Here I am using “negative ego” as a term, I am not using “negative” as an adjective to define ego. The ego is basically the “I” reference in our physicality, and inherently it’s essential for our physical existence to have a structure, meaning and perspective. The problem is basically with the negativity that creeps into the ego structure owing to garnering negative perception. With time, the ego structure keeps growing in the strength of its negativity to the point where it acquires a very powerful standing in your being, it becomes an “entity” that has a voice of its own, it’s like a negative person living inside you. It’s very normal to take this “negative ego” to be who we are, and this becomes very dangerous because now we start protecting this structure in us – we become attached to it, we fear its dissolution, we defend it, repair it, attract people who can keep fueling it and basically keep away from anyone who might cause it to be brought down (have you noticed a part of you that just hates this whole “alignment” process and basically wants to defend its right to be negative).
Dissolving the negative ego is one of the most challenging experiences one goes through during the process of alignment, it’s much more challenging that the release of “past” negative energy accumulation in our body/being. The reason it’s challenging is because we take ourselves to be the negative ego and so its dissolution feels like our own dissolution, or a psychological suicide – it’s literally a death of a certain personality in us, a certain identity that we took to be who we are. And the fact is that only after the dissolution of a large part of the negative ego do we start glimpsing that it’s not who we are – there is a lot of joy in this realization, but the process of allowing the dissolution of this negative ego, till this point, is a work of understanding. Without proper understanding it’s really easy to hold onto to this negative ego, and keep defending it as who you are. It’s tricky business because the “negative ego” becomes such a strong identity in your brain that it starts protecting it as a necessary part of survival, and anything that’s threatening its dissolution is taken to be the enemy. It’s so easy to see this in people (especially the intellectual ones), how they come up with some really clever arguments to defend the presence of the negative ego, for most others the argument always is that “it’s too damn tough to let go of it”.
What drives the negative ego?
The part in you that always finds a way to be unhappy is the negative ego, period. The negative ego can’t be happy for long even though it does promise you that it will be happy if only it has “——-” (fill in the blanks). Actually, the negative ego clings to the desire produced in the moment, and uses it as a means to feel even more unhappy by stating that “I don’t have this, and I won’t be happy until I have this”. So the desire by itself is not the problem, the problem is that the negative ego clings to it and makes it into a new reason for being unhappy – in fact, it also starts feeling negative about the desire, it starts doubting the desire and uses it as a means to proclaim unworthiness delving into throes of self-pity, blame, resentment, anxiety and anger. I am sure this is a good enough description for you to see this entity in you – it’s so evident and its behavior is the same in all the minds.
The negative ego is fueled by your identification, your attention, your interest, your belief and your servility towards it. Without your identification, it can’t sustain itself because it’s just a “thought force”. The deal is that you can’t change the negative ego into a positive one, you just need to dissolve it and the natural wholeness of your being comes to the front. The negative ego can put on a pretence of being positive for a while, but anyone who has an iota of awareness can see through this charade – you can sense the fear behind the show of positivity. Since the very structure of the negative ego is based on lack and fear, it can’t ever be positive, not for long. The only way towards freedom is to dissolve its force in you to the point where it’s influence becomes “zero”. This process will take time, and it can feel like a real war in your mind for a while, and it can be tiring – however the more understanding/awareness you have, the faster you allow the dissolution to be.
There can be a few surprises where you feel really certain that you are done with the negative ego only to be struck with a new episode of its “emergence” triggered by some events or some thought – you can feel flabbergasted by its intensity, and wonder if you will ever be free of it. But the deal is that when it really done, it’s really done – until then it will keep emerging. At some point you will be stable enough to not be shaken up by its emergence and you can deal with it quite easily – when you reach this point you feel a sense of “power” within you, and it’s what I call a place of inner stability. When you lack an inner stability, when the negative ego is in the foreground, you “become” it – it’s just like being possessed, and this causes you to start believing that this is who you are, thus creating a cycle of identification and reinforcement. People who have some awareness can always see the “real you” (or the possibility of you) below the surface of the negative ego, this is because we always carry the vibration of our “higher self” (or ideal self) within us which is evident to anyone who is sensitive to it – when you sit alone with yourself you can also sense this ideal self within you, like your inner being that just feels submerged in the layers of the negative ego.
