EGO DEATH & DISSOLUTION

The Loss of Individuality / Explosive Energetic Awakening

The taproot of mystical experience lies in consciousness, and consciousness in different individuals is not the same. The one great lesson which this experience brings home to us is that the very fundamental constituent of personality, namely consciousness, varies in different people.

Intense psychological turmoil, associated with events such as bereavement, illness, divorce, and episodes of psychosis and depression. Many people felt that their transformational experiences are triggered by this turmoil.

The Dark Night of the Soul is a Western mysticism term referring to the stripping away of one’s identity to surrender to become a channel to the Divine. The Western term focuses on the pain and suffering one must endure as the ego is destroyed by whatever means – yogic, meditative or otherwise. Since the ego is strong in the Western traditions, the emphasis is on the changes the ego must endure and it is seen as painful.

Kundalini Rising is an Eastern mysticism term referring to the unlocking and releasing of one’s creative life energy. The Eastern focus is on the energy and euphoric sensations that comes after one does the intense yogic and meditation work that can be tremendously trying and is intentionally destructive of the ego.

The bottom line is that to tap the Source there will be an ego transformation usually experienced as an ego death that can be felt as pain and suffering at any and/or all levels of being followed by an euphoric rise of creative life energy.

The two go together. Both will be experienced to one degree or another and how intense the experience of either depends on how strongly we are attached to our existing world, how much we desire the new world and what we look to feel and experience in life. That is, are we seeking to avoid pain, seeking to find pleasure or simply flowing with life whatever it gives.

A typology of experiences of sudden spiritual awakening is suggested, proposing that they may occur in two major forms, or modes.

Both these types of spiritual awakening appeared to be most frequently induced by intense forms of psychological turmoil, such as bereavement, depression, addiction, and intense stress. An attempt is made to explain both modes of sudden awakening in terms of the release of energy that is normally monopolized by two different functions.

Ego-dissolution awakenings are related to energy associated with the ego, while explosive energetic awakenings are related to energy normally associated with sexuality. The former type of awakening can be characterized as essentially structural in nature while the latter can be characterized as essentially energetic.

“Ego is composed of a socialized set of arbitrary boundaries (limitations) that altogether define a person’s inner-identity. These inner-boundaries include values, beliefs and “understandings”- in the sense that people tend to “stand-under” or within these socially-enforced, self-imposed limitations.” – John Van Bortel

The ego protects us from full knowledge of the shadow and to the extent that it does this it also blocks us off from super-consciousness as well. The ego (functional personality) disappears in extreme kundalini events because of the enormous energy coursing through the hindbrain, sensory-motor cortex and limbic brain. Normally in extreme fight-or-flight chemistry the prefrontal lobes are disengaged in order to allow the more instinctive parts of the brain to deal with the danger.

During a spiritual emergency however, the stimulation to the nervous system is internally generated. Often the autonomic shock involved in kundalini awakening is many times greater than that which we could ever experience in the course of a normal human life.

Due to the nature of the egoic armor we have built in response to our non enlightened culture—it takes an enormous amount of energy to open and “receive” our higher self. It is the Spirit-in-Nature that calls us toward awakening. It is Nature that initiates us. It is Nature that eases the burden of awakening.

“The myriad forms of dysfunction all derive from the separation between self awareness and awareness of the whole…a separation that the negative aspect of the ego battles to maintain.” John Pierrakos

The greater the ego the harder the fall because of the substantially stronger sense of self, so there is a need for a greater force to “perturb” that stability in order for the ego-death and rebirth to occur. A lesser man would not have to go through such an ordeal because it doesn’t take such force to reduce his brain to zero point. That is to dissolve it down in the great vessel-womb of the void in order to be reshaped.

“Ego-death does not mean the disintegration of the healthy ego, the ego we need in order to function in daily life. What dies in this process is the part of us that holds on to the illusion of control, the part of us that thinks we are running the show, that we are in charge. What disintegrates is the false identity that operates as though we are the center of the universe.” Christina Grof

The reason for this is often the path we take inward to get at the root of what is creating our current experiences is also the path we take inward to get at the root as to how we construct our ego relative to the mystical journey.

This creative endeavor turns into a deeper mystical journey into enlightenment and/or as to how we create our experiences and the mystical journey to obtain a deeper relationship with the Divine ends us only addressing recreating some aspect of our life.

Ego death defined by Kübler-Ross:

Denial: “This can’t be happening!”
Anger: “Why me, why do I have to do all the work?
Bargaining: “Just let me keep my pointless job, my car and a beer or two.”
Depression: “It’s hopeless, why bother with anything?”
Acceptance: “I know that I will be in a better place.” After the inner-child stops clinging and let’s go into Spacemind you pass through the self-Self membrane into the higher stages:
Progressive Surrender: Falling into sync
Progressive Differentiation: Pulling away from the need for social affirmation.
Progressive Solidification: Strengthening of identity with Spirit-in-action.
Progressive Rewards: Increased bliss, Presence and self-assurance.
Progressive Awe and Magic: Realization of goals, less obstructions in the way.
Progressive Unity: Nondual realization continues in daily life.

