The ego has historically been viewed as evil in nearly all traditions of enlightenment, and understandably so, as it appears to be the source of many troubles. The underlying issue is that no one truly understands what the ego is; it is like a phantom in the body. When spiritual teachers speak badly about the ego, they are often just referring to its disturbing activities in the mind, confusing it with the “ever-thinking mind.” Their approach was fundamentally wrong, trying to kill the ego rather than to make it conscious.

Negating or denying the ego was perhaps the most damaging mistake made in these traditions. Not only did they fail to understand the ego’s true nature, but they burdened seekers with guilt simply for possessing an ego. Since the ego is already afflicted by internal guilt, this only exacerbates the problem, making it feel guilty merely for existing. Suggesting that ego needs to be killed is ridiculous, because the moment you kill it, you stop existing at all.

This negative outlook has become ingrained in our culture and language. Colloquial terms like “egoistic” (inflated self-importance) and “egocentric” (caring only for oneself) are shallow interpretations of the essence of our individuality – how can anyone be ego-centric if no one has a center in ego? To say that someone has ‘ego’, or too much ego, is meant to be negative. How does it make sense? We all have ego. Do we have too much of it? Or maybe we have too little of ego? It would be amusing to say using a different term that we are a personal self (ego) as an insult, or that we have too much personal self. For our own sake, this shallow interpretation must be challenged and changed, because all and each one of us is ego, and we must honor it.

Our ego is wonderful. Yet, we have no choice but to use such terms as egotistic, egotistic, egocentric or ego in a pejorative way in communication with other people in certain contexts, as these terms are commonly used, because they have been already ingrained in the collective language. But we must give them more specific meaning, such as ego defining itself through personality and self-image, being overly attached to self-image, or being self-serving. No doubt, ego tends to care about itself above anything else, but why? It is because it is totally identified by the instinct to survive. It is nobody’s fault, it has been designed in that way from the beginning of our biological life. The imperative to love existing and protect our life at any cost actually comes from the innate me (from amygdala), but ego is directly tied to it as the center of intelligence in awareness acting upon it. And yet, ego is meant to evolve further in order to consider other people’s and not just itself. It is meant to bring a higher intelligence to the instinctual drives of amygdala. One could argue that ego’s concern with others’ wellbeing is also a part of its strategy to protect itself, because it cannot survive alone. And it is often the case. However, true empathy and compassion are qualities that we need to develop as well so that we can rise above our basic animalistic nature.

Only by freeing ourselves from the dogmatic, negative conception of ego can we change our perception and our relationship with what it truly is: our essence. Contrary to everything taught in collective spirituality, the ego is, surprising, our true self. Every human is identified with the ego sense of self, and they automatically assume this is who they are. They are not entirely wrong – they are egos – but their ego is unconscious, meaning they do not truly know who they are. Furthermore, for ego to be recognized as our true self, it needs to be actualized from the space of pure consciousness; otherwise, its sense of self cannot be contained.

We must clarify the distinction between the primary me and the ego. Primary me is a wider term, referring to our dominant identity in attention and intelligence. Ego is more specific: it is the one within the primary me that strives to exist, avoid suffering, and be happy. The ego is super-important as the defining core sense of our human existence. Everyone is ego, but people exist only as its expressions – they are not yet awakened egos. If you are not touching the essence of ego in you, you can never truly know or love yourself, and you will continue to exist in oblivion of who you truly are.

So, what does the awakening of the ego entail? It must begin with recognizing the pure subjectivity of the primary me; otherwise, we lack any identity at all. But the process must then go much deeper into the personal essence of the ego: What does it mean to be me? Why do I want to exist so much and prolong my sense of me at any cost? Who is it that is so concerned with feeling good enough and having a positive self-image? Who is so terrified by being rejected and judged by society? Who is so insecure in their interactions with other people? Who am I, and why am I so miserable, empty and dependent in my desperation to preserve a positive image of myself? Holding onto positive self-image is the closest humans can get to self-love while remaining ignorant of who they really are. Positive self-image is not self-love, a mere compensation for the lack of it.

To claim independence from others’ opinions and the need for a self-image is admirable, but it is ineffective. It fails because, due to our infinite ignorance, self-image is all we currently have to define who we are. We have spoken for years about going beyond self-image and personality, but no one can do it because everyone is simply the unconscious ego. The attachment to the ego is infinite – because it is who we are – and yet, we do not know who we are.

