All people have two main aspects of self. The non-physical self and the physical self. Many people have called the physical self the temporal self and the non-physical self, the higher self. They have also called the nonphysical self, the soul and the temporal self, the ego. Your temporal self, your ego, is the seat of personality. But the personality is fragmented. To understand more about this, you can watch my video titled: Fragmentation, The Worldwide Disease. This fragmentation sometimes makes it hard to distinguish between your actual non-physical self and parts of your personality that are mimicking the higher self. It makes it hard to distinguish between your ‘ego’ and your ‘higher self’.
The ego, which is essentially your self-concept, wants to distinguish itself. It wants to be things like good, right, better, superior, more. There is nothing inherently wrong with this drive. But most people are not aware enough of this element of ego to integrate it or consciously work with it. As a result, their nonphysical self and physical self are not engaging in an aligned relationship. Instead, their ego is subconsciously running the show. This is the case all over the world. But in spiritual communities, there is a special shadow. In spiritual communities, the ego can run the show by thinking, speaking and acting like what that person imagines a transcendental, enlightened person would think, speak and act like.
In the spiritual communities, a person who is seen as ‘spiritually superior’ is celebrated as right, good, better, superior, more. Naturally then, there is motive for a person to be that. So, an aspect of their personality often adopts that identity. On top of this, people often turn to spirituality in order to escape pain and so, it is only natural that a spiritual way of thinking, speaking and acting can be developed as a protector personality so as to keep an individual safe. If you want to understand this in depth, watch my video titled: The Sad Truth About Most Gurus.
When an aspect of a person’s ego adopts the identity of a spiritually transcendent person, most people mistake that for the higher self. They mistake this personality fragment that acts in all the ways that they imagine a spiritually superior being would act (things like ‘above and beyond it all’, transcendental, non-reactive, always seeing the beauty in what is, forgiving, ego-less, etc.) for their ‘true self’… Who they really are. They become selectively identified with this spiritually transcendent part of themselves and often slip into the practice of suppressing all other ‘less woke’ parts of themselves. The ego has hijacked their spiritual practice without them knowing it, because it has come in the disguise of the higher self and they fell for it.
When this happens, the person is on a kind of transcendental power trip. Only now, what makes their ego strong is seeing themselves and being seen as things like more woke, more aware, more forgiving, more loving, more meditative, more intuitive, more transcendental etc. Spiritual superiority becomes the ego’s new power game.
I’ll give you one example to illustrate what I mean. Imagine a woman who grows up with a vicious and dictatorial single mother. She could never gain any power in her relationship with her mother. Until the day that her ego found a way… To be Jesus-like. To use things like unconditional love and deciding that she will be the one to teach her mother how to love and kindness (no matter how she is treated) in order to feel superior to her mother. This made her ego feel in the position of power. Really, she found a creative way to play the power game with her mother. And all of the spiritually transcendent qualities became a part of her power trip. But because the ego disguised itself as spiritually transcendent, she fell for it. She believed herself to actually be operating from the perspective of her higher self. Not only did this bring her further from integration and further from her actual non-physical self, it also worsened her relationship with her mother and made her stay living with in her highly abusive mother, because she was now getting an ego boost by continuing to do so.
It is a reality that certain individuals are more tapped into the non-physical, are more conscious, are more aware, are more able to consciously love etc. In the same way that there are people walking the earth who are more athletic, are able to jump higher and run faster and go further. It is important to be in reality about this instead of to imagine that equality exists relative to these things. The thing is, when your ego is identified with being spiritually transcendent, you will have a hard time accurately perceiving this reality and will instead imagine yourself to be more conscious, more developed, more aware, more knowing, more able to love, more forgiving etc. than you actually are. You will also be on a subconscious power trip relative to other people. If you have been unsafe with people or feel unsafe with them still (especially people in positions above you) you want to be “on top” of them or at least “equal” to them in order to feel safe. You will be trying to establish superiority or at the very least, equality relative to other people in your environment. And you will go about doing that by thinking, speaking and acting spiritually superior to them.
You can turn any quality that one identifies with being spiritual into a power trip. For example, forgiveness can be used as power trip. Love can be used as a power trip. Kindness can be used as a power trip. Awakening can be used as a power trip. Positive thinking can be used as a power trip. Growth can be used as a power trip. Ego-lessness can be used as a power trip. Inner peace can be used as a power trip. Non reactivity can be used as a power trip. Compassion can be used as a power trip. Intuition can be used as a power trip. Meditation can be used as a power trip. Yoga can be used as a power trip. Humility can be used as a power trip. Simplicity can be used as a power trip. Personal responsibility can be used as a power trip. Healthy living can be used as a power trip. And the list goes on and on.
Before you think you’ve got a handle on things, it is important to know that spiritual egoism is especially hard to recognize because the power trip often takes place in so many ‘disguised as the opposite” ways. For example, a person who is on a spiritually transcendent power trip is likely to be demonstrative about how unconcerned they are with power. They are likely to put on an act of humility. They are likely to say that they are very aware of their shadow side and ego… because doing so makes them seem good and right and better and more to themselves and to others. Consider that the part of you that says it doesn’t care about power, is the one having the power trip by saying that in a world where power has been made the bad guy; and therefore the person who doesn’t care about it, superior.
Often people who are stuck in a state of identification with a spiritually transcendent protector part of their personality will be more obvious to others than they are to themselves. Being around them will feel like they are putting on an act. You can feel those vulnerable and unsavory things that are being suppressed, denied, disowned, avoided or rejected beneath the facade. And also, you will feel the power struggle taking place underneath that facade. It will feel like a gas-light. Just be careful to check your own power trip when perceiving this kind of thing in others.
You should not be trying to get rid of your ego. To understand more about this, you watch my video titled: The Lesson of Christ and Lucifer. The thing you should aim for is to integrate your ego. And you care about power whether you are able to admit to it or not. To not fall into this unconsciousness trap, you need to see how you are using your spirituality or self-development to strengthen your ego. You need to see what you may be trying to avoid, suppress, deny, disown, reject or keep safe by seeing yourself and trying to get others to see you as a spiritually transcendent person. It would benefit every person who is into spiritual practice of any kind to do parts work with the part of themselves that is protecting them by being spiritually transcendent… The part of their ego that is disguised as the higher self. So as to become aware of and integrate this very real coping mechanism. To understand more about how to do this, watch my video titled: Parts Work, What Is Parts Work and How to Do It.
The direct truth is that each and every of us who identifies with spirituality and self-development, will have parts of our ego that are identified with all of the qualities that the spiritual field and self-help field sees as right, good, better, superior and more. Being aware that your ego IS involved in your spiritual practice is critical. By seeing this, you can begin to experience your actual non-physical self, even if a spiritually transcendent identity within your personality construct steps forward to try to convince you it is the ‘real and only and true self’.
