If you’ve never heard this term, you’ve probably also never experimented with psychedelics. But if you have heard this term, you still might not understand it. Either way, you may be curious the possibilities involved in strong use of psychedelics. It’s the most important concept I can think of in finding a path to peace and happiness. So I’d like to take the opportunity to explain what this is in simple terms. Willing to take a couple minutes and figure out who you are?
Ego is the sense of who you are. It is specifically your idea or conception of yourself as separate from others and with it’s own unique characteristics. It starts with I am separate and individual, and progresses all the way to the labels by which we describe ourselves and our preferences. This bundle of “identity” is your “ego.”
Which is why this concept is fundamental to every religion, plant ceremony, therapy, self-help book, retreat and any other mechanism by which we attempt to change our identity. Who we believe we are limits our understanding of reality and what’s possible. The more constricting of an identity we place upon ourselves, the less options we see and the more narrow the vision of the world we view.
On the smallest scale, the goal of anyone assisting you is to help you either release or change an aspect of your ego. Everything from your friend who says “you’re too good for him” to “you wouldn’t do that” to “you couldn’t pull that off” are all conversations about identity. They don’t actually relate to the situation, they’re conversations comparing imaginary identities to try and predict or understand real world actions.
We spend a lot of time avoiding reality by staying purely within the realm of “ego”. When someone does something we didn’t expect we say “I guess I didn’t know who they are after all.” When we struggle to accept it we say “I can’t believe he/she said that or did that.” When we believe in our friends we say “you can do it.” Each and every one of those statements is comparing our sense of identity for someone to their actions to see if they align.
But nowhere do we waste more time on this than with ourselves. We say “Oh I couldn’t do that.” Or we say “That’s not possible for someone like me.” Or we say “I don’t like this sort of thing.” We say “I’m just not like that.” These are all symptoms of the same disease. That of having a fully developed imaginary ego that categorizes and separates us.
That’s the reason for the Buddhist joke, “what’s the most dangerous word in the english language?” The answer is simply “I”. The reason is everything we say afterwards is a lie. Additionally, everything that is captured in I is hidden from view. Because when you say I you are calling to mind an entire world of identity full of preferences, history, values and a thousand other things that “make you, you.”
This is not dangerous in itself; if we can maintain awareness that we are lying. If we can recognize that we have just installed a role as a character in life we’re playing like a child would “cops and robbers,” then we wouldn’t have a problem. We’d know when it was okay to change roles, take off the police hat, alter the rules of the game or simply stop playing and be a child again. That is the proper role of ego in the grand drama of life.
But we don’t do that. We as a society forget that we are living in a made up dream. That everything from money to countries to jobs and words are made up in order to facilitate the play that’s being put on by the universe and it’s peoples. We forget that we are playing a game and begin to believe that we *are* the characters. We become too attached and lose the ability to change. This is what leads us to disaster.
This is what we are working to let go of. This is where ego-death begins. It’s a slow unravelling of everything that makes you, you. It’s a remembering that your identity is manufactured. It’s a remembering that your stories are in the past and don’t affect you now. It’s a reality that your likes and dislikes are simply decisions that you have made, not an enforceable reality. It’s becoming aware of all of the various stories and illusions that we have accepted in order to play the game of life.
But it’s not where ego-death ends. Ego-death ends in a place much more spiritual either facilitated by deep meditations or plant ceremonies of the highest kinds. That ego-death is the disappearance of not just all of the costumes we put on the letter “I” but on the “I” itself. To experience an ego-death is to experience yourself completely disappearing into the wholeness of reality. To see that you are at one with everything and come to the realization that you were never separate.
This experience can’t be put effectively in words, because there are no words. It can’t be guided by someone else because there is no one else. It is a stripping down of everything that we hold as reality until you realize that there is only one. That experience is something you’ve always known deep down because you are that one. But you’ve chosen to forget for the purposes of playing the games.
But when the game has become too heartbreaking it’s important to take a step back and realize that it’s a game. When you do this, you restore your ability to detach and enjoy the grand drama of life. It can free you of your attachments and the cage you’ve built around yourself. That allows you to truly experience creation.
After this experience everything changes but nothing changes. You come back to the same exact life, but nothing is the same. You realize that your entire identity was a lie, but you still get to navigate life. You realize that nothing is separate from you, but you still experience this grand drama of separation. You get to experience both the comfort of unity and the beauty of separation at the same time. You come back and nothing is the same. But everything is the same. It’s you, or rather your sense of what that is, that has changed.
Which is the most incredible thing in the world. You can be reborn into a blank slate with infinite possibilities. You rediscover the ability to experiment, to play, and to not take life too seriously. You begin to see everything as a game, as the grand drama of life, with absolutely nothing to lose but the costume we’re wearing. With that, life becomes an adventure more grand than we could have ever imagined alone. One full of wonder and where it’s truly impossible to lose. That’s what’s waiting for you on the other side. Will you join me?
Hey! I’m David Longhini. Currently on a grand adventure throughout Africa and beyond experiencing whatever I can experience. If this resonated with you please reach out. Also, don’t forget to share, comment, or subscribe.