Turning a Blind "I"

Why you are NOT evolving ‘spiritually’ and how spiritual practices can be fundamentally self-deceptive

“I have been practicing mindfulness for several years now and have noticed an overall improvement in my day-to-day experience. I know you aren’t a fan of these sorts of spiritual disciplines and would like to understand better your reasoning for your position. For example, the practice of ‘allowing’ or simply letting what arises to be, has been quite powerful in my experience. What are your thoughts on such approaches to spiritual development?”

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You are incorrect when you suggest that I am against mindfulness and other such practices. People can be mindful all they like; it is of no real concern of consequence to me.

Do mindfulness practices eventually lead to more harmonious and well-balanced experiences? Quite possibly. The evidence certainly appears to point that way. I had a 30 year meditation practice that brought me many benefits. So, I am quite willing to believe that these practices have indeed enhanced your quality of life. Far be it from me to criticize anyone for engaging in any activity that brings a sense of well-being and balance to their overall experience. Life is hard enough and we all need our strategies for coping with it.

No, I am not “against” anything or anyone. However, what I do question is the idea that mindfulness leads to “spiritual development”. I oppose the notion that any of these activities - meditation, mindfulness, allowing and so on are “spiritual practices”. I don’t see them as spiritual practices at all. I see them as ego refinement practices.

I wonder if you are familiar with the term ‘finishing school’? Finishing schools were all the rage in the 1800s and early 1900s. They were academies that were specifically targeted towards young women who had recently graduated from secondary school and focused on teaching them fine social graces and cultural rites of the upper class in preparation for their entry into society. The primary goal of such institutions was to produce women with highly refined social and aesthetic sensitivities capable of attracting good husbands, becoming superior wives and compelling socialites. Young women were encouraged to develop the skills of ‘comportment’ and conversation, and knowledge of the arts, sports, foreign language, music, current affairs and all manners of social etiquette.

What most people refer to as ‘spirituality’ in society today is nothing more than a finishing school for the ego. It is a system of rituals, ideals, practices and approaches aimed at smoothening the ego’s rough edges so that it may learn the art of comportment - i.e. to conduct itself in such a non-abrasive manner that it may glide through the experiences of life with minimal conflict, and therefore minimal suffering, both for itself and those around it.

In other words, this is obedience school for the ego where self-awareness is used as the primary tool for fine-tuning its thoughts, speech, behavior, worldview and self-perception. Practices like mindfulness, meditation, radical self-acceptance, chanting, yoga, devotional songs, compassion practices, service to others and so on are like the arts, sports, foreign language, music, current affairs and etiquette lessons young women received in the finishing schools of the past century.

I have no issues with any of these practices as long as we are very clear on what their intention is. These are not “spiritual practices” that diminish or transcend the ego. These are behavior modification and perception refinement practices that reinforce the ego and have nothing to do with spirit whatsoever.

A well-behaved and refined ego is also going to be a more harmonious and equanimous ego. Nothing wrong with that. But one must not confuse a harmonious ego to be synonymous with spirit. This gross misunderstanding has been the unfortunate outcome of the spiritual industry. Its fundamental premise is flawed.

What is a “spiritual practice”? If you truly inquire into it, you will see what an absurd term this is. It is an oxymoron.

Does spiritual practice mean that one is “practicing being the spirit”? If so, what is it that is practicing? Is it not the ego? And can the ego ever be the spirit? Then, doesn’t “practicing being the spirit” mean one is “pretending” to be the spirit?

Or does spiritual practice mean that this is “practice for the spirit”? And if this is indeed the intended meaning of the phrase, what does the spirit need to practice? Being itself? Why does it need any such practice? The spirit seems to hold no illusions, it is the ego that does.

No matter how one looks at it, in the end all forms of spiritual practice are egotistical endeavors. It is the ego that wants peace. It is the ego that wants harmony. It is the ego that wants greater awareness. It is the ego that wants to be compassionate. It is the ego that wants awakening. It is the ego that wants enlightenment. It is the ego that wants an end to suffering. Every spiritual practice ultimately requires the ego’s buy in. And that buy in only serves to reinforce the ego.

There are two ways to reinforce the ego. The first is by denying it what it wants. The other is by giving it what it wants.

Which is why all spiritual practices whether they are based on renunciation or acceptance, on denying or affirming, on abstinence or indulgence, on strict austerities or open-ended freedoms, on inquiry or devotion - are in the end ego-enhancement practices.

Don’t kid yourself. Mindfulness has not diminished your ego. It has enhanced it. It has refined it. Acceptance has not weakened your ego. It has fortified it. It has consolidated it.

