Is the Ego Necessary for Survival?

Question:

The “problem” with spirituality as I see it is that it is not enough to know what to do, it is all experiential. We have to see for ourselves and learn the lessons ourselves to really understand. And this is one big difference between religion and spirituality in my opinion.

Most religious people I have met only do what they do because they have been told by someone else that it is the right thing to do. They are blindly following guidelines because “God” says it’s right. Their ego’s are so tightly glued to their beliefs that any reasoning with them they take as an attack on themselves and they get angry.

Of course they do. It’s their whole story, it is who they think they are. Who would they be if all of a sudden everything they thought they are would dissolve? You see, the ego provides a very useful function in our lives on this planet.

How else would we know to protect ourselves? How else would we know to feed ourselves? How else would we know to not put our hands in the fire, stay away from things that makes us ill, gather food for the winter, dress ourselves warmly, spread our genes to ensure that the species lives on and fight when we have to?

Ask yourself this question: Where would you be without your ego? Probably dead. Long time ago. Spend some time thinking about that one if you haven’t before.

So one of the functions of the ego is to ensure the survival of this body that we are in. It does so that we think that we are our thoughts, our minds, our body, emotions, the stuff we do, the things we have and everything else. Without the sense of self, there would be nothing to protect. If there was no other, there would be nothing to fear and we’d have become extinct long time ago.

My response:

First off, props to you for realizing that you do indeed have to EXPERIENCE Truth in order to know it. Simply intellectualizing or believing, buying into any structured external belief system of any sort will necessarily hold you apart from the highest Truth.

Truth can not be verbalized, only known. Whenever you put it into words, you are filtering down the infinite vastness of all that is into a few letters and sounds. The word “apple” is not the same thing as eating an actual apple.

Interestingly, you brought up this point and then went straight back into imagining (read, going to the mind for answers) as to what life without the ego would be like. You’re directly going against exactly the issue you just brought up.

Intellectually wondering what life would be like without an ego, while STILL coming from a place of ego will not work. You can’t transcend duality through duality. You have to reach Oneness by going to Oneness, not by going through the world of illusion.

Living in this world is like dreaming while you’re asleep. When you’re asleep, everything feels real and you know it to be so. You can’t say this is just a dream because you have nothing to compare it to.

It is only when you wake up that you can look back at the dream and accurately determine that it was all a dream, all a made up illusion in your mind.

This life we live in is the SAME thing. In order to experience it as a dream, to see the world of illusion as illusion, you have to first WAKE UP and then once you have awakened, look back at the dream and identify it as such.

You don’t need the ego to survive. The idea that you do is one of its BIGGEST lies. It’s sourced in the ego’s fear of death.

You know that leaving your hand in a fire will lead it getting burned. There is a caution system built into the body so that it protects itself. The ego is what takes this caution and spins it into worry, guilt, regret, and anxiety, basically neurotic fear in the past and future.

You can have awareness of bacteria so you wash your hands before you eat. You acknowledge it, deal with it, and move on with your life.

There is a difference between being cautious and getting attached.

Caution is simply common sense. It’s knowing that something may be detrimental and thus avoiding it. It often comes in through your intuition or gut feeling. Emotional attachment is when the mind gets its hooks into something potentially dangerous and starts spinning its wheels on the subject, often making you think of potential “what if” scenarios so that you can be better prepared… just in case!

Is it possible to live without an ego? Do you and your body literally die once the ego is completely transcended? Simply look at enlightened masters for your answer.

“Love your neighbor as you Love yourself.” Remember that loving yourself includes honoring and taking care of yourself. You Love all and take care of all. It’s not that you suddenly stop taking care of things and you forget how to eat, breathe, and brush your teeth once you drop the ego.

Two guys were once walking down the street. The first stated that the whole world is an illusion and that none of it was real. The second guy, being a very intellectual yet skeptical man, took a rock and threw it at the first man, drawing blood. As the first man cried out in pain, the second man said, “Why are you screaming? The pain is an illusion! The rock is an illusion! You are an illusion!”

This is a very logical conclusion that the mind makes, but it’s a radical misunderstanding of the nature of “illusion.”

Illusion does not mean “This does not exist.” in the traditional sense of the word and thus is unexperiencable. Rather, it means, “What you see is not how things actually are. There’s more to the world than meets the eye. There is something beyond what we are consciously aware of. This is not it.”

As you deepen your connection to your Higher Self and strengthen your connection to Source, higher level Truths such as “Time is an illusion” or “This is better than that” or “Love is all there is” become radically apparently, experiential truths. No amount of mental debate can ever bring you to the same level of certainty or understanding.

By transcending the ego, you will come to know these truths, even if you had never heard of them.

It truly has to be experienced to be understood.

From there, the state is SO clearly real that, just like looking back at a dream when you wake up in the morning, it becomes obvious that this physical existence we live in is pure illusion.

It truly is possible to be in this world, but not of it. To be “not of it” means to not be sourced in the domain of duality, of ego. Rather, it means to be sourced in the energy of your higher spiritual self. From this place and ONLY from this place can you truly come to know (as opposed to merely knowing about) the realm of Oneness, to truly experience Unconditional Love towards One and All, towards everyone and everything you meet.

To know and to know about are two totally different things. To know you must experience. To know about you can read about or hear about, but until you experience, you will not know.

So, let’s experience it.

It is only from the place of being completely beyond ego that you will realize that the ego is truly is not necessary for survival. It must be surrendered eventually.

Yes, the individualized “you” that exists right now will die with that happens. The dream will “die” when you awaken, yet you will realize that nothing real actually ceased to exist. Quite to the contrary, you will realize that you always have been, always are, and always will be. And even more accurately, because time is an illusion, you simply are.

The real you is simply asleep, but You can not die. You can either be asleep or awake.

Time to wake up.

Thanks for your question.

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