From Ego to Soul

We are not who we seem to be, we appear to be who we are not. As human beings we are not individuals, but endless copies of the collective mind. Immersed in total illusion we live like sleepwalkers, oblivious of our true self. We have sacrificed our original beauty, strength and freedom for the undignified existence created by the mind.

The term 'ego' denotes the self-limiting aspect of the soul's identity that prior to her awakening functions exclusively through personality. The ego needs to be seen, however, not only as an aspect of ignorance, but also as a positive stage in our evolution in which consciousness becomes self-aware for the first time by reflecting on itself. The essence of ego is its sense of me, the foundation of the conscious mind. In forgetfulness, this sense of me is fully identified with mental reality, but in awakening, it bridges our unconscious self with the consciousness of the soul.

One of the most dramatic occurrences in human evolution is the shift of identity from ego to pure me, in which the soul moves out from complete self-forgetfulness towards increasingly higher states of self-remembrance. What culminates this inner journey of remembrance is the event of becoming oneself, so ordinary yet so profound. To be an individual is to be who one is in the ultimate sense of the term, to awaken the light of our soul-identity whose seed lies dormant within our most secret existence.

The Evolution of Consciousness

What makes us human is the ability to know that we exist and are in fact this very me endowed with the faculty to self-cognize. Our mind is aware of its own activities and constructs a subjective sense of I to whom, more or less, all its acts refer. The development of self-consciousness in humans is a positive evolutionary step that raises our awareness above that of all the other species inhabiting our planet. Yet this step from the unconsciousness of the animal kingdom to the consciousness of human kind, despite its significance, does not arrive at the culmination of our evolution, because it does not signify an awakened condition. Human beings are still more unconscious than conscious - they are in fact only semi-conscious, for their consciousness is limited to the mind and alienated from the self. Although the mind manifests from the self, the self cannot be recognized by the mind.

Imprisoned in the Mind

The sense of subjective identity based on the mind is extremely fragmented, the reason why human beings are fundamentally neurotic. At humanity's present stage of development, individuals have no stable existence or sustained center within. Their identity remains exclusively based on ego, which in order to sustain its existence, has to recreate itself continuously through compulsive self-referral. As the ego has no self apart from thought, it is no wonder that most seekers, initially no more than egos, cannot answer the simple question, 'who am I?' The ego has sufficient sense of self to ask this question, but not enough to answer it. A seeker will only find the answer to this question if he gives birth to his true presence beyond the mind.

The sense of me created by the mind, which constitutes the core of the ego-identity, is only a shadow of the real me. The stage of evolution in which we recognize the sense of me constitutes only the first step in coming to know our true self. Many more steps need to be taken before we finally become who we really are. Who we are in our timeless identity is founded upon our immortal essence, not the mind. A human being lost in the mind, unable to affirm his existence as 'I am therefore I am', is not at all conscious, but lives in a pitiable and unacceptable condition.

From the Mind to Oneself

The path from the mind to oneself is both easy and difficult. Easy, because it points to one's most natural sense of self, but also extremely difficult, for to establish the state of pure subjectivity requires a tremendous transformation. The fundamental challenge of a seeker is to cross the chasm between his forgetfulness and remembrance. That which initiates the movement of awakening from the mind to the soul is our arrival at an existential crisis within our lower self. The soul, locked in the self-consciousness of ego and confined to the claustrophobic space of the mind, finally recognizes the deep suffering and emptiness inherent to ignorance. It is this deep sense of depression that compels us to transform our consciousness into the light of the soul.

The Ego

The human ego is a mental agent that possesses a sense of me resulting from self-reference. Although all creatures share the sense of me, a significant difference remains between the me of a highly evolved animal, such as a cat, and that of a human being. A cat does indeed have a sense of me, and its whole organism serves the 'love to be' of that particular me. However, the cat's sense of me does not have the clarity and strength of the human ego. It has an unfocussed, dreamlike quality, an instinctive existence, more automatic, reactive and mechanical; it is actually a subconscious me. The sense of me of a human ego is far more sophisticated and complex, having the capacity for a higher level of concentration and abstraction; it can maintain a continuity of focus during thinking, and even think about itself. The self-reflective faculty of the human ego utilizes not only thoughts, but a wide spectrum of emotions in order to project its image: out, to the world to gain approval or manipulate its environment, and in, towards itself to maintain its psychological integrity and positive opinion of itself. But no matter how sophisticated it is, and how strong its sense of individuality, the irony of ego is that it remains fundamentally unconscious, oblivious of its own essence.

