Do you want to reach a higher level of consciousness, experience inner peace, and shake off negativity that plagues you? If so, the concept of ego death is exactly what you need in your quest to become more enlightened.
It’s both a fascinating and intimidating topic, but you need to see it. Here’s all the information you need to start your spiritual journey.
What Is the Ego and How Can It Die?
“The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three…The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id.”
Sigmund Freud
Your ego is your perception of self that is developed since you were born. Experiences, interpersonal interactions, traumas, and other external forces influence the ego.
A developed ego is controlled by your compulsions and an internal set of values and determines how you perceive things, treat people and interact with the world around you. It’s your sense of self, in short, that guides the way you build and live your life.
What Is Ego Death Then?
Ego death comes when you realize that the ego you have developed, your “self” is not reality. It’s something that you have simply created based on experiences and other elements that you have held onto and used to define yourself. Ego death or dissolution often comes on quickly.
Related reading: Insecure Men: How a Fragile Ego Can Ruin Romance
What Does Ego Dissolution Feel Like?
In the best cases, people who experience ego death feel at peace. They realize that their ego has kept them separate and disconnected. When it dies, it becomes part of everything again. They are in harmony.
Not everyone is prepared to experience ego dissolution. Their ego death experience is traumatic and jarring. They may detach or disassociate. If self-identity and ego are intertwined, losing ego can feel like a loss of self. This is why that ego loss must be taken seriously.
People need to be prepared before they begin a journey of ego death. They also need to understand that they may need to do more spiritual work, even after their experience of ego death.
Why Is Ego Death So Important for Spiritual Enlightenment?
Ego death is a profound, meaningful experience. Many people who go through this and do the work required to complete the process and a healthy way say their lives have been changed entirely. They feel free and unencumbered by the things that have defined them before. With their left with is pure self. At that point, they can experience a more meaningful life where they engage with the world through a place of love.
Why Do People Want to Pursue Ego Death?
If ego is our sense of self, why would someone want to shatter that reality by dissolving their ego? The truth is that most people don’t want to do that. It’s a terrifying thought. The ego isn’t just something that exists. We use it to engage in reality testing.
It’s easy to see why many people never pursue the death of their ego, but some people are willing to do the work and take the risk. Here are the common reasons:
- Dealing with a deep sense of sadness, discontent, and lack of connection
- Struggling to find a deeper meaning in life
- Mental health or substance issues
- Feeling that something is missing or wrong
How Do People Achieve Ego Death?
There are different ways to trigger ego death experiences:
- Relying on psychedelic drugs, like LSD, peyote, ketamine, psilocybin, DMT, and ayahuasca, to push the mind and soul beyond their current boundaries.
- Meditation in many forms, including sound bath resonant music. Many people report experiencing ego death after this process.
- Spontaneous experience that makes people keenly aware that their sense of self needn’t be associated with their ego.
Whichever the tool, achieving ego death is close to out-of-body or near-death experiences. It’s as if avoiding physical death may bring on ego death.
4 Stages of Ego Death
Ego death is a new beginning, and the experience is different for all. However, most human beings go through these 4 similar steps.
1. An Awakening
Awakening is the moment you experience the death of your ego. This is when your ego ceases to control your consciousness. The feeling can be freeing or terrifying.
2. Questioning and Disillusionment
After ego death, you may realize that the things you have been taught are an illusion, or at least not how you perceived them. You may process this as a loss. It is, in a sense, a death of sorts.
At this stage, you have lost the subjective self-identity you have built over time. You may even mourn that lost sense of self. During this dark night of the soul, you may feel bitter and disillusioned. What if you had come to this understanding years or even decades before?
3. New Experiences and Learning
The experience of ego death leaves a gaping hole in your identity. Now, you have the opportunity to fill it with meaningful things.
These can be consciously chosen and can align with your highest self. Remember that ego death doesn’t mean your sense of self is gone. You still exist as a spiritual and physical person. What has happened is that your ego no longer controls you. Now, you build an existence focusing on profound love and light as you let go of fear, anxiety, anger, and negativity.
4. Enlightenment
The final stage of ego death is your path toward enlightenment and growth. You will begin to understand more and more about your true self. You may feel like a different person as you achieve a higher state of being. Old patterns, resentments, and feelings of self-doubt will be replaced with a reality that is defined by the purest version of yourself.
4 Steps to Obtain Ego Death
Now that you understand ego death, you want to have the experience. Here are some things to do to achieve this new level of consciousness.
1. Set Your Spiritual Goal
Before bringing yourself to ego death, ask these questions:
- What is my main aim in my pursuit of ego death?
- Why do I want to release the hold my ego has over me?
- What do I want your outcomes to be?
- How do I think I should go about this?
It’s important to go into ego death with a clear understanding of what might happen. Write this down in your own words before you start the process so your ultimate goal is clear to you.
“I want to attain a feeling of love and unity with myself and the world around me. To do that, I need to rid myself of the idea that I am a wholly separate and disconnected being.”
This shouldn’t be done on a whim. Yes, you may experience a profound awakening. But you could also end up suffering from depression and a sense of loss. You need to be prepared to work through any outcome to reach the other side in the process.
2. Make Spiritual Practices a Routine
People often use a variety of spiritual methods to achieve ego death. They meditate, use breathwork, or choose other therapeutic methods to reach a higher or transcendental state.
While some people can achieve a complete loss of ego on their own, the average person can’t. Fortunately, there are workshops, retreats, and classes where you can be guided into the deep state required for ego death.
Related reading: Why Does Love Hurt?
3. Use of Psychedelic Drugs to Attain Higher Consciousness
“Whether you experience heaven or hell, remember that it is your mind which creates them.”
Timothy Leary, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
The idea of using psychedelic drugs may be intimidating, but there is a connection between the use of psychedelics and ego death. When people use these substances responsibly, they are often better able to “go deep” to achieve that complete loss of ego. Additionally, people who choose this approach often feel connected to God, truth, and the universe.
If you are going to have a psychedelic experience, proceed with caution. Connect with someone who understands this and can guide you. Otherwise, you risk having a negative experience that can be scary at best or lead to a spiraling depression at once.
4. Stick to Ego Death Through Study and Understanding
You don’t need to achieve ego dissolution instantaneously or through a single experience. Many feel it is better for their well-being if they slowly approach revealing their true nature. For them, ego death isn’t necessary to achieve a higher existence or connection to the universe.
You go into ego death understanding the same way. Read sacred texts, study, go on retreats, and work at becoming one with the universe at a slower pace. This is a good option if you want to incorporate spiritual growth into your everyday life at your own pace.
Take your time searching for a person to serve as your spiritual leader. Strive for a qualified guru who respects your journey, cares about your well-being, and with whom you can establish a relationship. Remember that you deserve support and respect as you uncover a new sense of self.
Ego Death Is Ultimately a Personal Experience
People who experience ego death report some similar experiences. This process is intense, meaningful, and scary as you are unraveling your reality in a sense. Think of all the things that you have connected to your ego. Imagine letting those things go or completely changing how you view them. That’s what ego death is.
That said, despite these universal experiences, ego death is unique for each person. Just as you start with a unique identity and sense of self before your transformation, you will have unique feelings during the process, and experience the world in an equally unique way when you come out the other side.
