What should I do with my spiritual ego?

[Jay Ray]

I have become aware that I have a spiritual ego, one that comes out to claim everything as "mine" or "my great ideas". Some days, I feel this feeling of genuine presence and I feel close to having less of an ego, I feel more connected with everything that I see. This feeling is a very good feeling. 

However, many days I catch myself doing this sneaky little trick. I will be contemplating and possibly have some kind of insight or get an analogy to comprehend some kind of truth and then a little voice will come in my mind and say something like "wow, you are so smart how could you have come up with such a great analogy?" this voice interviews me like I am an accomplished celebrity and my ego goes "well, I generally think more deeply then the average joe about spiritual stuff." or "well I just cant stop thinking so that is something that I have that others (less spiritual people) don't have." this fake interviewer in my mind praises "me" and wants to know "how did I get to this super spiritual state?" and thanks me for "my (future) contribution to all of man kind" .... maybe they will make a statue of me in my honor someday... maybe I will be the next buddha or Eckart Tolle .... 

When this happens, I notice something, my state of happiness and peace goes down dramatically, I feel a little knot in my solar plexus area and my emotional state goes to a place that I would call "boredom+" it feels slightly better than boredom. Then from this emotion, I realize that I have been bragging in my mind about "how spiritual I am or will become in the future" and this feeling sometimes has a lot of momentum and can be hard to stop if it gets going. Even when I notice it the "bragging train has left the station" and getting back to the peace I had when I wasn't doing this feels hard. 

when I become aware of this voice I then think "oh wow! I have been bragging and boosted my spiritual ego for 20 minutes and now I feel pretty bad". I want to get back to the state of humble awareness and peace that I had when I wasn't not bragging to an imaginary interviewer on how "spiritual I am".

During this state there also seems to be a feeling of lack and that "I need to do something or BE SOMEBODY great in order to be a good person or get good karma or something". I sometimes feel like I am not enough and that time is running out for me to "do great things". It tells me that "If I don't teach other about spiritually quickly then something bad will happen."  which I know is ego BS but I am wondering what I should do going forward. I am becoming aware of this part of my ego and I want it to stop because it lowers my emotional state to boredom+.  I sometimes feel like there are moments when I feel like I am lesser than others and that I have made unforgivable mistakes in my life and that I am worthless because of that, my ego reminds me of this and it seems like it "needs these bragging fantasies to feel better to feel like a SOMEBODY" but it just makes me feel worse. I sometimes feel like failure. I feel bored and unsatisfied and I want to transcend this. I want to be free of this voice and feel worthy. This egoic voice says "once you do something great, then you will be worthy of love." I am not sure what to do next. 

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

     

 

 

[Guest SirVladimir]

16 minutes ago, Jay Ray said:

During this state there also seems to be a feeling of lack and that "I need to do something or BE SOMEBODY great in order to be a good person or get good karma or something". I sometimes feel like I am not enough and that time is running out for me to "do great things".

Well, first and foremost, how's a life purpose goin' for you?

[Tim R]

Just try to be aware of it when it "takes over". It's alright, there's nothing to condemn here. 

The spiritual ego isn't anything bad, don't forget that! But equally, it isn't anything good. To condemn the spiritual ego is just more ego. 

 

So, try to accept it. But only as much as you can. 

Neither repression nor insincere acceptance will do the trick. Therefore just try to accept it as much as you can. 

[Guest SirVladimir]

@Tim R Beautifully said. 

[Tim R]

@SirVladimir ❤

[Jay Ray]

@SirVladimir @Tim R thank you! 

[Jay Ray]

@Tim Ho That is a great point. I bought Leos life purpose course and have finished about half of it so far. I know that having a live purpose will help wonders but "decision paralysis" keeps me down. The amount of decisions and questioning "are you sure that is your life purpose? are you 100% sure." keeps on coming up.  

I know that helping others in some way is one part of that purpose. Spirituality and meditation too are a huge part of it.  Art, creativity and communications are also.  I will need to think more about it.

thank you

[Bodhitree]

First, I think it shows a pretty good level of insight and articulation to observe all of this inside yourself. That will stand you in good stead further down the path. For the rest I get quite a youthful vibe from the writing, and how you talk about life’s purpose. Which is good — you’ve got plenty of time — but also means you might not have the patience and diligence of people who have been kicking around life a little longer.

The ego has a lot of tricks, and many have to do with daydreaming, putting little fantasy scenarios in front of you. That has to do with how your mind explores future scenario’s. My personal solution to this was to spend as little time doing it as possible, if you can focus on the here and now more you will find that the tendency for these fantasy constructs to come up becomes much reduced. 
 

Further I would recommend becoming a serious practitioner of some form of discipline. This can be work-related, like learning excellence in graphic design, or something like yoga or tai chi. These things teach patience, discipline, persistence, a lot of valuable qualities on the path. 

[Jay Ray]

@Bodhitree Awesome. I really want to focus on one thing like leo's life purpose course says but my OCD gets in the way. I constantly doubt if I made the right choice. I want to find that one thing but I constantly question "Why did chose X in the first place why not Y or Z??? What is the point of doing X?"