If our ego can see itself as another might, then action can be monitored and vital cooperation can result. – Edward E. Sampson
We understand what it means to pollute our air or our water, but what most of us don’t realize is that our ego creates a form of spiritual pollution.
We’re projecting our egoic attachments into the world, in the form of shoving or grasping (our fears and desires) all the time, and these attachments carry a dense and noisy energy signature. Most people only experience the egoic attachments of others by playing out the opposite polarized dynamic of the ego projection they might be receiving or, if they’re lucky, just witnessing someone’s ego in action. But most experiences of the ego will likely be unconscious and just experienced as relationship dynamics between people interacting.
I was born with the . . . curse . . . or gift, as I see it now, of reading the ego signatures of others. When I witness the egoic behavior of others, I experience egoic processes as if they were auras around people’s bodies. I simultaneously experience both whatever another is sharing in a relational way, as well as being bombarded by their ego’s density and noise. The experience is like having a constant cacophony infiltrate regular interactions. This effect can often leave me feeling exhausted after the shortest of interactions, but it’s a blessing by virtue of being an obstacle course that helps me care for myself better (by avoiding heavily egoic people), understand others more holistically, and offer my work with an expeditiousness.
People who have done ego dissolution work have more unobstructed energy signatures.
Just because most people don’t experience the ego the way I do, doesn’t mean they aren’t affected unconsciously all the time by a world full of egoic projection. It’s everywhere and it’s an obstacle not only individually, because we’re triggered when someone projects an egoic process at us that we have yet to work on in ourselves, but collectively as well, because the density of egoic projections obstructs our direct experience of spiritual connection: egoic energy forms an invisible energy network.
As the central processing center of consciousness, the ego is the source of personality creation. It sorts through all stimuli and either grasps ahold, because it desires whatever it’s grasping for, or it shoves away, because it rejects whatever it fears. But we all exist as pure potential: in essence, we’re all things and nothing. And we let the ego’s desires and fears dictate who and what we can become.
When we can observe the ego with non-attachment and discernment, we eradicate triggers and empower the fullest potential within.
We’ve all met those people who are buoyant and sanguine – who manage to maintain their equilibrium without being triggered – even in the harshest of circumstances. Luminous people are those without the polluted energy of ego signatures; they’ve quite literally removed the projections that form the density around their energy fields. In this way, they’re also no longer contributing to the collective pollution either. Without our projections, attachments to fears and desires, we can all move through the world more fluidly, both alleviating the obstructions for ourselves and others.
We must eradicate what triggers the ego . . .
Excavating the contents of our unconscious leads to heightened self-awareness about our fears and desires. This is where our true power resides: in our ability to integrate the full contents of our psyche and hold paradox with non-attachment. We can learn to simply observe stimuli in a flow and let it go without needing to latch on as a means to define who we are. This is ego dissolution work: taking back our power by being conscious of and observing without reacting to our ego’s processes.
In my humble opinion, doing ego dissolution work is not only the most courageous and important work we can do to free ourselves from what restricts our progress, but to free the world from our collective spiritual pollution. Once we start to make our egoic behaviors conscious, we can change them. There is no way to create sustainable change without working to acknowledge and integrate everything about ourselves that’s unconscious. Like cleaning up our air or our water, this work is incremental and it requires courage and persistence. But if you’re anything like me, you will derive a great deal of joy, not only from unburdening yourself of your egoic restrictions, but from freeing the collective as well.
