The Ego is Sneaky: 5 Ways to Know When It’s In Charge

June 15, 2013 | By Dylan Charles | 3 Replies

If you are reading this article, it’s probable that you have read dozens, if not hundreds of books and articles on spirituality. You may have studied numerous traditions, and sought the help of a master from any number of traditions. Or, maybe you’ve stuck with just one, diligently. The truth is that you have probably succumbed to the amazing maneuvers of your mystical ego, and fallen right into some of the spiritual pits you have been trying to avoid. Sometimes no matter how hard we try, we get upset, judgmental, lazy, mean, or even angry. We forget so easily, that whatever we see ‘out there’ is just reflecting what’s ‘in here.’ Damn, it can be exasperating!Christina Sarich, Staff Writer


Waking Times

The ego is so tricky, it can even use your spiritual practice as a way to do you in. It can make you and your opinions seem ‘better’ than others, and anyone else’s wisdom, ‘inferior.’ It can turn the most hallowed practice into a convoluted mind-screw that has you thinking you are ascending, when really you are back-sliding faster than an ice-skater dancing on a banana peel.

So, while a simple list is just another device for the ego to make you think you know what’s up when there is still so much more to learn, here are a few ways you can tell when your ego is up to no good and taking charge in your life:

• You haven’t forgotten how to be the observer. One of the fastest ways the ego works on you is to remove the gap between yourself and the experience of a thing, person or circumstance. As long as you have forgotten that everything you are experiencing is coming from your own very deep programming – your stuck. This can be really difficult when it feels like someone is hurting you, lying to you, cheating on you, shaming you, guilting you, etc. The truth is – at the most ‘non’ conscious levels, which really means the more conscious levels,  you are creating the show. You’ve designed the costumes, made the props, and even chosen the set. You won’t see any difference in the characters of your play until you change the programming that is causing them to act out the scene of your life in front of you so expertly.
• You see your current reality as the only reality when it really represents only a fragment of what is possible at any given moment in time. It feels as if you have to protect this very limited view of the world, because if you didn’t you would feel pain, and suffering, but ironically, this is exactly what the ego has you thinking, very purposefully – and it does cause suffering. It’s a classic reversal of truth, and you’ve bought in, hook line and sinker. As we re-integrate the shunned and shamed parts of ourselves, the part-conscious, un-whole pieces of the full pie of who we are, we get to integrate the ego so that it can no longer hide its sneaky tricks from us – namely of keeping us stuck in a very limited understanding of the world as a whole. Ego, in essence means fragmentation – we mistakenly believe that this is who we are. It is simply untrue.
• Any time you are afraid, you can be sure the ego is having its way with your consciousness. This includes worry, fear, and anxiety. Fear is based in limitation. It is only seeing a small portion of the Truth. The future seems frightening to the ego, not because the outcome is unknown, so much, as the ego doesn’t have control of this domain. As long as the ego has you sweating the small stuff, or losing sleep over the big stuff, you aren’t able to expand your consciousness into love. Fear causes you to have to ‘prove’ yourself to others. It causes you to have to ‘be worthy’ through some action, when the truth is you already are, just as you are. It can turn even a loving relationship into ‘I’ versus ‘you’ In a heartbeat. Fear obliterates we.
• Laziness, tiredness, and passivity are also tricks of the ego. If you are just too ‘tired’ to make a change you stay stuck in your current, more limited view of the world – your small piece of consciousness is running the show while you mistakenly believe it is a true representation of reality. “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you are tired,” said Jules Renard. If you don’t exert any effort at all, you can be sure your spiritual path with stagnate.
• Hiding your real feelings about a situation is often the work of the ego. If you can’t communicate honestly and openly, the ego gets to use all sorts of manipulative mind-games to keep you playing games with yourself and your partner, friend, boss, etc. You become stubborn, unwilling to change, and more interested in defending your unspoken truth, than expressing it. The ego will have you believe that telling the truth will humiliate you, but the old saying is true, ‘the Truth will set you free.’

Do you have other experiences of the ego taking over? Please share them with us.

About the Author

Christina Sarich is a musician, yogi, humanitarian and freelance writer who channels many hours of studying Lao Tzu, Paramahansa Yogananda, Rob Brezny,  Miles Davis, and Tom Robbins into interesting tidbits to help you Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

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A New Being

What we have the potential to bring into this world is literally a New Being. That's what the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment makes it possible for us to give birth to when individuals who are living the Five Tenets come together as a dynamic, spontaneous expression of the Six Principles.