The mind and the ego represent two sides of one consciousness: the mind the flow of thoughts, and ego the mechanism of self-reference within this flow. The ego has no existence apart from this self-reference, devoid of any factual identity based on I am. It has a sense of me, but no sense of I am. Its existence lacks continuity, and therefore must be re-created moment-to-moment. For an unconscious person, a gap in self-referral is experienced as a moment of blankness, of being 'spaced-out'. Without the mind to fill this gap, he has no means to confirm his own existence.

When entrenched in its pseudo-identity, the ego merely serves as a shallow substitute for the soul. By compulsively dwelling upon self-image, it deceives itself into being real. It seeks love and acceptance just to feel that it exists. Yet in spite of its desperate efforts to escape its own emptiness, the ego will never reach true solidity unless it transcends itself by awakening to the light of the soul.

The Shadow of the Soul

In ignorance, the ego exists as the false I created by the mind claiming to be our true self. It masks the soul, concealing her real essence, and uses the light of I am to generate its own sense of me. Although linked to the dimension of pure subjectivity, it remains but a pale reflection of our real self. Lost in the mind, the ego's sense of me retains no connection to the soul. Until the soul is awakened, she cannot own her me and liberate it from the mind.

The relationship between the ego and the soul can be likened to that of a minister and a king. The minister, our ego, serves the king, our soul, but the king owns the kingdom, our existence. The minister becomes dangerous the moment he begins to behave as if he were the rightful ruler. This usually happens when the king, still a child, cannot yet declare his inherited power. In due time, however, the king becomes ready to claim his supremacy and puts the minister in his proper, subservient place. The situation with the soul is similar, because initially she is too immature to rule the ego. In most humans the soul resembles a baby unaware of itself. For the sake of our spiritual sanity, it is imperative that the soul awaken to her own existence and gain the maturity to assume the governing position within our consciousness.

The Role of Ego

The majority of spiritual traditions make the error of denying the ego any positive role, reducing it to a mere barrier to freedom and liberation, or going as far as negating its reality entirely. However, to negate the ego represents no more than self-denial, for the ego itself is doing the negation. An ego that thinks it does not exist is either confused or hypocritical.

A simplistic negation of the ego is spiritually dangerous, and any teaching that fails to perceive the ego as essential to understanding and consciousness remains out of touch with reality. The ego cannot be simply negated; it needs to be embraced and redirected. Its energies and thought forms must be transformed into fuel for our awakening. Although true that, at a certain point of evolution, the ego must be transcended and merged with the soul, it still has a purpose to serve in our evolution and self-realization. It is not the ego itself that is false, but its ignorance, unconsciousness, and illusory separation from the soul.

The function of the ego is to bridge our subconscious self with our awakened consciousness. Even though the cause of our anguish, initially it is the ego that enters the spiritual path. In fact, without ego no spiritual path would exist for a human being. In the absence of ego, there may be no ignorance, but also no self-realization. By internalizing the energies of consciousness, the ego begins to support the awakening of the soul to the realm of pure subjectivity. Having recognized the higher purpose of evolution and enlightenment, it now serves its own transformation. An intelligent and spiritually mature ego directs its energy towards positive enquiry into the nature of self. It questions its own existence and seeks transmutation into a higher me, the me of the soul. It is when the ego reaches its highest power of attention, intelligence and sensitivity that the realization of I am takes place.

Apart from being the initial agent of our spiritual evolution, the role of the ego is to protect our relatively separate existence. The human being, regardless of his spiritual awakening, still remains bound by the laws of empirical reality. Even a self-realized being needs to have a 'minimum ego' to survive on the physical plane. The minimum, or natural ego, operates not as an expression of ignorance, but as an extension of the enlightened reality, a function of intelligence that serves the soul, free of self-image or any sense of separation.