The one in you that wants to be happy is the ego. Though you were born with it, your ego has always been unconscious, remaining so even when you awaken pure consciousness and primary me. I would like you to feel that one in you that seeks happiness, security and love. That one is always here, and he is in relentless pursuit of well-being, even if often misguided. However, he has no internal life; it exists only through his relations with the outside world. Without the world, he feels like nothing, and he is nothing. Yet the ego comes from God and is our soul. It is time for it to redeem itself and find its ultimate worth by awakening to itself. We are not claiming that ego is our ultimate self, but it is still our true self – our dynamic self, our very Me that wants to live, feel, love and evolve. This one must be met, acknowledged, understood and loved in order to be awakened.

Awakening of ego is the key to its empowerment. In order to be realized, the ego must surrender to itself. We have discussed the guilt everyone carries, but in essence, we feel guilty for merely being our ego. This is not so surprising: the ego is rather pitiful, attached to life without knowing why it exists, characterized by selfishness and small-mindedness. It will lie, cheat, steal, beg, and manipulate if its survival is at stake, seeking gratification while living in fear and deceit. It is also responsible for our sense of separation, our total loneliness. Yet, it remains what and who we are; there is no escape. The ego is all these things primarily because it is ignorant and unconscious. Ego is not evil, but is totally lost and does not remember who it is. Though capable of kindness and compassion, the ego is filled with internal conflicts and vulnerable to its lower nature. It has virtually zero relationship with itself, existing only through its connection to the outer world. And ironically, this same ego desperately tries to protect its positive self-image, all while fundamentally disliking itself for its very existence.

As mentioned, the traditional approach is the renunciation or denial of ego, pretending that it is not there. Yet it remains, as it has nowhere to go. What the ego needs is salvation. It needs to be saved, not by self-negation, but self-actualization. It must be saved, not from itself, but from not being itself. Ego has to be realized as our soul.

But isn’t our soul awakened as pure me? Yes, it is. But ego also has to become our soul. Meeting our soul in ego is much more difficult than in pure me, because pure me exists entirely beyond the mind. In the ego as we know it there isn’t the sense of innocence and purity as in pure me of consciousness. Ego is the one that left ‘Eden’ and lost its innocence, or so it seems.

So let’s ask this question again – how can ego be realized as our soul? This question is important because it opens space for the possibility of a radical change in our relationship with ego. First, you need to have a clear identity in the primary me. However, you must feel the primary me not through self-attention, but through pure attention experienced from pure consciousness; you need to feel the primary me not directly, but from pure consciousness. After illuminating the primary me with pure attention, the next step is to enter inside its personal intelligence and sense of self. Ego’s sense of self is hidden in the sense of self of the primary me. In a way it is obvious, but it is deeply concealed at the same time. To meet ego at the very core of its sense of self represents a very deep awakening to who we are.

We have already established that our soul is actualized as pure me in the center of the emotional center of the innate me. To put it more simply, the correct awakening of pure consciousness is equivalent to becoming our soul. Such a soul exists entirely beyond the mind, yet she is capable of feeling herself with the deepest emotional sensitivity. However, the primary me remains a separate entity in our consciousness. Although it can be awakened and experienced in unity with pure me, its own center has not transformed enough to truly match the light of the soul. This is why students continue to experience conflict between the two spheres of consciousness, pure consciousness and primary me, the space of subjectivity behind the frontal lobe and the sense of me in the front. It is not so much the primary me as a whole that is causing this conflict, but the aspect of it which is ego. Ego is the living center of the mind and personality, giving it enormous importance to our human existence. It is, in fact, the center of intelligence of human consciousness. It is imperative that we awaken our soul in ego as well. Failing this, we can never become fully integrated and whole, and the realization of the soul will remain incomplete.

We can dive into our deepest human feelings in the innate me, but the thinker remains untouched and isolated in the experience. Though we refer to the primary me as the thinker, its very impulse to think originates from the will of ego. The ego is the hidden human essence within the primary me. It is capable of thought and feeling, continually seeking well-being while simultaneously recognizing its own suffering. Even in the midst of joy, the ego is perpetually suffering.