Identifying the negative ego
The most important requirement to start dissolving the negative ego is for you to identify it in your mind. As long as you take yourself to be the negative ego it’s not easy to dissolve it, because you will constantly keep defending it, protecting it, repairing it and pampering it. What feels like your “ideal self” is actually your true self, there is no two ways about it, and this is the self that comes to the foreground when the negative ego dissolves. So any part of you that does not feel congruent with your sense of your ideal self is part of the negative ego. It takes some brutal honestly to really start seeing the negative ego for what it is.
Another characteristic of the negative ego, that you can identify it by is that it’s never driven purely by love mostly because it’s rooted in “lack” and love is a loss of lackful-ness. Under the influence of the negative ego, everything is made into a means to an end, a possession, a way of self-enhancement, an achievement, a means of approval/acceptance, a means of entertainment, a means of security etc, and it’s not long before it brings this tendency even to the purest forms of love. Love, in its true form, is the only feeling which goes beyond the survival mode and it’s the most liberating feeling because when you are in love there is no “negative ego” involved – it just feels like the real you. It’s just that, it’s not long before the negative ego creeps in and basically corrupts this love in some way owing to its sense of lack. It need not even be love for a person, it could be love for a body of work, for a vision, for a desire etc, the purity of it is destroyed when it’s infiltrated by the negative ego and it becomes more or less artificial, losing its sense of depth. A work done from love has a depth that can never be achieved by a work done as a means to an end. When you love someone for who they are without the need for possession it has a completely different depth to it. The negative ego will convince you that it’s impractical to live a life driven by love, and when you buy into this argument you basically sign up for a life of drudgery and deadness that just starts eating into you with time no matter how hard you try to cover it up with distractions.
Actually, the negative ego is really easy to identify, it’s just that in many of us it’s in such a force that we are totally taken up in it; we never consider stepping back and observing it for what it is. It’s a heavy baggage on your being to contend with the constant resistance of the negative ego. The momentum of the negative ego causes you to fear it and you would rather give in to it rather than dis-identify from it – it’s like giving in to a bully out of the fear of being beaten up, it’s really no different. A lot of us claim that we are bullied by our mind, and it’s very true considering the fact that the negative ego is like “another person” within us, just that this person runs on the fuel of fear. Your true self, or your inner being, runs on love, that’s all that drives it and it doesn’t need love, it is love and it is self-sustaining. The negative ego constantly “needs” love, approval, security and compassion from the outside, and it’s always on a blame game routine.
We are so taken up by the negative ego in our society that it’s almost considered “stupid” to have an integrity or an innocent honesty – being manipulative, shrewd, calculating and cold are considered worthwhile traits to imbue, it’s called “learning the ways of the world”, it doesn’t speak much about such a world. This is one reason why people perceive it as being dangerous to be “innocent”, because the sense is that the world is filled with people ready to exploit your innocence – this obviously causes us to become even more closed, creating a strong fortress of negative ego. The only problem is that a negative ego can only attract more negative egos in your reality, there is no getting around it. We desire a reality filled with people of integrity and innocence, but we are unwilling to have the courage to first be that ourselves (you can’t attract what you are not being) – if not outside, atleast within you align with honoring your innocence, stop trying to be so “cold” and calculative. When you see innocence, and honesty, in others honor it, instead of trying to exploit it to your benefit or putting it down – a lack based, and cynical, mindset is the hallmark of a negative ego.
Disintegrating the negative ego
Poison for the negative ego is when you are no longer identified with it – it takes time, and it’s a war in its own right, a war between your inner being and your negative ego. Just that the way of the inner being is the way of a peaceful warrior – it wins by “allowing” fully. The mind feels like a battlefield for a while when you start disengaging from the negative ego – emotional blackmails, stark threats, projected doom are the ways in which the negative ego will try to pull back your identification, it will want to survive at all costs and the only way it can survive is by pulling your identification. Of course, the moment you become aware of the negative ego is basically its death knoll, this awareness ensures that you will see it for what it is even if you become pulled in it by it – with time you will be able to see through most of its gimmicks to the point where you are no longer taken in by it. Awareness comes from understanding and honest observation, and it’s the only force that can free you of the grip of negative ego. An important understanding is to realize that the dissolution of the negative ego does not happen through “fighting it” but by allowing it fearlessly without identification – if you fight it by trying to suppress it or hating on it, it just fuels it indirectly.
