The Self-Loop

Awakening can become fertile ground for spiritual bypass - and why discernment is so critical

“Shiv — Since experiencing an awakening, my relationship to life has changed in a way that surprises me. I used to be driven, full of plans and projects. Now I feel no real ambition, almost no desire to engage with the old routines of work and social life. I’m content to sit quietly, read, walk, and just be. At times this feels like freedom—but at other times it feels like a slow withdrawal from the world. How do I know whether this pull toward solitude is a natural deepening or a subtle form of avoidance?”

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Spiritual freedom and avoidance frequently go hand in hand.

You are wise to ask the question.

So often, people who have experienced what you have fail to recognize the subtle forms of bypass they unconsciously engage in. They mistakenly believe that just because they no longer feel afflicted by their egos - which had perhaps previously dominated their experience through negative self-talk or conditioned beliefs - this newfound psychological freedom marks some state of ‘final arrival’.

But what they fail to understand is that the ego isn’t a “thing”. It is a mechanism of the mind similar to memory - and a highly adaptive one at that. Whatever your conscious experience or state of awareness - the ego can and will adapt to it.

And so the very ego that once was your oppressor, now becomes your refuge. The same ego that once shouted you down, becomes your silence. The same control mechanism that once drove you to ambition, now pushes you to presence.

My intention in saying this is not to demonize the ego. While one may have painful memories of the past, this does not mean the mind’s capacity for memory is a flaw. Similarly, just because one has developed an unhealthy or problematic identity does not mean that the ego - that function of the mind that allows for identification with experience - is inherently flawed. It is simply a design feature.

What is required is not a ‘purification’ of the ego - but clear discernment.

Regardless of what your conscious experience is like in the moment - whether you are in the pits of the deepest suffering or the heights of ecstatic bliss - the ego function is perpetually recording your conscious experience and analyzing the information it receives from these experiences. Patterns with high emotional content - whether misery or ecstasy, rage or love - are of extreme interest to it. It thrives through replication.

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The Ego as a Loop Station

In music, there is a phenomenon called looping in which a solo performer uses a device called a loop station. The performer plays a segment of music on a connected instrument and then hits the looper pedal on the station - and that music segment begins playing on repeat. The performer then picks another instrument or beat which he also sets to loop. He may then proceed to add any number of instruments and melodies to loop in harmony until he has an entire ensemble playing in the background. As the performance proceeds, he can remove any music segments that were previously looped and add in new ones thereby providing a rich progression that can be incredibly entertaining to listen to. (Here is a great video that illustrates the artistry of looping).

You can think of the ego as a loop station and your experiences as musical segments - some mundane and some compelling. The moment a compelling experience occurs, some mechanism within us becomes aroused and hits the loop pedal. And that experience then gets set to repeat itself. It becomes another part of the ensemble in the symphony of ‘who we are’.

We all live in this way. Adding experiences that we value - that we would like to become repeating features in our lives. Subtracting experiences that once formed a large part of the progression but now no longer fit. Through it all - the illusion that there is an entire orchestra of instruments and musicians playing in the background is maintained. Yet, in reality there is only one.

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The Mechanics of Bypass

So, realize that while the ego has typically been associated with suffering, disharmony and alienation - it can just as easily be an agent of freedom, harmony and connection. It all depends on what kind of experiences are being added to its feedback loop. If the experiences are of a more expansive, inclusive and compassionate kind - then that is the flavor the ego will take on.

Yet, whether the ego is your tormentor or your benefactor - bypass is a natural outcome when you begin to confuse who you are for what it represents.

Just as the solo musician carefully curating the various music segments and adding them to the looping ensemble is not the music that emerges. Similarly, you are not the portfolio of carefully curated experiential artifacts that comprises your ego.

And it is our tendency to blur these lines that leads to bypass.

Rather than enjoying an experience of newfound solitude for as long as it happens to last - we begin to identify with that solitude. We hit the loop pedal so that solitude now revisits us on repeat. Initially, we thoroughly enjoy its repeating presence - but over time it begins to feel dull and lacking in vitality. Just like your favorite piece of music begins to sound annoying once you’ve heard it too many times - so also can solitude begin to feel claustrophobic when imposed upon oneself in this way.

What began as a deepening has become stagnating.

Why?

Because we are now regurgitating an experience that has long been digested. We are chewing the spiritual cud, so to speak - having extracted all the nutrients out of the experience.

Nothing new can enter into your awareness as long as you remain fixated on the old - no matter how sublime that experience was. You become unavailable as an instrument for life to play its own music because you have saturated yourself with musical segments that you have set to loop.

When you look at most people today what you see are patterns - of thought, of speech, of behaviour, of attitude, of disposition. Beyond a certain age, people change very little. It is only when certain profound or traumatic events occur, that upend entire portions of their lives - that you can detect a significant shift in their identity. That is the equivalent of someone pulling the power plug out of the looping station so that a number of music segments that were repeating are lost - and the musician has to start building his ensemble again.