This new being is consciousness beyond ego. It is what emergesbetween individuals who have awakened to the Authentic Self. In the traditional Eastern model, enlightenment was contained in the consciousness of the individual, but in the new enlightenment, when two or more individuals awaken to the Authentic Self at the same time and in the same place, a new consciousness emerges between them, which is the enlightened mind itself.

The nature and the consciousness of this new being is revolution in action. It is unbroken, dynamic freedom from inertia at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. And therefore, for the being itself to be that free, the cells that comprise it—the individual human beings who come together for this one purpose—have to be independent, autonomous expressions of that same dynamic freedom. This glorious potential demands and requires the total participation, submission, surrender, and unconditional commitment of each individual. If this is going to succeed, a significant minority of us have to become radically liberated, not for our own sake, but for the sake of the welfare, evolution, and development of the greater being we will become.

Evolutionary Tension & Natural Hierarchy

The last two principles of Evolutionary Enlightenment areEvolutionary Tension and Natural Hierarchy. These two principles describe the dynamic nature and structure of a higher collective consciousness beyond ego. 

Evolutionary Tension is the experiential quality of the new consciousness that is liberated between individuals who come together in the authentic self. The authentic self cares only about the future, and that care is felt in the human heart and mind as a powerful wakefulness, a thoroughly positive and wholesome tension that endlessly compels the individual to rise to his or her highest potential in order to create that future. It is the very opposite of inertia, which is the quality of the individual and collective ego, the downward drag of its endless fears and concerns. Evolutionary tension is an upward pull, a profound sense of urgency to bring into manifestation that which has not yet occurred. It is the dynamic awareness of and surrender to the creative impulse, the demand from the authentic self to become more, to reach for higher and more complex forms of harmony and integration. This positive tension creates a context for human relationship that is always evolutionary because it is infused with the living presence of unmanifest, immanent potential.

Natural Hierarchy is the structure of human relationship that spontaneously emerges in a living context of intersubjective enlightenment. Enlightenment means beyond ego, and intersubjective means between subjects. So natural hierarchy emerges when two or more individuals meet in a higher consciousness beyond ego. It is an egoless structure defined only by actual differences between individuals' relative levels of development and experience. In evolutionary enlightenment, while the ground of relationship is always nonduality or oneness, the reality of difference, which is the very fabric of any developmental perspective, must be honored. And therefore the relationships between evolving, enlightened human beings would clearly reflect the ultimate truth of non-difference while simultaneously respecting differing levels of experience, knowledge, and authority. If each individual was embracing the demand of evolutionary tension, which compels us to live up to our highest level of experience and understanding, a genuinenatural hierarchy would become manifest—a hierarchy defined not by the ego's motives of power and control, but by the authentic self's desire to develop. Natural hierarchy is a delicate and ultimately challenging principle for most human beings to grasp, because it inherently demands that the ego must be transcended, individually and collectively. Only then will the matrix of human relationships become an expression of evolution and enlightenment: a dynamic and ever-changing reflection of the truth of nonduality.

Autonomy is radical independence and authenticity

The second two principles of Evolutionary Enlightenment areAutonomy and Communion. Together, these two principles represent the very ground of the new consciousness that is the promise and purpose of this teaching.

Autonomy is radical independence and authenticity. It emerges when the individual is standing completely alone, in a perfect state of self-reliant and independent passionate interest in the evolutionary process. Autonomy is the expression of pure creative freedom—the powerful, unrestricted freedom of the individual to flower in his or her own potential without limit. When you experience true autonomy, you discover an unparalleled fullness of self that is miraculously free from self-consciousness. You simply are who you are, ecstatically experiencing your own authenticity spontaneously manifesting itself.

Communion is the profound revelation of nonduality when it dynamically emerges in a collective context. It is the intoxicating experience of the authentic self recognizing itself in others—the many coming together as One in egoless freedom and infinite potential, uninhibited by any sense of separation. In this inclusive, intersubjective, nondual state, the ultimate revelation of Oneness becomes manifest in this world as the ecstatic intimacy of human relationship beyond individuality.

For both autonomy and communion to exist simultaneously is a newly emerging potential in consciousness. Usually, when an individual experiences powerful autonomy, it is almost always at the expense of communion with others. And in order to experience profound communion, usually the individuals involved have to sacrifice their autonomy. But in Evolutionary Enlightenment, a dynamic field is created where the one and the many are literally the same and yet simultaneously remain distinct and different. It is a new and evolving expression of nonduality in which the thrill of autonomy and the bliss of communion merge into one singular, unified state of consciousness.