When you allow the momentum of the negative ego, in you, to dissolve (through the state of allowing), you will start seeing glimpses of your inner being come to the forefront. Initially they are just temporary glimpses and it leaves you with a sense that may be it’s not you, that it’s just some “experience” of goodness, but with time you will sense this inner being becoming you (it was always you to start with) in this physical expression, with no “gap” – it no longer feels like there are two of you, you just feel unified and whole. This is an end of conflicted behavior and resistance, allowing a harmonious expression to follow. Once you start getting a glimpse of your inner being coming to the forefront, the negative ego can feel even more suffocating, and it’s a good thing, because it allows you to let go of it more easily. You must understand that it’s pure “physics” that this force built over years will take time to ebb away, however, the advantage is that without your identification it burns away in short time (an approximation would be that it would take 4-6 months to sense inner stability and after that some more months to see a total dissolution) since it’s not supported by your life-stream as it were. Of course, if you keep identifying with the negative ego, it just takes more time to dissolve it – so it’s also a question of attitude.
It’s not an easy journey but it’s a journey that you can’t avoid for long because there is bound to come a point where the negative ego hits the threshold of imbalance, creating suffering which directly triggers the need for growth. When I say it’s not an easy journey I just mean that it can be physically fatiguing to deal with this intense play of energy (the negative ego has a strong force) within you, to go through a period of feeling a bit “dysfunctional” because you are in a limbo between the negative ego and the inner being, to see several parts of your external reality (that were fueled by the negative ego) dissolving, to deal with the fear of uncertainty created by being in this limbo. Frankly, this journey is one of the best adventures you can ever be on, it’s something you wish you could avoid when you are going through it but something you know you didn’t want to miss when you are done with it. It leaves you a different person.
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I am going through this exact phase right now. It’s extremely exhausting. As I remain still I feel an energy inside of me trying to grasp any type of fear-based or hate-based thought to fuel itself. As I allow it to be itself without feeding it my attention the ball of energy in me (in my solar plexus/stomach area) feels as though it physically wants to pick me up and throw me about my room because it isn’t receiving the desired results as it did in the past.
Afterwards, I experience moments of clarity and bliss. Then a few moments later, the energy tries again, sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger than before, with the same fear-based, hate-based thinking.
I can also feel some sexual energies being stirred, with a twist of hate and fear, regarding some insecurities and lack-based ideas.
I do hope this is entirely normal and that it will continue to lose it’s momentum very soon, because this process is mentally and physically draining.
Sen,
good writing…thanks…
You know what’s quite difficult for me in this period… Trying to figure out when it is ever-complaining-useless-pleasure-clinging-full-of-fear “mode”, which is I suppose, what you call negative ego, and when I am simply rejecting and refusing something because I feel it’s just not right in that moment.
I don’t know if this does make sense.
For example, negative ego in me evolved in habitually avoiding almost everything and everybody,and every call for “adventure”… But,sometimes, someone calls to a concert, some dinner, and… I don’t feel too low, just don’t feel ok for it, and then, I get into endless questioning is this negative ego, or is it “integrity”… Am I pushing friends and people off me, or am I just resting, trying to figure myself out,etc…I have heaps of arguments for almost every “option”. This is what the unleashed mind with high momentum does, is it not? Like Robert Anton Wilson said, “what thinker thinks, the prover proves”.
also,sometimes I just don’t know am I procrastinating something, or am I just being patient, waiting for the right moment.
when I’m ok,when there is a lot of space in me,or when I am space,don’t know how to say it,it’s ok, I can see through all of it…
Is there any “trick” or reality check that can help? Or is it just total allowing until negative energy finally dissolves?
Also, sometimes I feel like …well, not like I’m dying, more like I WANT to die…but, it’s not suicidal,it’s more like “I really can’t live like this any more”,very honestly…and feel like what I do is killing me,is like avoiding my real life (which is maybe a different feeling). Are those symptoms of a real “ego dying”, or ego “tricks” to make story out of suffering or,how does it sound to you?
