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Ego and Spirituality

by Younousse Tamekloe

I came across a following quote on Internet: “When the ego dies, the soul awakes”. I would like to explain why I believe this quote is false or incomplete.

Ego and spirituality are two different things. Ego is physical. Ego goes with everything that is physical, everything that you can discover, see, or touch. Spirituality is the mystical side of life in everything.

Egoism is a human characteristic. “I am a man”—is egoism. “I am a woman”—is egoism. Egoism is the being, the presence, the moment. Egoism is everything that goes for your self-protection or for protecting others. Egoism is a decision. Egoism is taking action to make something. Egoism itself is life, it is the physical life. Now, what type of life do you want to live: a positive life or a negative life?

A lot of people use egoism to tackle the negative side and some use it to tackle the positive side. But they have to understand that egoism is a normal word that has a positive side and a negative side.

Nowadays, we have the coronavirus pandemic, and it is killing a mass of people. In this situation, was is human ego? The negative side of human egoism is to say, “Yes, very good—it is bad karma. It has to hit them because they are paying it back now”. The positive side of egoism is to say, “We need to find a medicine, we need to help, we need to heal people“. These are two types of egoism.

Egoism itself is just a word, and it is a word that is based 100% in the physical side. Spirituality is the answer to everything that is in the physical world. Because it is the life of all things. Everything comes from the spiritual world.

So, to heal ego or solve a situation about ego, or egoism in general, needs to be solved physically through spiritual knowledge. You can never solve egoism just through physical education. No; egoism needs to be solved spiritually through meditation. So, if you want to help people through egoism help them to focus on their spiritual bodies (the soul and the spirit), to meditate, and to use their egoism in a positive way.

Using ego just physically, you have to be careful because you may lose everything fast—you will take a wrong decision and destroy a lot of things. Every time, ask your spiritual bodies to find a solution on the positive side, instead of using ego just for your need without consulting the spiritual side when you need to take a decision.

So, ego and spirituality are two different things. Egoism is a word that characterizes all life beings, including humans and animals. You can see animal egoism in how those who are strong kill others. They fight, they want to have something. This is egoism. Egoism is in every life being. Therefore, to say that being spiritually awake means killing your ego is false. You can never kill ego. Ego will always be there when you live. This is what is called a choice.

“I choose to be superior!” or, “I choose to be humble!”. “I choose to be the superior but a good one!” or, “I choose to be the superior but a negative one!” This is ego. Ego itself is a choice. Why are we human? Because we choose to be human, we choose to be superior over every other creature. Because we found out that we are more advanced than every other creature. That is what is in the ego.

You cannot say that ego itself is bad. It is like if you say that taking medicine is bad. Because taking medicine can be good for you, and taking medicine can be bad for you. If you take too much medicine, it may become an addiction. But if you take medicine moderately, just to heal your sickness, then taking medicine is not bad. And which type of medicine are you taking? It is the same with egoism.

So, people have to understand this topic deeply. And not judge a thing quickly on its first sight. If they tell you something, sit down, think about it, put the spiritual energy inside. See it in the spiritual way before solving it in the physical way.