Throughout my spiritual journey, I’ve had some profound encounters, from flying with spirits during astral projection to working extensively with Ayahuasca shamans in Latin America.
However, the most real encounter with truth I ever had was during ego death: A complete submergence into the infinite currents of consciousness. This was the encounter that erased all separation from the universe, allowing me to experience the oneness so many gurus speak of.
My experience with ego death created levels of transformation I could once never dream about. It showed me that we are all the same consciousness experiencing ourselves infinitely, and our roots are all the same.
Here I will explain from my understanding what ego death is, and why I believe it’s one of the most powerful spiritual experiences anyone can have.
Understanding the ego
To grasp ego death, you need to understand what the ego is.
Imagine the ego as a plug. The ego grounds you to reality by providing a sense of self and creating space for individuality.
People tend to use the term ego as a substitute for humility, or lack thereof. Although this is true to an extent as someone with a big ego tends to be less humble, there’s much more to it.
You can’t simply lose your ego, otherwise you wouldn’t be an individual. If you weren’t an individual, you would be a vegetable; unable to think, do, believe, or perceive. You would be an inseparable mesh of existence, meaning your body would be left to rot.
Naturally, we all have an ego, it’s part of the human experience, however, we experience different levels of it. The stronger your ego, the more prominent your sense of self.
On one extreme being ego death, you don’t exist. On the other extreme, only you exist.
Therefore, we all exist somewhere along this spectrum. This is why it’s necessary to have a balanced ego.
Ego death on the other hand is a complete loss of ego. This can only be a temporary experience, otherwise, your body wouldn’t have the means to survive without a driver. But if there is no you, then what do you experience?
Let’s get into it.
Understanding ego death
Look at ego death is a complete disconnection from reality (and oneself).
Ego death is a spiritual phenomenon when you detach from your sense of self to experience a complete submergence of the collective consciousness. Imagine completely letting go during death, where your mind instantly dissolves into something much bigger than you.
During this moment, you depart all your memories, knowledge, and identity. Every aspect of you is suddenly gone, meaning you don’t exist anymore. There is no fear, thought, worry, or emotion because these all come from you. every construct that you’re tied to vanishes.
Although you don’t exist, the nature of experience continues. It’s something completely foreign, but the experience is still occurring.
Within this state of consciousness, you are no longer bound by the constructs of our universe such as matter, time, space, or form. Instead, you amalgamate an entirely new dimension of existence, one that’s completely foreign to the human experience.
During my experience of ego death, I thought I was going through a literal death process. When I surrendered to the experience, I was instantly lost in the infinite. Every aspect of my identity was dispersed, like sand thrown into a hurricane.
All there was, was experience. The experience of everything, totality.
During ego death, you are lost in the spiritual dimensions as you completely lose touch with reality. You don’t exist anymore. Reality doesn’t exist anymore. You’re just part of the cosmic rift.
When people experience ego death, there are four distinct stages:
1) Ego dissolution
Ego dissolution is a partial loss of self. This means that you’re somewhat disassociated from reality, but you’re still here.
Once your ego is nearly dissolved, you will reach a point where you need to surrender to go deeper into the experience.
2) The surrender
Before losing yourself completely, you need to surrender to the experience as naturally, your ego will resist.
When you surrender, your consciousness is dismissed from the human construct. You are at the complete mercy of the experience, without the ability to do anything besides experience.
3) Ego death
You cease to exist, as does reality.
During ego death, you experience something much more profound than what you’re capable of perceiving during waking consciousness. You don’t exist, but something certainly does.
4) Rebirth
The rebirth occurs when your consciousness returns to your body, and you wake up.
The experience of ego death is so profound that upon waking up from it, you may feel reborn in a sense. People often have new perspectives and understandings about reality, and feel reset on all levels.
What does ego death feel like?
Depending on a variety of factors, ego death can be extremely frightening, often accompanying existential dread and panic. This is because your ego can’t discern the death of itself from physical death.
Imagine ego death as opening the curtain concealing the network beyond this universe, and jumping into it.
Experiences of ego death may differ from person to person, but the experience is usually akin to experiencing a singularity of incomprehensible magnitude.
During my experience of ego death, it felt like my consciousness was sucked out of my body and expanded infinitely. There was no me anymore, but I experienced everything in a way that I can’t describe.
During this experience, there were endless fractal-like patterns, sacred geometry, and an infinite collection of raw consciousness which I can only describe as source. It felt like I was a drop of water in this infinite interdimensional riptide.
People who experience ego death often report experiencing the following:
- Loss of control and surrender to the experience
- Initial existential dread
- Transcendence of oneself and reality
- Transcendence of space, time, and form
- Infinite interconnection of all things
- Sense of unity with everything, no sense of separation from existence
- Mystical experiences such as bliss, feelings of enlightenment, universal knowledge
- A knowingness of everything
How people experience ego death
There are a few notable paths where people can experience ego death. The first is working with plant medicines.
Using psychedelics to access other realms of information is an ancient practice exemplified by shamans. Although rare to completely disconnect under the influence of any psychedelics, it can certainly happen during the deepest levels, which I call a level 5 trip.
Although this is probably the most common way that people experience ego death, I certainly don’t advise it. Jumping into such a powerful experience can scramble your mind. I’ve met people who went psychotic after going too deep into a psychedelic journey without being properly prepared.
However, if you do go down this route, you may find it to be difficult to let go. To experience ego death via psychedelics, you must surrender to the experience, by trusting that you will come back.
Inducing ego death via spiritual practices is extremely rare, but it does happen. This is by far the most elegant way to experience ego death, but is something only achievable at a level of spiritual mastery.
Some people have experienced ego death through spiritual disciplines such as meditation, yoga, prayer, and fasting. I know shamanic healers who have experienced ego death during vision quests.
Spiritual practice is a pathway into the deepest levels of soul. Within the deepest levels of the soul exists a unity of consciousness. All souls branch from the same tree. Through spiritual practice, advanced individuals may experience consciousness as the tree, rather than the individual leaf.
Otherwise, some people claim to experience ego death at times of extreme suffering. This reportedly happens when the pain becomes too much to bear, so the ego dies to reset. This is how Eckhart Tolle experienced his spiritual awakening.
As you can see, there are different pathways that ego death can be experienced, but don’t expect to experience it.
What happens after ego death?
After ego death, people experience what we understand as a rebirth.
A rebirth is also known as a spiritual birth, and often offsets a spiritual awakening. This is when you feel like you have been completely reset, with tangible changes in your perspective, attitudes, and behaviors.
In a sense, you feel like a new person after experiencing an ego death, because you have tapped into something so profound, that it’s near impossible for your life not to change afterward.
My ego death experience permanently changed my life as it acted as a complete reset, and illuminated a deeper truth beyond reality, and myself. From being suicidal, ego death was the wake-up call I needed.
With that said, your aim shouldn’t be to kill your ego, knowing that the ego serves an important function.
Rather, it’s best to find a healthy balance with your ego, and take measures to manage it. Aiming to live a life where your ego doesn’t control you is the best thing you can do, as you learn to navigate the world with humility and compassion, rather than arrogance and self-centeredness.
Aim to live a life with a minimal ego, and you will live a happy life.