Chow, this is a very normal phase when you allow the dissolution of the momentum of negativity, like I said for a while you just feel “undecided”, in a limbo, to the point of feeling dysfunctional. There is no trick to solve the indecision, the fear created by this uncertainty is part of the the clearing process, it’s about allowing this fear of uncertainty, or confusion, fully rather than trying to look for a way to be clear – ultimately you move into a space of fearless allowing which automatically brings clarity when needed. Right now you are judging “adventure” as positive and staying at home (introspecting) as negative, this is just part of mental conditioning (the social culture), and there will be a movement towards breaking through this mental conditioning until you are free of it – once you are done with this clearing you may feel like indulging in adventures or be more hermit like, depending on whatever your inclination is or expression is. A clarity comes in later, first it’s allowing this fear of confusion or uncertainty. Again, this dialogue of “I want to die” is normal during the dissolution process of the ego structure (the negativity of it), it creates a fear that something “wrong” is happening, and this cause you to try and repair the negative ego if you buy into this – actually nothing wrong is happening, and you can simply allow these dialogues to happen, without giving them credence, slowly they will lose power and intensity.
sen , the article was very very helpful.. the only thing i am havin trouble understanding is what exactly is included when you speak of “negative ego” is this any kind of negative emotion or basically anything that is not pure love? Pls help me clarify exactly what you mean when yo speak of “negative ego”
It’s this part of you that’s aligned with negativity and thus fuels it through identification, in simple words just the “negative you” created through an unconscious/deluded focus on negativity.
sen what can you tell me about the fear of embarrassment? i feel like this is a very deep fear in me that has had crippling effects but lately it has been coming to surface the thing is I am not sure as to how to deal with it or what to do about it
Rossana, if you study humans you will know that none of us are perfect in any way, it’s just some of us take our imperfections too seriously and feel guilty or embarrassed about it. I don’t even know what “perfect” is or what imperfection is, and it’s all just a judgment in the mind – I am just using these words to drive home a point. The reason you feel embarrassed is because you judge yourself for being “imperfect” in some way, and it’s fine to bring awareness to aspect in you that you wish to change but also understand that there is nothing wrong with being who you are as you are – first you need to accept yourself just the way you are, before a change can happen towards some growth you desire. Allow yourself the freedom to be “foolish”, if that’s what you are afraid of – have you ever come across a human who has not done anything foolish in his/her life? When you stop judging yourself, you can really allow a growth to happen – that’s the paradox of life. We are constantly moving towards “improvement” but not by judging ourselves negatively, but just for the desire of growth – and growth is eternal, it’s an unending journey. It’s not about asking people to not judge you, it’s also not about avoid self-analysis/introspection, it’s about learning or growing from our fallacies but with the attitude of not looking at any of this negatively but as a part of humanness, and your journey through it.
Sen, How is it possible that the force of negative ego, a mental construct, is more powerful than the life force of our inner being? In other words, why is our false self, negative ego, more powerful than our true self to the point where we can actually lose awareness of it?
And is it not true that positive ego create resistance too?
Jim, you are the life-force and when you make a choice towards feeding the negative ego – you give it power through your focus on it. The more focused you are on the negative ego the more you empower it to the point where it starts attracting your reality, and it’s also true that when you are obsessed with this negativity you end up disconnecting with the guidance of your life-stream. It’s our “free-will”, being streams of consciousness, to exercise our choice – whether we do it unconsciously or consciously, it’s still our choice. When you make the choice to let go of being driven by the negativity, you are making a choice towards aligning with your life-stream which can then take over.
If by “positive ego” you mean a person who tries to keep thinking positive because he is afraid of allowing the mind to think negatively, then it’s true that this “fear” in him causes an imbalance and he basically is driven by this fear. The ego becomes imbued with a balance and wholeness when you allow it to be touched your space of being, or inner being, which is what it means to live from the heart instead of living from a cynical mind.