A human cannot merge his ego with the soul before he reaches the more advanced stages of evolution. It is foolish to attempt to transcend the ego prematurely, because it is simply impossible. Such an untimely struggle against its perfectly natural presence only leads to self-denial, guilt and a sense of unworthiness. Before we can dissolve (not eliminate) the ego, we must accept its presence and submit it to our higher wisdom. We need to deal intelligently with its inherent negative qualities such as arrogance, greed, stupidity, insensitivity, pride, conceit, self-pity or inferiority complex. For someone who has just entered the inner path, the elimination of the ego is not the proper aspiration. Instead, one should bring more acceptance, wisdom, understanding and purity into how the ego functions in the mind so as to align it with the will and light of the soul.

The Multidimensional Self

To comprehend the interconnection between the soul and the ego, we must take into account our multidimensional existence. Our sense of identity is composed of many layers that express themselves simultaneously on multiple levels: body and mind, thought and emotion, intuition and intelligence, ego and soul. The ego and the soul are the two main dimensions of our subjective reality necessary for our complete human experience. The ego is certainly not our original self, but on the human plane it does represent an extension of the soul's subjectivity. The human is the vehicle of the soul, the ego is the self-consciousness of the human. The ego is the functional I that arises out of our interaction with the external reality, a by-product of the subject-object relationship. In the hierarchy of subjective reality, the ego simply has a much lower position than the soul, serving as only her link to phenomenal reality. The ego, unlike the soul, is not a part of eternity, but belongs to the plane of forgetfulness.

The Ego and Self-enquiry

Self-enquiry can be described as our ego's existential effort to investigate our true nature, an effort to reveal our eternal self hidden beneath the layers of our human personality. Self-enquiry, the awakening question of our true identity, links the seeking intelligence with the birth of the awakened answer, the soul herself. Because it points beyond the mind, in order to bring illumination, self-enquiry must transcend mental effort in the direct experience of our essential self.

We must see both the positive function and the limitations of ego in the task of self-enquiry. The ego helps us to realize our true self, but it cannot actualize this realization alone. Although the ego supports our awakening by redirecting our intention, awareness and intelligence towards the essence of our being, awakening itself is not the result of any effort performed within the structure of our ego-identity.

The main point of confusion on the path of self-enquiry relates to the false assumption that through the power of enquiry we can instantaneously access the ever-present self that remains unrealized only due to ignorance. The reality is that our true self cannot be recognized prior to first being awakened and actualized. Self-enquiry is not limited to seeking and seeing who we are in the present now; it opens the space of intelligence and being within which the soul can finally remember and awaken her timeless essence.

The Ego Seeking the Soul

How can the ego assist in the awakening of I am if the soul is not yet consciously present? The ego cannot manifest the soul, nor can it perform the act of awakening. Its function is to align the mind with the quest of the soul so that she can realize her innate potential and awaken. On the conscious level, the ego initiates the inner search, but in reality the spiritual quest is the command of the soul. Even before she is awakened, the soul instinctively begins to search for her true identity by enquiring into the essence of pure subjectivity through the medium of her ego's intelligence. Although stimulated by the ego, awakening itself takes place beyond its bounds, a radical movement of perception and being from the mind to pure subjectivity. True awakening happens within the soul's consciousness.

Despite its positive contribution to the awakening process, there lurks a danger that after the birth of our pure subjectivity, the ego will claim 'I am' as an experience it itself is having; it will see I am as an object and itself as the subject, thus thwarting the realization of the soul. Hence after awakening, the ego must submit itself to I am so that the soul can become our real center. Only if our identity has shifted from ego to I am can the soul embody our true subjectivity as the host of our existence.

The Soul Becomes I am

When the ego finally forfeits its false sovereignty so that the soul can fully awaken to her subjectivity, the soul becomes I am. A seed dies by initiating the birth of a tree, yet in a mysterious way, it becomes that tree's future life. Similarly, the mind's sense of me serves the awakening of the soul only to sacrifice itself for the arising of a real I. Its energy is not nullified, but transformed into the life of the soul. Although the ego begins the journey, it is the soul that completes it. Once the ego has fulfilled its role in facilitating our awakening, it returns its borrowed sense of me to the soul, relinquishing its central position. The seeker becomes the sought.