Purity of Motive & Integrity in Action

The first two principles of Evolutionary Enlightenment arepurity of motive and integrity in action. These two principles are the ever-untainted expression of the authentic self.

Purity of motive is an egoless impulse, a wholesome passion to create that which is new. It emerges only to the degree that the ego has been transcended. When the individual reaches that point where he or she aspires to become enlightened for the sake of the evolution of consciousness itself, this pure motive will naturally be experienced as a heartfelt connection to that higher purpose and potential. It cannot arise from the personal self or ego. Purity of motive is the feeling sense of the authentic self, the ecstatic compulsion to create the future.

As profound an experience as it is, the mere awakening of a pure motive is not enough. Unless we act upon that egoless impulse, its presence in consciousness ends up being only another spiritual experience, a momentary glimpse of our own potential for a deeper care. Purity of motive must always be actualized so that it becomes integrity in action. That simply means that the individual consistently follows through on that pure motive. And that takes a heroic spirit. For most of us, pure motivation arises in the heart thousands of times before it becomes an act of integrity that is expressed in the world.

The only proof of authentic transformation is the consistent expression of integrity in action. Integrity in action is not just an inner experience. It has visible, tangible effects on the complex and challenging matrix of human relationships and the world in which we live. When there is a seamless connection between the arising of pure motivation and the spontaneous expression of integrity in action, that means that at the deepest level the individual has become aligned with the egoless passion of the authentic self. Then a human life becomes a clear reflection of that dynamic wholeness that created and is still creating the whole universe.

The Five Fundamental Tenets of Enlightenment

The First Tenet: Clarity of Intention

“The first tenet is the foundation of the spiritual life. In order to succeed in liberating yourself from ignorance and self-deception, you have to have no doubt whatsoever that you want to be free more than anything.”

The Second Tenet: The Law of Volitionality

“Most of us like to see ourselves as unconscious victims. But in fact, we all know exactly what we are doing.”

The Third Tenet: Face Everything and Avoid Nothing

“The third tenet is the ultimate form of spiritual practice. It asks: how awake are you to what is motivating you to make the choices that you make? Because only if you're paying close attention are you going to be able to bring the light of awareness into the darkest corners of your own psyche.”

The Fourth Tenet: The Truth of Impersonality

“The fourth tenet states that every aspect of the human experience is a completely impersonal affair. It tells us that the illusion of uniqueness, the narcissistic self-sense that is ego, is created moment by moment through the compulsive and mechanical personalization of almost every thought, feeling, and experience we have.”

The Fifth Tenet: For the Sake of the Whole

“The pursuit of enlightenment is for the transformation of the whole world, the enlightenment of the whole universe. It's ultimately for the evolution of consciousness itself.”

The Path of Evolutionary Enlightenment: From Minus One to Zero to Plus One

Enlightenment means consciousness beyond ego and evolution means development in time. So Evolutionary Enlightenment means the development in time of consciousness beyond ego. The path, in the context of evolutionary enlightenment, is, at least in theory, quite simple. It is a journey from identification with ego to identification with the evolutionary impulse. It is a radical transformation of our relationship to the human experience, from one that is fundamentally negative, narcissistic, compulsive, and rigid to one that is inherently positive, liberated, consciously creative, and perpetually evolving.

In an evolutionary context, the expression of the enlightened or liberated self is perpetual development in time. So if the individual is not developing in a measurable and discernable way, that means that he or she is stagnating in the emotional and psychological prison of unenlightenment that is the individual and collective ego.

Ego, in this context, is defined as inertia—an anti-evolutionary posture of narcissism and self-concern that is based upon the conviction, conscious or unconscious, that something fundamental is terribly, terribly wrong. It is because of our unquestioned identification with the negative orientation of the ego that most of us find ourselves unable to consistently express the freedom, lightness of being, and ecstatic positivity that is the quality of the evolutionary impulse, which I call the Authentic Self. And it is because of identification with ego that so few of us are able to spiritually evolve in a truly significant way.

A simple equation I often use to describe the path of evolutionary enlightenment is that it is a journey from minus one to zero to plus one. I refer to the ego’s relationship to life as “minus one” because it is fundamentally negative. And the path of transformation, reduced to its simplest terms, is the shift from the ego’s negative relationship to life to the authentic self’s positive relationship to life, which I call “plus one.” But it’s not possible to make this profound transition in one simple step, to go directly from a relationship to life that is negative, narcissistic, compulsive, and rigid to a relationship to life that is positive, liberated, consciously creative, and perpetually evolving. In an enlightenment context, as a first step, we always have to go to zero, which means to assume no relationship to life, mind, and time. Only then do we discover the freedom of enlightenment, and ultimately learn how to freely choose what a right relationship to life would be.