OrlandoIntl I to have had times when I go through this, always at a certain insecurity, it is amazing the this feeling inside you as you can actully feel it shifting around. My thoughts on it is be fearless towards it. This is the same as being tottally open to it. If your rooted in fearlessness you know it’s all okay and you can contiume to enjoy yourself and let this energy play out inside you untill it looses its momentum.
i am soooo thankful for your words SEN………it seems like you always touch on what i need to hear it,s amazing….your discriptions are so accurate….betrayal has been very tough to deal with as you can imagine the negative thoughts that come calling from everywhere it was almost to much to take.Ive gone from being attacted by the moment daily to rarely some mild thoughts say bi-weekly/monthly.It seemed like i knew how i should deal with the negative thoughts yet it was almost like i wanted to hear what they had to say and that they deserved there say too.The flip flopping back and forth with my thoughts and emotions were soooo draining the fear of the same thing happening to me again scared me to death.Im a much wiser person now having gone through this experience .I can,t change life im just one little tiny part of it with or without me it continues on I except things for what they are stay true to myself. I wont take things so personal anymore i can,t change anyone but myself. I am happy now cause i said so its because thats what I choose to be… thats me being me…Ive now proven to MYSELF… i am the person i have always thought i was.. the big difference now is i have been truly tested by life and passed.Im not bitter about my experience for some strange reason i have this feeling like somehow something good will come from all this someway someone will be helped or will benefit……..thank you SEN
This is the maturity and depth that’s come about in you was instigated by the awareness created by the pain of the situation, so obviously there is no need to feel negative about the situation or people involved in it – it was for your own growth. With this growth you come to more inner freedom which allows you to attract an aligned reality from a place of love rather than from a place of fear.
Hello Sen
Thank you for all your publications and i have been a vivid fan
I have a question related to letting go of the ego
I feel that there is a contradiction between letting go of Identification ( I want this , i won’t be good without this and so forth ) and Laws of attraction and attracting the things you want
Because how can i attract and label the things in my mind that i want or wish to happen but at the same time ,not identify myself with thoughts and wishes and situations i want to be in to be happy
If i accept and let go then why would i want anything and acctually practice positive thinking and apply the law of attaraction
Thank you
Peace
Sevinish, Desire is not a negativity, it’s just a thought of creation, it’s just that in the mind can end up either resisting the desire or feeling lackful in the presence of the desire and hence create negativity. The pointer is to let go of this negativity through dis-identification, it’s not about letting go of your desire – in fact, you can’t let go of the desire unless it’s already something you don’t really want, a desire that’s aligned with you will always stay only your negativity/resistance towards it will be dissolved when you let go.
I appreciate the perspective that you express above. I have been practicing meditation and reading a lot about Zen and trying to grasp this concept of no self or what you call negative ego. The one thing that keeps me from fully buying into what you write above is that I think the human experience is a valuable place to reside (especially for artists and writers). Why try and escape from the human experience? It is the real thing, the real you. Zen, your philosophy, other spiritual and religious ideologies I feel try and take the individual away from the human experience by offering them a potential way out of suffering (existential dread). What you write above is just as intellectual or philosophical as anything that Kant or Hegel wrote- just dressed in a different framework. You are offering a practice and way of thinking/living that can help individuals free themselves from the suffering that being a human entails. I think this is a beautiful thing but it is a belief system just like any other belief system. I am always concerned when some one calls their belief system “the truth.”
I do think that being able to dissolve negative ego or tap into no self could be a very liberating place to reside. I am trying these concepts on myself but having a hard time making them fit. I like my self image, I enjoy the human experience in all its pain, struggle, joy, fear, hell, brutality, worry, bliss- why would I want to slip out of it? It is what makes me human (and I have an eternity to not be human). I also like having a clear mind, being present, being free from anxiety and terror but if I have to lose my self image to do this- I just don’t know. The negative ego is part of what makes us human and as much as it may suck from time to time- it is what it is, a natural human experience (I presume). Curious what your thoughts on what I am attempting to express are. Thanks..
Randall, I am not sure if you read this post or you just read the title, I don’t talk about any concept of “no self”, neither do I ever talk about doing away with human experience (in fact the core of the blog is to enable one to have a good experience of physicality, and human experience, through alignment), neither I am into Zen philosophy. Am not talking about getting rid of the ego, the first line of this post clearly mentions that “negative” is not the adjective I used to describe the ego, rather “negative ego” is a term I use to point to certain negativities that an ego structure can carry (or rather a mind can carry) which hamper a balanced experience of physicality. Basically it’s about finding a balance between your mind/ego and your space of being, so that one can live a harmonious expression in their physicality, living the creative potential. If you are interested you can read the posts with an open mind, before coming to a “set minded” conclusion about what you think this might be about.
