Warnings

This is not a calming, spiritual website, so if you’re looking for those things, I would suggest leaving. Also, if you’re very sensitive, or have developmental struggles, or problems with dissociation, undergoing trauma recovery, or just generally mentally unwell, I would suggest leaving now, or else you might find yourself leaving later with an anxiety attack and crippling existential crisis.

Adding to that, although it is typical for an ego-death to follow the trajectory of bouncing back and forth (the process of death and re-emergence), which is a sign of a healthy, transformative journey, in some cases, an ego death can become a permanent catastrophe from which the ego never recovers. In which case, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in a mental hospital.

The polar-opposite of an irrecoverable ego collapse is ego inflation. This is common in various Buddhists traditions, where the practitioner forces themselves — perhaps through concentration practices — towards the imagined goal, or they play around with powerful archetypes too early in their journey. While the practitioner might make it, the ego attains the bigger picture as if it is that bigger picture.

This is a huge danger because there has been little to no self-reflection upon their internal reality, their personal issues, and the collective. Whilst they might understand and speak well about these areas, the inner work hasn’t actually been done.

Consequently, they might say things like, “I’m done” or “I’m now an Arhat” or share inflated ideals about creating mass enlightenment, or create models that they say will lead humanity to a perfected state, perhaps through their special system or try to use science as their next fixation. These are all empty, deceptive crusades of a saviour complex, which many people will find extremely appealing. But the teacher is trying vehemently to save themselves.

They themselves are still unconsciously searching for an answer to their own human condition, but searching through the eyes of their teacher status. Their followers are simply ‘helping’ them with their misguided endeavour.

To name a few people who show these signs: Shinzen Young, Daniel Ingram and Ken Wilber. Whilst they offer great, informative material, it is my view that they may have fallen prey to an inflated transpersonal ego, which has identified itself with the transcendent experience. As Carl Jung rightly said, ‘that is a fate too great for any mortal to bear’.

So, in these cases, rather than the ego collapsing into a permanent state of psychosis, the polar-opposite happens: the ego wraps itself around the contextual bigger picture; it permanently inflates itself to match that bigger picture; it becomes the bigger picture, and the practitioner becomes the enduring mouthpiece of God.

These types of people can often have a profound knowledge about these things and can speak about them with great eloquence and authority. Just like there's no turning back from the permanent and catastrophic collapse of the ego, there's no turning back from that permanent inflation, either.

While this type of inflated ego can look quite impressive, it is actually one end of a severe and tragic extreme.

This is testament to the task ahead, and the respect one must give to the process. The awakening journey can scare away the most seasoned practitioner.

In my view, the above two extremes are not awakening. In particular, the latter is a major distortion of identification with a powerful knowledge base - a kind of super-ego, if you like.