EGO DEATH, The Transformative Experience
- Mina Stillwater
- Sep 27
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 27
The Ego, first to rise and last to go in one’s quest of self-discovery and ultimate release of self, is found within the process of the dissolution stage of Spiritual Alchemy. Generally stated, ‘ego death’ is “a complete loss of one’s self-identity”[i] and is sometimes referred to as “egocide.” Psychologically speaking, this is actually a self-sacrifice of one’s self to a higher principle. (Dr. David H. Rosen, Jungian psychoanalyst. (Transforming Depression, 1993).
While constantly struggling to keep in check the bombardment of thoughts, including opinions, shared information and culturally-based influence, one’s primary goal in life should be the death of one’s Ego. Some may think of ‘ego death” as a bad thing, this losing of one’s identity, but is it really?
Popular sayings like – ‘let go and let God’; ‘let it go, if it belongs to you, it will come back,’ etc., have plagued mankind throughout the ages. This is not a new concept and one which has been succinctly defined by many before me.
Let’s investigate:
Passages from The Tibetan Book of the Dead (8th century), state: “Abandon your notions of the past, without attributing a temporal sequence! Cut off your mental associations regarding the future, without anticipation! Rest in a spacious modality, without clinging to [the thoughts of] the present. Do not meditate at all, since there is nothing upon which to meditate. Instead, revelation will come through undistracted mindfulness — Since there is nothing by which you can be distracted.”
~Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. First Complete Translation
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is also called the Bardo Thodol. The literal meaning of “bardo” is ‘gap’ or ‘immediate state’ (the bardo’s spiritual meaning is “a book which assists one in navigating the state between death and rebirth’ and the literal meaning ‘thodol’ is ‘liberation through hearing in the bardo.”
Even the words attributed to Jesus in many places in the bible, say ‘to those who have ears to hear” (Matt 11:15; Mark 4:9; Luke 8:8 as well as in the Book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3) making this term “thodol” relevant to those who have knowledge of these passages.
The great psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, described ego death as a kind of psychic death in a concept now understood as ‘individuation. (see my article Breaking the Mold for further discussion on this term)
Author, Aldous Huxley in his autobiographical book, The Doors of Perception, (1954), found his way through the muck of the ego through the use of mescaline (a psychedelic cactus known as Psilocybin ) which allows one to open, what Huxley refers to as, the doors of perception. Huxley felt that when ingested, mescaline allows one to see a higher reality, believing the substance filtered out one’s ego, an experience he documented in his book while under the influence of this compound.
Musicians, The Beatles and David Bowie, spoke of the concept of ego death in the following songs:
The Beatles (‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ (Revolver, 1966)
Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream
It is not dying
It is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining
That you may see the meaning of within
It is being
It is being
(Tangerine Dream’s version of the Beatles' song, Tomorrow Never Knows )
David Bowie (‘Quicksand’, Hunky Dory 1971)
Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
The song further says:
If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it on the next bardo
Psychologist, guru and, author, Ram Dass’ [aka Richard Alpert] book, Be Here Now (1971), conveys a message of freeing oneself from the ego and highlights the author’s personal transformation into living with mindfulness and awareness of the divine within one’s life.
William James (19th century philosopher) used the term “self-surrender” in describing the concept of ego death while modern day philosophers such as Alan Watts, in his book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, said:
“We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.”
Further, Watts stated,
“We do not need a new religion or a new bible. We need a new experience—a new feeling of what it is to be “I.”
Ego death allows one to open up one’s creative self. This is how artists can see into the future. The artist who allows his creative self to flow has abandoned his preconceived ideas, and can view the world from a higher perspective. (see my article on Breaking Out of the Mold).
This is accomplished by disallowing one’s opinions, restrictive upbringing, and altogether suppression of thought that keeps one conformed to the influence of the ‘think police' through media, news and otherwise social upbringing, This suppression, mostly beginning within the educational system, confines a child in the most formative years, to the goals of the powers that be, for their own economic gain, under the guise of “community assimilation.”
The weird child, the ones who speak up instead of conforming as a teenager, who in adulthood abandons the goals of their prevalent society in search of the truth, eventually turns out to be the same ones who have filled our libraries with gainful knowledge. This same knowledge, that is sought to be suppressed through the banning of books and other such forms of censorship, is the result of Ego Death.
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