Thanks for your response Sen. I did read your post and I replied with questions that came up for me while reading. Thanks for your helpful clarifications. I by no means meant to insult, deride or misinterpret your position. What you wrote about negative ego simply reminded me of a lot of what I have read about no self (I realize you did not mention it- I should have clarified this in my post). Sorry for any possible mis-interpretations. I have made no set minded conclusions (I hope)- for me this is all a process of discovery, an exploration. I do try and read with an open mind (I admit my ego can be strong at times) but a part of understanding any belief system for me involves questioning, being honest and challenging. I totally agree with you when you write about finding balance between ego and space of being. This make total, practical sense. Thanks again for the response.
If i can add my 2 cents worth: for me, these spritual teachings are not about “escaping” from the human experience- it is about addressing pathologies. As Krishnamurti said, if you kill desire, you kill life. You become an empty shell. I don’t want to do that. But, i also don’t want to be mindlessly driven, enslaved by a self-regulating mind-machine that creates in me obsessions, emotional fragilty and neediness, anger, etc etc. Awareness, insight, allowing can give us even deeper understanding of these states and their single underlying cause/feature: the striving to become. Ok, it may mean we have a few less tortured artists out there- but, romanticism aside, what is art but a clumsy attempt to express what insight, allowing, self-knowledge can give us: the inexpressible. Krishamurti even went so far as to say art as just one of the many forms of escape, an entertainment, and ultimately a distraction from awareness and insight.
Randall,my name is Cihan, i read your common and i agree with Sen that with reading and understanding it is two different concepts,probably you have been practicing Zen meditation long time enough and i can sense that during this period you have been confused. Your writing is very complex and i think you should definetly drop down everything you have been doing as a practice.Then your mind will be so quiet and you can respond very clearly.
Regards,
Cihan
Sen, you are truly amazing. I say that because your teachings are always so consistent with each other, so insightful and so helpful. (whether you consider them teachings or not) So much I have read of the articles I can identify with.
I am beginning to realize my negative ego is the primary thing that is holding me back from happiness, truth, love, and my source of creativity. I am seeing that I choose to suffer by identifying myself as being either a lack or gain of the negative ego. And the funny thing is, that if you attain what you think you are lacking, you won’t feel any better, because the negative ego feeds on fear.
I love art, I enjoy writing and playing music. However, since my negative ego took its hold, true expression, form, and joy is much more difficult as I am engaging in those activities, or anything for that matter.
There are times when I feel completely detached from my negative self, or rather, peacefully detached. I am beginning to think that this “self” I am detaching from is really not my true self at all, it is the identification with my negative ego.
I have noticed that the negative ego can make it hard for one to open up to the love others have to offer as well as the love they can offer themselves.
Sen, are there any tips for practicing letting go of this negative identification, especially as it pertains to love and creativity?
Thank you
Dissolving ones negative ego is no easy task especially if you seek to do this with the intellect alone! and identify all those negative aspects we wish to transmute, i guess it’s about identifying what irrational fears we all have at some point in time opposed to real fears like jumping into the lion pen, everything is just a matter of degree, where does fear end and courage begin? or love and hate? etc, etc. So Intuition, the oldest part of Self and not the “me” is key?
For me it was about being selfless instead of selfish and to love rather than been loved, and just happy to be! although all this was done instantly? through the rite of Mystery.
If you do manage to accomplish it, and be in the world but not of it expect to find yourself alone but not lonely because you are now your Divine ego, you are whole. It’s fearful just contemplating it, that is until you get there and then……….?
That’s how it was for me, Love you all.
I’m very grateful, I found this article.
I thought I was going loony toons. This is very re assuring. I will try to accept the uncertainty.
Being is so peaceful, yet I vacillate between ego and soul.
I wonder how to make decisions. I have no motivation left, in the old sense.
Where does the motivation come from now?
I just had a little wave of “I don’t care” about what other people are doing with their lives and comparing myself to others. It only lasted about 15-20 minutes, but it’s a little progress, especially when those thoughts run rampant all day.