What, if anything, dies in ego death?

 

 

‘Ego death’ sounds dramatic, but it is a phrase that is sometimes used as an alternative to ‘awakening’ so, even though I don’t use the phrase very often because I think it’s unclear and overly dramatic, I thought it was worth a blog to say a little more about how it connects to the awakening process.

By the way, some psychologists use the phrase when they are referring to features of mental health disorders such as the dissociative disorders, which can include a distressing or disabling loss of identity or sense of who we are. For example, Millière et al (2018) refer to it as a change in information processing regarding the self and to related alterations in the experience of the self that are linked specifically with the sense of diminution, loss, or disintegration of the self. Although I have worked as a psychologist for several decades I won’t be using the phrase as a feature of a mental disorder here.

I use ego death to refer to an enhanced, rather than a diminished, sense of self - a direct or non-conceptual experience of beingness. I could as easily refer to it as the birth of a broader perspective about who I am rather than the death of a narrower perspective. Sean Webb (Webb, 2017) makes this connection explicit when he writes that the ego prevents us discovering the deeper, or awakened, sense of self that the death of the ego then reveals. That’s more black and white than I would put it, but then his awakening process was like that!

Adyashanti (2021) puts it in a similar way when he writes, “Ego death is just the transitioning from one perspective—ego perspective—to the unity perspective.”

I should also add that ego death is not a thought or a belief ABOUT awareness or awakening, it is the experience itself - there are no words or ideas involved in the experience. You could interpret this to mean that everything I write here is therefore redundant but I think I shall ignore that implication for now…

A couple of points about ego death...

Even without including dreamless sleep, we have moments of ego death every day, when we are completely involved in a task to the exclusion of all else, for example. At such times no thoughts are involved and there is no need to invoke a sense of self because our absorption in the task is so complete. Similarly, we can also listen so intently to a song or piece of music, or watch a theatrical or sporting performance that, again, no thoughts are needed or involved – we become ‘lost in the experience’, as the English expression goes. It may seem odd to use the phrase ‘ego death’ for such experiences, but the underlying process is the same.

I also want to make the point that we wouldn’t want to destroy the ego, even if we could. It’s the part of us that engages in all those day-to-day transactions in shops, family settings, when you’re at work, when you are in a coffee shop and are asked which, of the long list of options, you want, and so on. It’s an essential part of how we navigate through the world. Just try ordering your morning espresso in a blissed-out, meditative state and see what you get! But ego processes include a procedure for how to get an espresso!

On the other hand, if you want to understand yourself more completely and awaken to the deeper aspects of who you are, you need the ego to step aside for a while. Anyone who has tried to meditate for more than a couple of minutes knows what a large part the ego processes can play. After watching all the unbidden thoughts, plans, memories etc. that parade across the inner stage of our awareness, it is perhaps not surprising that some people like the idea of the death or complete destruction of the ego that gives rise to them. That, however, is all part of what Ram Dass called ‘grist for the mill.’

I’m slightly tempted at this point to include something on the related and similarly doom-laden concept of ‘dark night of the soul’, but I think that might be a step too far so, as a final thought, the more we can observe and simply let go of everything that enters awareness, the quieter our inner world will become. The ego just pops up when it’s time for an espresso and settles down the rest of the time. Well, most of the rest of the time…

If a man controls his mind he can find his way to enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Lao Tzu


Bibliography and videography

Adyashanti (2021). The Death of the Ego (Excerpt). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMDs_-zV8EU

Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F.-M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018). Psychedelics, meditation and self-consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(1475), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475

Webb, S. (2017) Mind Hacking Happiness Volume II: Increasing happiness and finding non-dual enlightenment (chapter 9 and onwards). CCRSM Press.

Key words

ego, ego death, awakening, espresso, dissociation, mind,

Image

A picture I took on the River Cam in Cambridge as one working day was ending and the punts were readied for the start of another.

Link

 https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2023/10/what-if-anything-dies-in-ego-death.html