“It strikes me that our best hope for the future lies in dropping the mind and watching it fall.” – Gabrielle Roth.
As a retreat centre organising retreats with plant medicines since 2019, we have been asked countless questions about ego death.
Today, we are bringing some of them to you, hoping they will get you the clarity you seek.
People mainly ask “What is ego death?” because they have experienced something they can’t understand and seek to define it. Although the experience might differ for each person, it has somewhat recognisable attributes.
The questions we chose to answer in this article were selected to address some general aspects of the topic.
What is ego death?
It is a spiritual experience encountered under different names and cultures over many decades.
Here are some of them:
- Sufis called it “fana”, translated as annihilation.
- Carl Jung referred to it as psychic death.
- Jewish Kabbalists named it the “kiss of death”.
- Roman Catholics refer to it as a “mystical union” ever since St Theresa de Avila experienced being one with Christ.
- In Buddhism, it is also called “great death”.
- In his work with LSD, Timothy Leary calls it “ego loss”.
- In mythology, Joseph Campbell’s research of the Hero’s Journey places ego death as part of the self-surrender and transition phase.
The more we researched, the more we realised there’s no correct answer to the question “What is ego death?” unless one places the question in a specific context directly linked with whoever poses the question.
What does ego death feel like?
The experience that leads to ego death is the one that has a feel to it, and the process of disintegration of the ego is experienced in various ways. If we are to take out the personal aspect of each individual, the experience leading to it can feel like being undressed by someone. Just like a real-life example of undressing the body of clothes, it can feel delightful if one doesn’t resist the process, yet it is excruciating if you do.
Is ego death necessary for enlightenment?
If we are to place the question within the psychedelic world, our answer would probably be yes and use as reference the book “The Psychedelic Experience” where Timothy Leary, American psychologist, and author, finds ego death to be a temporary death that allows one to experience enlightenment.
“O (name of voyager)
The time has come for you to seek new levels of reality.
Your ego and the (name) game are about to cease.
You are about to be set face to face with the Clear Light.
You are about to experience it in its reality.
In the ego-free state, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky,
And the naked spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum;
At this moment, know yourself and abide in that state.
O (name of voyager),
That which is called ego-death is coming to you.
Remember:
This is now the hour of death and rebirth;
Take advantage of this temporary death to obtain the perfect state –
Enlightenment.”
How does experiencing ego death change someone?
Bringing with it a new level of awareness, it feels as if one becomes aware of the multi-layers of being, and as that happens, change is inevitable.
In this case, the significant changes are the subtle ones, those that arise in dealing with yourself and others after speaking out your heart.
Loving and embracing what gives birth to what it will be.
This might seem a slow process for an outsider, but for someone with direct experience, “slow” is no longer undesirable; it’s a way of experiencing oneself more profoundly.
How does one recover from ego death?
Experiencing ego death with the help of plant medicines leaves one feeling “naked” as if their heart would be out in the open where everyone could see and touch it.
Our Ayahuasca retreats focus on the highest level of comfort and care for this very reason. One must be treated with utmost care, ease, and gently upon such an experience. High vibrational food, sun, and sleep are just a few of the needs of a “newborn” ego.
Is ego death a spiritual bypass?
The experience itself is certainly not, but the active pursuit of experiencing it might be. Here’s the thing – we’ve encountered many participants in our retreats wanting to experience it. We always point out to them that “wanting” is a matter of the ego, and ego death is, in fact, a side effect born on a path led by a genuine and honest desire to understand and love ourselves and the world.
It’s by no means another thing to add to the list of things done in life, nor an escape from current life into bliss.
Is ego death permanent?
If we consider ego death to be a deconstruction of self, we must also consider a new one being formed.
However, permanence depends on everyone’s chosen path and the speed with which it repeatedly overwrites itself. In other words, if one desires to experience oneself a certain way and that way is not sustained by one’s ego, even if it’s a newly formed one, one will be led to a new ego death.
Does ego death mean lots of pain?
We noticed that this aspect of the experience seems to be related to how each individual defined the concept of growth. If pain is part of what gives value to one’s experience and validates it, then yes, that person will define it as a painful experience.
