Awakening Beyond Ego (Part 2 of 7): True Self vs. False Self
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The Unchanging You
One of the biggest tragedies in life is not knowing who we are — not knowing who we really are.
You know, many of us think we know who we are, but deep down we’re not really sure.
Are we really White or Black or Asian?
Well, no, because we couldn’t choose our race when we arrived in this world.
What about nationality then?
Can we say we are American or French or Chinese?
Again, the answer is still no.
We did not have a say as to where we would be born.
Now, you might start guessing where I’m going with this, and conclude that your true or real self is based on personal attributes or identifiers that you can control.
For example, where you live, what faith you believe in, what political party you identify with, or even what music you listen to.
These are all things that you can, for the most part, choose with full freedom.
But if that’s what you’re thinking, then what about when you move? What happens when you change your faith or political allegiance?
What becomes of you when your music tastes evolve?
Now, I don’t know about you, but my taste in music has definitely changed over time.
You could have called me a hip-hopper, metalhead or classical enthusiast — depending on which stage of my life you’re looking at.
So, it’s fair to say that my musical interests have changed over time, but does that mean that I changed? Does that mean my essence changed?
No.
Because it’s one thing for the surface layer of something to change and another for its essence to change.
For example, a white fluorescent lightbulb will only emit white light.
Every time you flip the light switch on, it will always be white.
But if you wrap a blue cover or screen around the bulb, it will all of a sudden look blue. And if you wrap a red cover around it, then it will be red.
And you can change the color of the screen to every color there is, and end up with a different result.
But at the end of the day, the lightbulb will always emit white light.
It will never change.
And similarly, our essence or who we really are at our core, never changes.
We might wear or wrap around different covers, giving us the appearance of changing on the surface, but in truth our essence never changes.
And it is this unchanging and eternal self, or essence, that we’re going to be exploring further in this post, which is part two of this series called “Awakening Beyond Ego.”
Now, if you haven’t read Part 1 yet, then I suggest you read that first, because it will give you a really good understanding of what the ego, or false self, is.
Of course, we have to know what we are not before we can understand what we actually are.
And I think Part 1 does a good job of introducing the topic of this series, which is awakening beyond what we are not so that we can find our true selves.
But if you have already read Part 1, then welcome!
This post will take us one step closer to our true self.
Specifically, it will help us understand the nature of our true self and how it differs from the ego.
So, let’s get started.
Rediscovering Your True Essence
For years, the ego has been cramming thoughts in our head about who we are based on certain labels or identifiers, like our race, nationality and religion.
And yet, all this time we have been told a big and devastating lie.
None of these labels point to our essence, and yet we accept them without question.
And in doing so, we have forgotten who we truly are.
Now, this forgetting might not sound like a big deal at first, but what if I told you that you don’t have to suffer mentally or emotionally anymore? What if I told you that you can be free of your thoughts and live from a place of eternal peace and calm?
These aren’t just imaginary states.
They are real outcomes we can experience when we discover and align with our true self.
Embodying our true self may sound like a difficult endeavor at first, but it’s really just returning back to the core of who we always are, before the ego got involved.
It’s a bit like embodying the person or essence that God sees — that God has created.
Do you think the Divine really looks at where you went to school or what job you have or how you look on the surface?
No.
God looks at what is inside you.
The Creator looks at how clean your heart is, how pure your thoughts and actions are, and whether or not you are ultimately growing as a person and awakening to your true reality.
The rest is all superficial.
We may appear, behave, and live differently than one another, but we are all alike in one major way: we each have a soul.
And this soul is our essence.
It is the most fundamental level of who we really are.
This soul came from none other than God.
So, when we connect with our soul, we are actually connecting with God.
We each have a part of the Divine that represents who we truly are, but our desires and superficial pursuits in this life have made us forget this essence.
They have made us forget who we are, beyond all the mental constructs, ideas, and beliefs the ego has created.
Because imagine right now if you didn’t have a single thought.
Imagine if you didn’t speak a single word.
This would be your true essence.
This is the very core of your being.
Now, I know it’s sometimes hard to put this into words, but maybe we can take a look at a different example that can illustrate this point.
The Essence Beyond Ego
Let’s take a glass of water for a moment.
Even if you transfer that water into a cup, it is still the same water. Nothing has changed.
In this analogy, our true self is like the water.
It never changes, no matter how old we get, what views or beliefs we have, or what stage of life we are in.
But the container holding that water — or the mind and body — is constantly changing.
The mind and body you had as a five-year-old are not the same as when you were 10 or 30 or 50.
But your soul is.