Very few individuals consciously refresh their own patterns. They are so convinced that the performance is who they are - that they fail to recognize the one at the center of it all who is creating all the music and setting it up to loop.

Most vitally, they fail to see that the one at the center is not a form of music at all - but the silent witness and creator of all that can be experienced.

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Real Freedom

The period following an awakening is often characterized by a loss of many of these ‘negative’ patterns that once formed our ego - and with which we once identified. Initially it does feel liberating since that ominous aura that once dominated our experience of life seems suddenly dispelled. And in its place a sense of spaciousness, ease, calm and vibrancy. And we feel that we have arrived at the solution to our suffering.

But we are mistaken. For we misunderstood why we were suffering in the first place.

The problem wasn’t that we were engaged in negative thinking. It was that we were identified with the negative thinking. The issue is not the content of the experience but our identification with it. For the act of identification replaces the locus of our sense of who we are with the experience itself.

This is why even after an awakening occurs, suffering inevitably returns. Because our tendency to identify with experience has not changed. All that has changed is the quality of the contents of experience.

One can be just as identified with exalted states as one can with contracted states. One can be just as identified with love as one can with hatred. One can be just as identified with the ‘higher self’ as one can with the ‘little me’.

The looping musician’s craft lies not merely in his ability to curate beautiful musical segments and add them to his progression. Rather, it lies in his freedom to add and subtract these segments at will, knowing that he is not bound by any of them.

Now, let’s turn to your specific situation.

You say your solitude feels like freedom sometimes - and at times a withdrawal from the world.

With that in mind, let me ask you:

Are you free to let go of your solitude? Are you free to give up your freedom? Are you free to surrender your contentment?

If the answer to any of these questions is even slightly in doubt, then chances are you are bypassing.

This is not something to be ashamed of. We all do it.

I don’t see bypassing as an admission of failure. I view it as an opportunity.

The mechanism of identification with the ego is so subtle, often it occurs in entirely undetectable ways. Bypassing then becomes a means of detecting where we might be stuck in such identification.

For example, two days ago I experienced a profound silence descend upon me during my walk with my dog. I felt my presence expand within my body until it engulfed everything I set my eyes upon. A peace of indescribable gravity descended into me. In that moment, even if a tornado had been raging around me I would have remained undisturbed.

I returned home still immersed in that deep reservoir of peace and began washing the dishes. Behind me, my two daughters were arguing about something and began calling my name to help resolve their dispute. I felt a flash of irritation arise within me. A desire to finish the dishes and retreat to my meditation room downstairs, so I could continue sitting in that reservoir of peace, arose within me.

It took me a moment to realize I was bypassing. As enriching as that walk in the woods had been, I was now back in the reality of chaotic family dynamics which required a different form of engagement - not retreat. Yet, I was subconsciously clinging to a moment that had already passed - and, in doing so, was rejecting what was in front of me.

I had become momentarily identified with the peace. And had confused it for what I AM.

In your case, ask yourself whether your solitude arises spontaneously or whether it feels like a necessity regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in.

Ask yourself:

• Why does this solitude feel so important? Why does my contentment - as I read, sit quietly, or walk - feel like a necessity?

• What would happen if solitude and contentment were no longer present? Who would I be without them? Would I change if my experience changed?

• What if anxiety or ambition returned as experiences? Would I be free to welcome them?

Awakening is not a one-and-done deal. It is a layered blooming of the flower of your consciousness - one petal at a time.

And with each opening comes new forms of identification, new opportunities for bypass and new kinds of suffering that result.

It doesn’t matter how spiritually realized you are - you are not immune to this mechanism. Because as you evolve, so does your ego adapt to your evolution.

Freedom lies not in freeing ourselves from certain kinds of experiences and making others stick. The compassionate saint may be just as unfree as the average person lost in negative self-talk.

Real freedom lies in the realization that none of these experiences - no matter how expansive or liberating - can capture what we are. They are all temporary. Fleeting. Impermanent.

Great love is just as impermanent as hurt. Peace is just as impermanent as rage. Solitude is just as impermanent as ambition.

Your ability to control these experiences and make them linger is not a sign of your advancement - it is a sign of bypass.

Know yourself as that aware space through which all these experiences can effortlessly flow. And learn to use your ego function artfully, not compulsively.

Like the musician who captures a beautiful music segment for a while - looping it on repeat - before setting it free.

Approach your own experiences similarly.

The moment you cling to them - the cycle has begun.

Identification → Bypass → Stagnation→ Suffering

The wheel of samsara - at every level of existence - works in this way.

Instead, view your experiences as transitory.

Capture them. Loop them. Then, liberate them.

Know yourself as the ultimate context within which the contents of your life rise, loop and fall endlessly.