However, those claiming to have had a painful ego death have most probably not experienced one, but rather parts of their resistance and its release on their path to possibly an ego death.
We state this because upon experiencing it, when looking in retrospect, someone who has gone through real ego death will no longer have the same system of values in place but a new one. The primary understanding of pain is completely transformed into a new one. In other words, someone who has experienced real ego death will have no pain to talk about because the experience makes so much sense just the way it was.
Is ego death part of the journey of twin flames?
In our experience, for this particular case, ego death means a rapture in what we call the “push and pull” aspect of twin flames. For those unfamiliar with it, it refers to a mass of energy, almost like an entity of its own, that is relatively rigid in terms of possibility. It’s also a stage described as “painful” by at least one of the twins, if not both.
This mass of energy is intense and can bring up important lessons for the two, but it is hard to maintain in time, especially if the two seek personal growth. The freedom of choice they seek will lead them to a path where ego death is undoubtedly present.
Does experiencing ego death lead to feeling meaningless?
On the contrary, if anything, the meaning of being alive and engaged with the world around you will be amplified upon experiencing it.
One’s definition of meaning and, consequently, meaningless would change.
Alan Watts speaks of the “skin-encapsulated ego” as being directly related to one’s name, age, identity, and function in life. He believes that upon experiencing an event where one loses the sense of the elements mentioned above, the thin line that defines the relationship between that human being and any other living thing in the world fades.
We believe the experience of oneness that ego death provides can only move us closer and allow the seeds of compassion to grow.
Can ego death break addiction?
The value an ego death experience brings to someone dealing with addiction isn’t the erasing of/or breaking of it but an understanding of its nature.
Everyone has addictions; just because some are judged as high risk for our life force doesn’t make them the most important.
In our experience, the addictions we are unaware of are influencing our daily lives a lot more than those we think we know.
What we’ve also seen is that most of the time, what we call addiction is a mere side effect, thus our inability to fight it successfully.
What ego death brings here is a glimpse that offers subtle aspects of what moves us, and mostly the wild realisation that they are far from being something to fight or break but rather pieces of innocence that need to be walked through.
Is ego death the same as the dark night of the soul?
The two are commonly associated due to both being profound mystical experiences where the personal plan turns into a more global one.
It’s hard to say whether they are one and the same, but based on the stories of those experiencing them, we’ve seen that their point of arrival seems different.
The dark night of the soul shows up in the stories of those reaching a point of exhaustion in their life, where the “I” becomes so solitary and disconnected that nothing makes sense anymore. This triggers a metaphysical experience that can take from hours to days, if not months, where one reconnects with being one with the world again and starts experiencing a renewal where a new sense of self is born.
The best example is Jerry Maguire. In the movie of the same name, Tom Cruise reaches a point of despair that seemingly he can’t explain. Yes, he loved his job, but deep down, it was all too superficial. He emerges from the experience by writing down what a soulful way of being an agent is and driven by the same force, he prints all these and makes sure everyone in his company gets it. As he returns to “its senses”, fear is down on him, as his newfound power is initially seen as a weakness by his old self.
Other people claim to have specific triggers that lead them directly to experiencing the dark night of the soul, like the death of someone meaningful.
To some extent, we believe ego death to be an event that is a side event of a chosen path of awareness.
Maybe the dark night of the soul is just a metaphoric way of describing ego death, whereas the last is more of a new integrated term associated with a conscious decision to lead a more meaningful life – whatever that might be for each individual.
Thanks for reading our article; we tried to share our honest opinions regarding what ego death is and is not.
We wish to share two more things with you before we go.
Firstly, we would love to invite you to sit with your questions, as it is in your power to understand them. Questions often don’t necessarily mean a search for answers but a flag to look closer within ourselves.
Here is an example of following up on any question within yourself.
- Why do you need to know what ego death is? What part of you needs to know? Can you identify it in your body? Where is it? What colour is it? What’s it shaped like? What does that object/shape mean to you?
Do this practice with the help of journaling or in silent meditation. We can assure you that you will find hidden treasures every single time you do so.
Additionally, we would love to invite you to join us at our Ayahuasca retreats in Europe and other events so we can contribute to your well-being and growth. We can’t promise ego deaths, but they might just happen.