Only that which is made conscious can be “dropped.”

We have to go through these flowing phases, to discover ourselves physiologically & emotionally so we can clear the path of resistances.

OUR TYPES OF DOWN TRIP – There are four main types of down-cycle events in metamorphosis that need to be clearly understood to prevent unnecessary suffering and secondary backlash:

LIGHTNING: This is a terror event of intense energy pouring up the body similar to a euphoric inner-conjunction, but in this case it is a dysphoric inner-conjunction. Here it seems we descend deeply into our matter and experience great fear with no apparent cause. This “negative” inner conjunction mostly occurs during one’s first awakening, as the polar flip to the spontaneous bliss awakening in a neophyte-body that is unfamiliar with such intensity of consciousness and energy.
SHOCK: White Shock, or autonomic shock that occurs immediately after mystic ecstasy – the contraction & toxic overload after a significant opening to the extreme bliss of a euphoric event.
SELF-DIGESTION: Then there are the Die-offs which are a catabolic breakdown of the former structures through apoptosis due to oxidation by free radicals and then phagocytosis by the macrophages.
BURNOUT: Lastly there is the exhaustion phase of the overall awakening cycle where the body’s resources of neurotransmitters, hormones, and nutrients have been used up in the climb to the heights of the awakening peak. During exhaustion depression arises, yet there is permanent bliss giving the sense of being dissociated from depression.

These four types of down-cycle could variously be associated with what the mystics call the Dark Night of the Soul. They are unavoidable, as the “living death” must occur for resurrection of the “spiritual” bodymind. All must enter the Dark Night, perhaps many times during the cyclical process of evolution.

WHAT TO DO WHILE DYING / EXPERIENCING EGO DEATH

Relax with the collapse—Allow. Melt into the Unified Field. Stop resistance, without suppressing symptoms, running away or propping yourself up with stimulants. Whatever you do, don’t try to keep going like normal.
Set the environment—Make yourself comfortable, make a nest, play music, put a fan on yourself, etc.
Antioxidants—A Die-off is a free radical storm so take mega doses of antioxidants for protection: Vitamin C 8gm, Bioflavonoids 6gm, Beta Carotene, Vitamin E, Bs and fish oil.
Hydration—Drink around 4 Liters of water a day, and take long baths daily to rehydrate. The body has a huge demand for water during a Die-off.
Fast—Get someone to juice vegetables for you and drink water, herb tea and broth, “do not worry about eating for the duration of a Die-off.” If you are in full on wammy Die-off, your immune system is essentially catabolically using the body itself as food and all you can do is hangout in bed or under a tree outside. It’s best not to eat while the body is in this catabolic breakdown mode, or “digestion will draw energy away from the transmutation of the flesh” and your resurrection will not be as complete. You will create toxicity and tissue damage if you work against the natural break-down cycle with food – which is essential for building flesh.
Let go—Giving up is the first stage of really living. Until we give up we have been trying to live from the concept of self, instead of Self—that is “my” will not “Thine”. It is often the case with human action, that what we bring about through our efforts, turns out the very opposite of what we intended, partly because of our own internal blockages (ego). The Die-off is the most extreme experience of nature stepping in to help us move beyond the known to the vast reaches of mystic perception.
Feel Gratitude—It is a really cool relief when the only thing left to us is surrender. That is why I love Die-off periods! They are so holy in their unassailable consumption of one. At few other times in life, other than perhaps death and child bearing, do we get to experience the full nature of Necessity. The deeper our surrender to the living-death the more we can be reborn anew.
Succumb to Necessity’s Grace—Since metamorphosis is a dissolving of the former self, there are times when the individual will be in total meltdown such as in the die-offs. Thus the necessity to surrender into the process. Meltdown in this sense is essential, for it’s what is happening and one can’t fight it anyway, for even ones fight-faculties are melting.
Empty to Receive—Self-dissolution is only “half” of the equation. Self Dissolving is addictive and you can do it for lifetimes for there is great pleasure of the blasting of the tower of Babel. However in order to be fully human, and responding to the true call of evolution, you need to do the building and action…that is the CREATIVE side of the equation as well. The dissolving is only there to provide space for the NEW to manifest.

All must enter the Dark Night, perhaps many times during the cyclical process of evolution.

“He who is not twice born will not ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The bible

The sense of who you are strips away, and welcomes you into emptiness.- It shatters the thin shell of your ego – the illusion of separateness breaks.

A Non-dual stage appears in which the formless is carried back into the material world, and back into everyday life, where emptiness and form—or nirvana and samsara—become one.