Transcending the spiritual ego
Spiritual overconsumption and other signs that your ego is running the show (& what to do about it)
I’ve been feeling off these past few weeks. For a while, I couldn’t quite pinpoint what was going on. My motivation for any creative output dwindled. My previously insatiable appetite for knowledge and spiritual wisdom dried up a little bit. I got bored with my daily routines, which are heavily anchored my spiritual practices.
Then, on one of my morning walks, I listened to a random episode from a podcast called Almost 30 because I couldn’t get myself to sit through another Alan Watts lecture (a usual favorite). I needed something lighter. I felt tired. Spiritually burned out.
The podcast revolved around the concept of the spiritual ego. As I was listening, it dawned on me: my spiritual fatigue was the result of my (spiritual) ego, which had once again overdone it. Once again because that’s just the type of person I am, when I throw myself into something, I do so completely. Whether it’s exercise or dieting, work, relationships, or my own spiritual awakening.
I realized that for the past few months, maybe even years, I’ve been so all-consumed with my spiritual evolution that there was limited space for playfulness and lightness in the life that I was waking up to. While my spiritual awakening has helped me cultivate more presence, it has also prompted me to say no to many things. It was only on that random walk that I realized I have my spiritual ego to thank for that.
If you’re into spirituality, you have a spiritual ego, too. We all have it. So, let’s get to know it, see what it wants and why it’s here, and what we can do tame — or rather, transcend — it.
The Final (?) Frontier of Awakening: the Spiritual Ego
You always hear about the need to “transcend the ego”. Psychedelics are spiritually so significant because they accelerate transcendence by temporarily dissolving the ego.
Your ego is the part of you that wants to do, achieve, and attain. Your ego strives. It strives to be somebody else or have something other than what you already have. Your ego tells you that it knows exactly what will make you happy, which is usually something outside of yourself.
Therein lies the problem. As Buddhist philosophy teaches, striving is precisely the root cause of your suffering. You don’t suffer because you don’t have the thing you’re striving for, you suffer because you’re striving to begin with.
Your spirit, on the other hand, is the part of you that simply is. Your spirit is the part of you that already has everything that it needs: awareness. In the nature being, there is contentment.
The spiritual process is one where you learn to identify and transcend your ego through practices and tools such as meditation, yoga, plant medicine, and so on. By increasing your awareness and recognizing the grasping nature of the ego, you return to the state of being in the present moment. That’s where you’ll find eternal bliss.
Along the journey, you’ll meet many versions of yourself that you eventually grow beyond. You return to being, over and over again.
Eventually, however, you’ll meet your spiritual ego.
The spiritual ego is tricky to identify because it masks so well.
A common language of the ego is overconsumption — of material items, food, substances, gossip. Yet, when overconsumption is seemingly beneficial to your well-being, you don’t question it much.
The spiritual ego is addicted to consuming spiritual information and knowledge because it believes that more spiritual wisdom will help it evolve further and faster.
The spiritual ego also comes with a subtle nuance of superiority — I’m more evolved than other people because I’m plant-based, sober, I meditate daily, I don’t gossip or watch the news anymore.
The ego judges, and so does the spiritual ego.
It judges people who are not as spiritual as you.
How to Know If Your Spiritual Ego Is Running the Show
Here are five common signs that your ego is driving (and with that, potentially sabotaging) your spiritual journey.
#1 You’re judging others for their lack of spirituality
Whether it’s the fact that someone eats red meat, enjoys a boozy brunch, or doesn’t have a mindfulness practice.
You’ve evolved your beliefs and practices and have benefitted from the changes you’ve made. You don’t understand how others haven’t “realized it yet”. How could they still be asleep?
They might be, or they might not. Spirituality is not one-size-fits-all. Your meat-eating, wine-drinking neighbor might be deeply spiritual not in the way he sits down every morning to meditate but in how he treats the people around him. Even if he doesn’t have a spiritual bone in his body, it doesn’t matter. It matters only to your spiritual ego, because ego thrives on comparison.
Spirit doesn’t need to compare. Spirit doesn’t need anyone else to be spiritual. Spirit accepts everyone and everything exactly as they are, every single moment in time.
#2 You’re romanticizing your future rather than living in your present
Your ego lives either in the past or in the future. It ruminates or anticipates. When either is done to the extreme, it morphs into the two most common ailments our society suffers from, depression and anxiety.
The ego is convinced that attaining something (even if that’s spiritual enlightenment) will make you happy and whole, so the ego always invites you to live in the future. The future where you’ll have achieved or attained that thing.
Spirit doesn’t need anything. Spirit lives in the present. Spirit is the part of you that’s able to romanticize not your future life but your present reality. Stopping to take in the beauty of a flower on your daily walk, playing with your dog, savoring a meal.
#3 You’re addicted to consuming spiritual information
Your spiritual ego will tell you that the more spiritual knowledge you consume, the more spiritually well-versed you will be.
This one personally hit me hard. Earlier this year, I set myself a goal to read 100 books in 2022, most of which are related to spirituality, healing, or psychedelics in some way. To meet my goal, I read every morning but I also listen to audiobooks, usually at 1.2 or sometimes even up to 1.5 speed. Now that I think about it, it’s a little absurd. I was consuming so much knowledge I couldn’t possibly process and contain it.
There’s nothing wrong with consuming spiritual knowledge. Yet, we have to make sure we’re able to integrate it. Otherwise, it’s only feeding your ego, not your soul.
#4 You’re spiritually bypassing
If you don’t integrate, you spiritually bypass. We’ve talked about this many times before in the context of psychedelic integration.
Similarly, if you spend all your time learning about how being present and stopping to smell the flowers will bring you joy, and much less time actually doing those things, you’re not integrating.
I feel good about my ability to be present, however, I also believe that my spiritual overconsumption did take away from a few moments of more presence. (Plugging my favorite reminder: two things can be true at the same time).
#5 You’re attached to your spiritual practices
One of my all-time favorite concepts from Buddhism is non-attachment.
When you’re attached to something, you believe that this thing outside yourself will produce a positive change inside of you. A partner, a handbag, a job. Something from the outer world will make you happy. You could be attached to anything. Let me correct that, not you — your ego. Your ego could be attached to anything. Striving and attachment go hand in hand.
It’s normal to rely on practices that make you feel good to regulate your well-being. Yet, when there’s a part of you that believes that you won’t be well without them, that’s where we run into problems.
Spirit doesn’t need anything. Spirit is attached to nothing and connected to everything.
How To Transcend Your Spiritual Ego
Just like the rest of your ego, the spiritual ego will always be there. The question is how you relate to it. You’re not a victim to the thoughts in your mind. Even if they say spiritual things, they’re not spirit. Spirit is what lies behind your thoughts.
Here are the main two ways I plan to keep my spiritual ego in check going forward:
Awareness: Staying conscious about anything else that smells like ego (judgment, comparison, some of the other points above, and so on). Awareness is always the first step — and sometimes even the most important one.
Integration: Being more intentional about what to do with spiritual teachings (rather than just accumulating or consuming them). What do they mean for your life? How will they change how you live in the present moment? Contemplate, and then integrate.
Absolutely needed this today! Was internally punishing myself for not having much time for my spiritual practice this week and my spiritual ego was 100% telling me that my spirituality and strength was "weaker" for not checking those boxes. What a cunning clever fox that ego is 😂 Sending love and light your way! 🌻