Before You Relinquish Your Ego, Relish It
When I first met Dr. Vasant Lad, he had just arrived in Cambridge, MA from India. One of the most beloved authorities within all of Ayurvedic medicine, Dr. Lad is a loving healer and deeply inspiring oracle.
We sat on pillows in a tiny room where Vasant told me that I was tridoshic. He prescribed some herbs, mantras, and meditations, and he encouraged me to look deeper into my spiritual gifts. Moments later, he directed me to tell my best friend where her engagement ring was situated. He had known me for 2 minutes. The ring was behind the night table.
When we truly relinquish our egos, or, at the very least, nudge them aside, we begin to see beyond our limited, temporary self-identities, and into eternity. This miracle is always available to every living Being, throughout all the realms, in all of creation, and throughout all the universes.
Dr. Lad’s intuition and light-based nature is the result of years of having chosen to relinquish his ego, in service to humanity. While Vasant’s state of Being is admirable and exemplary, It’s not easy to expand, without first being thrust into a variety of fires. Some of these fires are more enjoyable than others.
When I first asked Dr. Lad why my ego was so challenging to wrestle and release, he said, “The ego is the I am. Without the ego, you are not.”
I cried for an hour.
No other spiritual teacher had phrased this idea so succinctly. Everything he said to me that night was so wonderfully simple, precise, and relatable. Dr. Lad set me on a unique path, and I was forever changed.
Some new-age “prophets” can be so intensely focused on the relinquishing of ego, they fail to reveal the implications of giving up something we may have never known.
If each of our soul identities and spiritual imprints is at least partially represented in our egos (for the purpose of our experiencing three-dimensional reality), how can we evolve without first embracing our egos, at least for a period of time?
After all, whether we were created by Gods, aliens, or biochemical explosions from other realms, each of us is unique and remarkable.
When we fully embrace our egos, we might understand our motivations, intentions, gifts, talents, and attributes. In the pursuit of these understandings, we might also experience an expanded appreciation for the mechanics and infrastructures of this physical world. In doing so, we begin to deepen our respect and gratitude for every cog, player, mechanic, operator, assistant, and creator who works to bring our physical realities to life.
Throughout time, there have been multitudes of religions and spiritual movements that sought to mislead millions of people.
In many cases, dark souls with selfish intentions intentionally misrepresented the masters they once followed, all in the name of greed and control. The result of this misuse of power resulted in the manipulation of the masses and included theft, rape, and abuse of the Earth’s most vulnerable minerals, plants, and living Beings. At their best, religions and spiritual movements give us lexicons and pause, while they relegate us to confined intellectual and spiritual prisons.
What is the ego?
The ego is your platform for evolution. It’s your calling card. The ego is how the world uses you to evolve itself. Your ego was born to help creation give birth to more light. Allow the ego to enjoy itself. Allow its imperfections. Permit it to explore itself. In that journey, we learn how to see ourselves more clearly, relate with others, forgive flaws, and make our boldest moves.
Yes, you are most likely imperfect, but only perfectly. Within your unique imperfections live desires, emotional curiosities, and the trajectories that will lead you through your individual unfoldment. Find safe ways to let it all live and let it all out. While the truth will set you free, you first have to allow yourself, as you are right now, to be part of that truth.
Many of today’s religious fanatics and spiritual phonies are living from narcissistic self-identities, behind which they hide.
From their self-righteous perches, too many spiritual leaders hate LGBTQ people, judge angry men, and resent masculine constructs, even the ones that produce safe environments, jobs, and sustenance for their families. It’s from these narrow-minded positions that misguided souls also judge themselves.
The tragedies don’t stop there. With each of their judgmental thoughts comes a myriad of negative frequencies and vibrational elements, which then attach to the individual. These attachments act as magnets for experiences that will naturally confront these individuals with their shadows. With each problematic experience that emerges, we have the option to either evolve or seek more of the same.
How does this all relate to me? What does all this mean?
- If you’re an angry man, begin by honoring your anger, then nudge it toward sadness, which is the most accurate state of anger. When you’re ready, see if you can convert your tears into actionable boundaries, knowledge, and strategies. This is how you can improve your life and serve your family.
- If you have deep-seated issues stemming from abuse, first honor your anger, and see if you can express it healthfully and without hurting others. Following that, if possible, try to convert it into knowledge, forgiveness, and grace. Work through every aspect of every emotion related to this horrible event. While this is unfathomably difficult, there is always a pathway to love and light.
- If you’ve been screwed-over in life, love, or business, find ways to honor and release the related emotions. From there, you can invite forgiveness, knowledge, graciousness, and rebirth. If that fails, regularly write in your journal until your current self-identity breaks and allows for change.
