The concept of the ego was developed by Freud. It was a breakthrough in understanding the human being. Since then, the ego has been adopted by the New Age spiritual community and firmly embedded in the collective subconscious.
Let us put aside the psychological definition of the ego. As a rule, people in a spiritual community understand the Ego as a harsh and mistaken part of their personality that prevents them from realising their true potential. The Ego is ascribed negative traits such as greed, jealousy, pride, fear, and aggression. When people dislike their own or someone else’s behaviour, they tend to say: that’s the Ego. In contrast to the Ego, there is something else — open, clear, pure, altruistic, luminous, righteous, spiritual. Therefore, the spiritual path is seen as a journey of overcoming the Ego in order to reach this pure substance (often called the Soul or Spirit).
There are, however, serious problems with this view of the world:
- It leads to polarisation, antagonism, and struggle. There is something bad and something good. One must be good and not be bad. That’s a typical problem of Dualistic thinking.
- It is overly crude. Such a division reduces the immense diversity of the human soul to two polar entities. Perhaps this worked in the Age of Pisces, but for modern Aquarius time, it lacks nuance and detail.
- As often happens with polar thinking, it contributes to what it seeks to overcome. The temptation is too strong to place oneself on the spiritually Pure side and others — those one dislikes — on the side of the Ego. According to the author’s observations, people tend to notice manifestations of the Ego in others far more often than in themselves.
- It does not encourage self-acceptance. We crystallise our negative traits and try to avoid them, which leads us into confrontation (see point 1).
- It leaves no space for development.
So, what can be proposed instead?
In our school, we almost never use the concept of the Ego. Instead, we work with subpersonalities. We believe that a human being is polymodal — meaning that in different parts of the psyche, one is different. In practice, this means that a person has various subconscious programmes, each with its own goals, values, and level of development. Every such programme follows its own internal logic of behaviour. From the outside, however, this is not apparent. We perceive a person as a unified personality and become puzzled when subpersonalities, taking turns, act inconsistently.
This perspective releases us from the antagonism of Duality, offers a sufficient level of detail, and still leaves room for that same pure and unclouded consciousness. It also opens the way to self-development and acceptance of all facets of one’s personality. For now, the question is not how to overcome something bad like your Ego, but how to cultivate, refine, and apply all one’s qualities and traits constructively.