Zero means no relationship whatsoever. You leap from something to nothing, from the manifest to the unmanifest, from the individual and collective ego to the ground of all being. In that groundless ground that has never entered into the stream of time, the burden of existence falls from your shoulders and you are released from the entire process of becoming. So when you go back to zero, you don’t have any problems to overcome. Ego is the conviction that you have a problem, and that there is something fundamentally wrong. But when you experience zero, or no relationship, you realize in a flash that that was never true. Profoundly liberated from the ego and its unending self-concern, you reemerge from that primordial emptiness ready to be a vessel for the original creative impulse, the authentic self, bursting with ecstatic urgency and a fearless passion to become.

So the goal in evolutionary enlightenment is for the individual, through the power of conscious choice, to shift his or her fundamental locus of identification from the ego to the evolutionary impulse or authentic self. And the only way for that to happen is to take the heroic journey from minus one to zero to plus one; from a negative relationship to life, to no relationship to life, to a positive relationship to life; from inertia to emptiness to the evolutionary impulse; from ego to no self to the authentic self. The journey begins when we recognize the prison of ego, then leads to its dissolution in the ground of all being, and finally to our reemergence as a liberated, perpetually evolving expression of the authentic self, standing strong and fearless. That’s the path of development in the teaching of evolutionary enlightenment.

Andrew Cohen

The Authentic Self A Mysterious Compulsion to Evolve

When time began, for an unknown reason, something came from nothing. Suddenly, an impulse emerged—the impulse to become, to create, to evolve. One could call it the God impulse. This urge to take form gradually became the whole universe, eventually including you and me as we are right now.

As human beings we experience this evolutionary impulse on many levels. At the gross physical level, we feel it as the sexual impulse, the powerful urge to procreate. At a higher level, the cognitive level, we experience this same principle as the uniquely human desire to know, to understand, to create. And at the highest level, the level of consciousness, we experience it as the spiritual impulse, the mysterious urge to evolve asconsciousness itself. This urge to evolve is what I call the authentic self. The movement of the authentic self in each and every one of us is not other than the one evolutionary impulse that is driving the engine of creation. When you feel the irresistible compulsion to develop at the level of consciousness, you are experiencing in your own soul the same impulse that initiated the big bang.

In those moments when the creative impulse manifests itself at the biological level as sexual desire, the outcome is always predetermined. But when that same impulse expresses itself at the highest level, the level of consciousness, the outcome is not predetermined. That is why, for human beings who are awakening to the authentic self, being alive is suddenly recognised to be such a deep and profoundly creativeexperience. Through us, the same impulse that initiated the entire evolutionary process is becoming aware of itself and awakening to its own deepest desire, which is to become conscious. If we intentionally engage in this process at the highest level, we will find that we are literally creating the future. If you have the courage to let this in, you will recognize the true meaning of your aspiration to evolve. You will begin to see the precious significance of even the barest murmurings of your own struggle to become conscious.

Andrew Cohen

The Ego An Anti-Evolutionary Force

There is a profound contrast between the enlightened perspective, which is the absolute, universal, and impersonal view of the Authentic Self, and the unenlightened perspective, which is the relative, separate, and personal view of the narcissistic ego. It is literally the difference between heaven and hell.

When I speak about ego, I am not using the term in the psychological sense, which usually refers to what we could call a self-organizing function in the psyche. In an enlightenment context, the word ego refers to something else altogether. Ego is the deeply ingrained, compulsive need to remain separate and superior at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. In contrast to the inherent freedom of the Self Absolute and the fearless passion of the Authentic Self, ego is experienced as an emotional quagmire of fear and attachment. It is the part of you that has no interest whatsoever in freedom, feels victimized by life, avoids anything that contradicts its self-image, is thoroughly invested in its personal fears and desires, and lives only for itself. Ego is an anti-evolutionary force of powerful inertia in human nature—attached to the past, terrified of change, and seeking only to preserve the status quo.

Ego is the one and only one obstacle to enlightenment. If we want to be free, if we want to be enlightened, we have to pay the price. The great wisdom traditions have always told us that the price is ego death, and in evolutionary enlightenment it is no different: if the Authentic Self is going to act through us as the uninhibited expression of evolution in action, then our attachment to ego must be transcended.

Andrew Cohen