To awaken the ego as our soul, we must enter it in the deepest way possible. But this is impossible without the presence of pure consciousness, as the ego, when accessed through self-attention or self-awareness, is too restricted. Self-attention is the ego recognizing itself alone in its own center. To enter ego, we must do it with pure attention, from pure consciousness. Pure attention must lovingly feel our personal me within the primary me and merge with it. This awakening naturally empowers the ego’s relationship with the mind and the superego, as it now experiences its own beauty and true self-love. It becomes independent from self-image, as it does not need any image to know itself as light of self. Shedding its role as a masculine center of the mind, the ego becomes feminine, gentle and loving – the true representation of Self in us.

The awakening of ego also gives us emotional empowerment. Remember that whatever is happening in ego, including creating self-image, is connected to our emotions. Emotions originate in amygdala, in the innate me, but then they are brought into awareness through the mind into the ego. We are meant to surrender emotions into the body to relieve the mind from processing emotions, but ego tends to grasp emotions in order to mentally control them. Emotions ‘leak’ into the mind because of the ego’s poor relationship with itself. The ego hijacks the amygdala, causing emotional suffering that is further reinforced through the mind. However, this changes when ego realizes soul, because here it can finally abide in its natural peace, contentment and fulfillment. When ego is embodied, we naturally prevent the ‘leaking’ of emotions into the mind. On the other hand, if ego is not embodied, it will subconsciously want to take the charge for emotional processing through the mind.

To give a practical example here, when fear is activated in the amygdala, it goes immediately into the body, bypassing ego, and you can automatically surrender to the emotion felt in the body, thereby dissolving it. Or, when you are having a conflict with another person, the moment you have fully surrendered to your ego, embodying it totally, your mind will remain free from emotional reactiveness allowing you to respond to the situation in a rational manner. Emotions will not ‘leak’ into the mind, but will be felt where they should be felt – in your body. This is the true meaning of the healing path of nonresistance. Significant healing will happen because ego is no longer generating emotions from the mind, allowing the body and nervous system to heal, freeing us from the emotional burdens of the past. This is, in fact, the ‘immediate path of healing’.

The reason why healing work appears never-ending is because the ego keeps recreating our pain. How can you heal your past if you are hurting yourself in the present? Ego is creating our pain, but we refuse to take responsibility and thus blame our past. Even the deeper existential emotions, like loneliness or sadness, are created by the ego’s interpretation of our condition. Emotions arise in the amygdala, but it does not create them independently, unless it is triggered by ego or other external factors, which is natural. Feelings of unworthiness are also created by the ego. Because the unconscious ego is continuously suffering in its very identity, it projects its suffering onto our overall emotional existence. Ego does not even know how to suffer in itself, because it exists only through its expressions in personality.

The ego, which lives in fear, uses the mind to constantly think about our life’s circumstances. It is true that fear manifests from the unconscious mind and the amygdala, but there is no mind or emotions without ego. The ego is not only the center of our personality, but the one who activates it. It activates our emotions and the subconscious mind, but then it has hardly any control over the process. But when ego surrenders to and embodies itself, all of this changes. Firstly, it changes because ego activates the mind much less often, doing so only intermittently, and thus dwells mostly in a thoughtless state of being. Secondly, as the ego is immersed in its own bliss, it is no longer prone to activate negativity in the mind and is fully independent from the mind.

While both our long-term and collective memory hold much negativity, its prevalence in our experience stems from the fact that we attract and invite it into our minds. Within the unconscious mind resides the full spectrum of existence—both good and bad, hell and heaven. What matters is what we want to access and what we want to nurture. We must nurture the positive. An awakened ego no longer feeds negativity. This is what true healing is. There is no higher healing than the awakening of ego, thus when it is awakened, what else is there to heal?

In the teaching, we recently spoke about going to the true beginning of the path. If we fully understand the beginning, our further evolution becomes more effortless and natural. We begin to truly understand what we are doing on the spiritual path. And what is the beginning? It is ego. We know that the intention to enter the spiritual path comes from the ego. Ego has to develop spiritual intelligence and awaken its spiritual longing. We also know that we must have a clear presence in primary attention as the foundation of our expansion into pure subjectivity. However, even though we addressed the awakening of the primary me as the center of awareness, in the past we addressed only the awakening of ego in the mind as the person.