- If you feel drenched in ego and greed, be gentle with yourself before ripping open walls and terminating the structures that have served you.
Upon each painful experience, we have two options:
Rot in pain or burst toward the light.
Regardless of what you’ve experienced, never new-age yourself out of your feelings. Never Buddhify your pain. Never forsake yourself. Even if you have to forget Jesus’s teachings for a split second, never reject the YOU that you’ve come to know and love. Never push yourself out of the way. If our selves are not involved in every step, we’ll eventually regret it.
Most importantly, after each negative experience, honor your mind and heart as they process what has happened. From there, you can forgive, let go, pivot, and expand. Over time, negative experiences begin to feel like encouragement.
When you’re ready, you can re-embrace your ideologies, religions, and spiritual movements. At their cores, these things are not bad for humanity. The trouble begins when spiritual leaders and teachers tell us to forsake ourselves before first honoring ourselves. After all, we are created by an unlimited, forgiving, and ever-expanding universe.
To save ourselves and the planet, consider pausing before spreading a doctrine or religion. It might also be helpful to learn to love and honor ourselves before relinquishing every aspect of our identities and lives.
Before we toss anger out the window in self-judgment, we might want to experience the anger and learn more about it. In all things, we must first look in the mirror and love without threatening punishment. From there, we can make conscious and fair assessments. Embedded in the bosom of love, we can nurture ourselves into forgiveness and expansion.
About the Author
How to Free Your Soul: Liberating Your Authentic Self
In modern society, we tend to wear a lot of hats, or masks, or whatever metaphor you’d like to use. We have one for our home life, one for work-life, one for close friends and family, one for other friends we’re not as close with…. the list goes on. But what about that unmasked self? Your true, authentic self, the one maybe you only really know?
Is it even possible to show that authentic self to others without some type of filter? And is it even worth it? The short answer, yes. And by embracing this authentic self, you’ll be better prepared to take on the more meaningful pursuits of life, such as your soul’s core desires. These desires of attaining fulfillment, desire, and eventually enlightenment are what we’re all here to do right?
What Does it Mean to Free Your Soul?
To free your soul is to embrace the essence of that authentic self, and wear fewer masks. Of course, it may not always be appropriate to not put on some sort of filter for various life scenarios, but the more you work toward embodying that true self, the more secure you’ll become, subsequently improving your well-being.
And by improving your well-being at the most basic levels, you can then begin to pursue spiritual well-being at higher levels.
Understanding Core Soul Desires
Ancient Vedic texts tell us that there are four core soul desires: the desire for purpose (dharma), the means to fulfill our purpose (artha), the pleasure associated with living our purpose (kama), and freedom (moksha).
These four purusharthas, also known as the four aims of life, are intrinsic. They’re directly linked to the personal, unique Jivatman part of our soul and the infinite, unlimited Paramatman part of our soul.
1. DHARMA
Your duty, calling, or life’s purpose; you’ve likely heard the phrase “finding your Dharma,” which is typically meant in terms of finding your purpose in life that leads to happiness and fulfillment.
The concept of Dharma is an interesting one and can vary in meaning across the eastern religions that embrace it. Dharma can also refer to the underlying order of the universe or self-organizing nature of reality to which we inevitably align with. Dharma can also refer to the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism.
2. ARTHA
Prosperity, or having the things you need to do your dharma. Again, in eastern philosophy, these concepts aren’t simply defined and can mean a few things, but essentially your Artha is the foundational and material things needed in your life. For some, this can mean wealth, a home, and material prosperity—things that make you feel secure and not wanting. For others, however, this can mean health and wellness, because without these you’ll be distracted and focused on attaining them, rather than focusing on spiritual growth and some of the more intangible pursuits in life.
3. KAMA
Desire or pleasure; the reward of living our dharma. You’ve likely heard the word Kama before in terms of sexual pleasure and desire—the Kama Sutra. But Kama isn’t purely sexual, it refers to any type of longing, wish, passion, or desire. When balanced with the other three goals of life, Kama is important and necessary to have, if you had no passion or desire for anything in your life, it would be meaningless and you’d probably be pretty depressed. Finding your Kama, and the Kama that really drives you is an absolute must in the attainment of happiness and fulfillment.
4. MOKSHA
Liberation, freedom, or release. The first three lead to this last one. Moksha is tantamount to enlightenment, or the freedom from ignorance and suffering. This is much in alignment with enlightenment: literally lightening up (moving from the base chakras to the ethereal upper ones), and living from a place of love. It’s important to understand each of these forces at the beginning of your personal growth journey to end up experiencing Moksha.
