and the voice in your head during meditations. Just observe your ego — observe how it works and observe why it does things. With your observation, your awareness of it, you detach from it, and you can see it as just a clueless little child. You can then enjoy watching its silliness, while knowing that this silly child is no longer in control.

Thank you for reading. We’d love to see you at one of our spiritual retreats — more information can be found here.