Primary me can be seen as the body of ego in awareness, but the ego itself is deeper. The awakening of the primary me deeply affects ego, because it is part of it. However, to awaken ego, we have to go deeper into the primary me and surrender to its innermost personal essence, allowing ego to be embodied as the sweetest knowledge of our personal self.

As unusual and challenging as this new understanding may appear – ego is our true self. It is not just our human self; it is universal – it is Me. The ego is the deepest dimension of our personal self. Is the ego deeper than the innate me? It is just different, and there is no point to say which one is deeper. But ego is certainly closer to who we are as the manifested Me and the center of our intelligence, which is what we are, after all. However, in our further evolution, innate me and ego merge into one, which is the result of deeper integration and unification of our soul.

You may be wondering about the connection between the ego and the person, which was formerly seen as the center of the mind and personality. The person was seen as an extension of the primary me (and primary attention) into the mind, allowing us to have a center in our thoughts. Certainly, the person was also experienced as ego, and he represented many of the characteristics of ego. However, the experience of ego in the person was limited because the center in the mind is not its natural location. Realization of ego in the primary me in the eyes goes much deeper.

Ego is not a center; it is the intelligence of Me. It has no center, but it has a sense of me. However, in order to become conscious, ego has to create a clear center of identity, which is accomplished by identifying with primary attention. Because the ego has no center, it is not surprising that nobody in this world knows who they are. People intuitively feel their sense of me, but when asked who they are, they cannot answer. How could they, when their ego is totally lost in the mind and experienced as the mind? They have no choice but to think constantly, because they have no center of awareness.

When we further contemplate the difference between the primary me and ego, we can say that primary me comes into existence when ego creates a center in primary attention. So, primary attention plus ego is the primary me. This is a very interesting situation, because it appears that ego has become conscious of itself, but it is actually conscious of primary attention. This is the primary me, which is ego defined by primary attention. For ego to awaken as the soul, it has to realize itself independently from primary attention, diving into its own original sense of me. Yes, attention is needed for ego to recognize itself, but it is done by pure attention, which is the attention of surrender. In other words, ego recognizes itself through pure consciousness.

You may be wondering why I use the term ego, instead of simply ‘me’ or a specific aspect of me. While ego literally means ‘me’, or rather ‘I’, the term gained significant meaning when it was popularized in the Western psychology by Sigmund Freud (who used the German phrase das Ich), but it was translated into ‘ego’ for the international audience. In that time, German philosophy was very strong and the term ‘das ich’ was used many times, such as by Nietzsche, Kant or Hegel, but in a more generic non-psychological sense. However, according to Freud, ego is the rational or ‘conscious’ part of personality that meditates between the primary instincts of Id and the moral constraints of superego. We chose to use the term ego precisely because of the role it has taken in Western psychology. However, unlike Freud our view of it is not merely psychological, but above all, spiritual. Regrettably, in spirituality, the term has become so warped that the damage must be urgently reversed. When you read about the awakening of ego, or that ego is your true self, don’t you feel challenged and resist this idea? Why do you think this is so? Because you have been brainwashed and neither like nor appreciate yourself. Even if ego is often associated with being overly concerned about oneself, this is also part of what it is – it wants to live above all else. When we use the term ‘me’, this by itself does not give you the same connotation. Anyways, all things considered, ego is a very good term.

In Indian spirituality and Buddhism, the term ‘ego’ is not used in the same sense as it was by Freud. Instead, it always referred to the ‘I-sense’ of self – the awareness of oneself as an individual sense of me – which is the supposed root of our ignorance. This perspective, however, missed the mark, initiating hatred against our personal self. On this planet, no one has ever truly understood the ego, including Freud who understood it as a function but not as an identity.

The truth is, ego itself is not the root of human ignorance. It is just the opposite – ignorance is the ignorance of who ego is. Ignorance is nothing but ego unrealized as our true self. While spiritual ignorance is often associated with the basic spiritual forgetfulness of our pure nature, the beginning of that forgetfulness is the complete absence of the understanding of ego. Ego remains the most hidden secret of human existence – a secret that must be illuminated at any cost. Ego has to be brought back to God. It is time.