The Spirituality Ego Trip

The ONE is nonduality, it preludes reality, and it is the source of all existence and non-existence.

All consciousness from the simplest to the self-consciousness, rises from the ONE as waves rise from the ocean, and after their journey in the duality world, all consciousness returns to the source, to the ONE.

I have discussed this metaphysical concept, at large, in some of my previous blogs but today this will be just a brief introduction to the subject at hand “The Spiritual Ego Trip”  

So, what is the Ego and what is an Ego trip?

As we are born we still have the quality of non-duality, that means the newborn and very young babies have no knowledge of “Good” or “Bad” we are pure Spirit encapsulated in a meat, bones and skin bag. 

We must learn what pain is in order to know what pleasure is, we have to learn what a lie is in order to know what truth is, we have to learn what hate is in order to know what love is. In short, we must know the evil in order to know the good.

This may sound harsh but without losing our innocence we wouldn’t be able to survive in the material world. This is our original sin “eating the apple from the tree of knowledge”

Along with the knowledge, we also learn how to speak and how to reason using language and symbols.

We are also indoctrinated in the concept of identity.

You are no longer a manifestation of God part of all that there is but a separate individual, a human.

To enforce that identity, you are given a label, a name and a role you have to play – to be John the son or Mary the daughter of your parents. Usually, after that, you are assigned another role “the student role”

Sometime around 7 years old +-  our learned function “the reason” connects to the assigned identity.

and thinking becomes predominant over all the other functions of the Spirit; intuition, imagination, creativity.

If you are lucky some of your talents may be nourished and further develop or unlucky and have all your talents be suppressed and never develop.

It is in the teenage period when the reason reaches the stage of self-consciousness “the I think therefore I am” form. At that time, the Ego takes control from the Spirit and asserts itself as the true identity of the human experience. Our Ego trips multiply. We are sports fans, boyfriend, and girlfriend, democrat or republican, Christian or Muslim, athlete or cheerleader etc.

But these Ego trips are just the introduction to the big roles, father, mother, engineer, teacher, entrepreneur or worker etc. Just ask anybody who are you and they will answer with the assigned label and role. Nobody has any clue that, that is just an Ego trip not the real identity of the “I”

The development of the Ego imposes the Ego qualities over our personality overshadowing the qualities of our Spirit. All Ego qualities arise from the belief in its separate state from everything as opposed to the spirit that knows it is connected to everything.

Some of the Ego qualities derive from that are the belief of scarcity, poverty, ignorance, and fear but what keeps the Ego in power is the supreme quality of the Ego – Vanity. The I am better than you Ego game that all of us are involved in even if we are not aware of it,

The classical example of vanity Ego trip would be any person driving a Ferrari or similar car, any person decked in jewelry or a guy with a trophy wife. That is the Ego saying to the world look at me I am better than you. I am a winner and everybody else is a loser. But that is just a façade, an empty attempt to fill the void of Ego existence.

Another form of Ego trip is the spiritual Ego trip. Because of the explosion of information, we now know that material success doesn’t equate with happiness and we even look down on people with money.

Having money will not excuse you from being a douche bag so some people have found another way to be better than you. The spiritual pseudo “non-material” Ego trip.

One of my favorite spiritual Ego trips are the eco-planet-saving warriors. You know the type; vegan, hip, Prius driving apple book totting, save the planet preachers.

Here is the point: For millions of years, we have been living in harmony with the planet without generating any garbage or industrial pollution. Actually, there are people that do that even now. 

The Amish people live in perfect harmony with planet earth. 

They cultivate their own food, make their own clothes and have a zero impact on the planet.

So, all those hip types trying to make you feel guilty for using plastic bags or eating a beef steak are just little hypocrites. 

They are not here to save the planet they are here to show you how much better they are then you. 

If they really cared about the planet they should give up their Priuses, Apple laptops, and cell phones and go live on an Amish farm with zero impact on the planet they say they love. Right?

And then of course then is us the Zen Buddhist, Born again Christians, Hassidic Jews, and Fundamentalist Muslims. You know the type; My God is better than your God and my religion and beliefs the only right one. In other words, I am better than you Ego trip disguised as “I am doing you a favor saving your soul from the eternal flames of hell”

It is all a charade, a grotesque circus of hypocrisy. The Pope and the Vatican are the richest men and institution on the globe. How did they get all that money, treasures and land? From ripping off the poor and then turning around to lead the fight against the poverty they created. Just like our eco-warriors friends. If you want to end poverty why not do it? After all, you have all the means and nobody will stop you.  

So, the bottom line is, if you belong to any organized religious or non-religious group you are on an Ego trip. 

Jesus and Gautama had no church or temple. Christ was not Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist. 

If you want to be a spiritual person you should be like Jesus “in this world but not of this world” and like Gautama a beggar, a nobody meditating under the Bodhi tree.