The same soul that lived in the newborn you is the same one that lives in you now.
This is what spiritual teachers mean when they say you are beyond life and death.
You are pure consciousness, which has no sense of time, space or identity.
And this is why we don’t look in a mirror or think endless thoughts when we try to connect with our true self.
It’s because our true self can’t be found through our five senses and thoughts.
Thoughts and senses can point us in the right direction, but they are never the end of the journey.
The journey to our soul is something that must be experienced directly to understand.
We must focus our attention inward until we observe something that is deeper than who we thought we are.
In other words, we seek the water inside the glass, not the glass itself.
Because guess what? The container can not only change. It can also be destroyed.
Imagine what happens when you drop that glass of water.
The glass shatters into a hundred pieces, and is never the same again.
Just like every day, the mind and body are never the same.
They become older, weaker, and eventually give way.
But the same cannot be said of the soul.
Because even though the glass may shatter when it falls onto the ground, the water never shatters.
It never is destroyed.
It’s still there, just more spread out instead of all nicely together inside a container.
But you could just as easily suck up all that water from the floor and pour it back into another glass or cup.
This is the real message I want to convey.
Too often do we spend so much time identifying with the glass or cup that we lose sight of the fact that we have been the water all along.
In fact, you don’t need to subscribe to a particular faith or set of beliefs to recognize that you are more than just a mind and body. You are more than the ego.
Your essence is beyond any external factor or label that you can perceive.
So, why then is this so hard for many of us to realize? Why do we forget about our true self in the first place?
Well, the answer is that the ego doesn’t want us to discover our true self.
It doesn’t want us to come to the ultimate realization that we don’t need it to live our life.
Awakening to Your True Self
Once we discover our true self, there really is no need for a false self anymore, is there?
The ego is only helpful to the extent that it can make us aware of our true self, and nothing more.
Its only purpose is to push us to the brink of suffering and despair that we can no longer bear.
And this suffering comes from living a life that is not in full alignment with our true self.
This suffering can appear in many forms, such as pursuing materialistic things, feeling empty inside, and having a general lack of happiness and fulfillment from life.
The truth is, we all have a tremendous capacity or threshold to suffer, but at some point or another, that suffering will break us down and we have no choice but to examine the kind of life we want to be living. The kind of thoughts we want to be thinking.
This is the beginning of the awakening journey for many, and we don’t realize it is caused by blindly following the ego all these years.
The ego is working nonstop behind the scenes to keep us unaware of its existence, so that we continue to rely and depend on it.
It’s like a parasite that latches on to our mind.
The mind is a beautiful thing until it’s infected by the ego.
An ego that can’t live on its own, but rather lives through us.
And as we all know, parasites aren’t the nicest and most helpful creatures in the world.
They drain their victim of all its energy, nutrients, and hope.
And similarly, the ego is draining us.
We might not realize this, but the ego is dragging us further and further away from finding our true self.
Because the more we remain unconscious, the less likely we are to awaken — the less likely we are to discover and experience our true reality.
But I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom here.
There is a path to escaping the ego, and we will definitely explore that path in this series.
I am merely shedding some light onto the ego’s games so that you can realize for yourself that you are way more than you ever thought you were.
As the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi said:
“Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.”
And that is exactly what we will be doing in these next few posts.
We are going to be looking inside ourselves and finding the real universe. Finding our real self.
When we connect with this inner or real self, we connect with the Divine, and we discover our true identity, nature and purpose in life.
This discovery has the power to help us transcend the ego’s influence and achieve true spiritual liberation.
It helps us escape the endless cycle of joy and suffering, or samsara as the Buddhists call it.
Because until we discover who we truly are, we are just wandering pointlessly in life. We aren’t really living.
This is why it’s so important to be able to distinguish between the ego and your true self, or your soul.
One is there to test you, and the other is there to transform you.
Both are ironically needed on the spiritual journey, but it takes time, patience, and practice to develop awareness of the ego in order to eventually free ourselves from it.
Nurturing Your Spiritual Journey
So, now that you have a better grasp of the true and false self, let’s get ready to explore how we can become more aware of this false self.
How can we truly know what the ego is and what are some spiritual practices to help us on this journey?
These will be the topics of the next post, which is part three of this series on Awakening Beyond Ego.
Take some time to meditate on these words, and reflect on what you have just discovered or learned.
Don’t stress yourself too much if doesn’t all make sense right away.
I promise you, it will.
Maybe not to your ego, but to your true self.
You just have to trust the process and more importantly trust the Creator that made you — that made your life possible because the Divine sees something special in you.
Something that is waiting to be awakened.