Before I continue further, let’s clearly define what the ‘ego’ is. I’m going to quote Dr. David R. Hawkins whose own definition closely resembles my own, yet I love his succinct phrasing when he says:

“The ego is a persistence of the animal instinct elaborated through the mind and intellect and given authenticity by the mutual agreement of society.”

This is a crucial observation. The ego is nothing more than the animal instinct at its very root. The instinct to survive. The instinct to reproduce. The instinct to thrive. That’s it. That is its basic mission, and it will do everything it can to ensure that mission succeeds at all costs.

It then uses the power of the mind and the intellect to develop sophisticated strategies to do so. Language, speech, thought, opinion, belief, political leanings, self-identity, occupation, social networks and so on become the very tools it uses to fulfill its imperative.

The ego is fundamentally an instinctual entity. It has no opinion, no reason, no belief, no ideology or ethics of its own. Instead, it uses these tools of the intellect to achieve its objectives. You can think of the ego as a cunning politician who has no ideological platform of his own but aligns with what the majority wants because that is what will win him his votes. So, if materialism seems like the winning strategy, then the ego will become materialistic. And if spiritualism seems like the winning strategy, then the ego will become “spiritual”. The ego will kill, maim, steal and destroy if that feels like the most promising path forward. It will also show kindness, care, service and compassion if that feels like it might improve its odds. The ego is utterly agnostic to ethics because it is a purely instinctual creature. It is also important to note that most of these are not conscious choices that the ego makes but are mostly unconscious.

What strategy most benefits the ego is determined by the society it lives in. That is what Hawkins means by the phrase “given authenticity by the mutual agreement of society.” American society tends to show favor to extroverted egos and so Americans in general tend to be more extroverted than the Japanese, whose society shows greater favor to introverted egos. This generates the impression that the Japanese are less ‘egotistical’ than Americans are, but this is not the case. Japanese egos are attuned to Japanese cultural and social sensitivities and American egos to the American.

Similarly, society at large tends to show favor to individuals who are materialistically oriented because such egos satisfy the material priorities of capitalist economies. Yet, some individuals who begin their lives pursuing material goals may eventually arrive at a place of dissatisfaction and disillusionment, because they realize that materialism creates suffering. And although the ego’s instinctive needs for survival appeared to have been temporarily satisfied, a new unanticipated threat has now arisen - an internal threat in the form of an existential ennui, animated by feelings of alienation, depression, anxiety and nihilism.

And so, the ego, adaptive as ever, switches its strategy from materialism to spiritualism. It begins pursuing the “spiritual path”, studying “spiritual teachings”, adhering to “spiritual disciplines”, performing “spiritual rituals” and engaging in “spiritual communities”. Here also, it is the culture that dictates what characteristics the ego will emulate - calmness, devotion, peace, even temper, quietude, introspection. After the aggravation and extroversion of a lifetime - this shift in gears appears promising to the ego as a new strategy for overcoming suffering and achieving its instinctual imperative to survive.

Along the way, it is happy to convince itself that it is “evolving” or that it is becoming “awakened”. It is happy to play the game of psychological dissociation in which it pretends that it is becoming “awareness” or “spirit” and is no longer the ego. It is a master at “turning a blind I” to itself. In fact, the ‘non-dual ego’ is really the piece-de-resistance among the many sophisticated imposter identities it learns to employ. The not-I I, or the no-self self. By becoming invisible to itself, it no longer even needs to believe in its own existence, its own suffering or its own imperatives.

What’s more, it isn’t just one ego that is playing this game. It is 8 billion egos - all reinforcing and validating each other through our myriad interactions. Everything we do reinforces our own egos and the egos of others. When we support each other, we reinforce our egos. When we oppose each other, we reinforce our egos. Even when we ignore each other we reinforce our egos. Democrats enhance the egos of other democrats by agreeing with them. But they also enhance the egos of Republicans by opposing their worldviews. Atheists reinforce the egos of other atheists by sharing in their denial of spiritual beliefs. But they also reinforce the egos of spiritualists by opposing their beliefs.

Every “yes” and every “no” reinforces the ego. Chasing after material pursuits reinforces the ego. Yet, practicing being still and allowing life also reinforces the ego. Believing you have a personal will and the power of choice to influence your life reinforces the ego. Yet, claiming that there is no doer, no central agent responsible for any choices ALSO reinforces the ego!

The ego’s games are endless. And there is no way to win OR lose, because both winning and losing only further reinforce the ego. Yet, through all these shenanigans and sophistications, through all this subterfuge and trickery - where is the spirit?

The spirit is as it has always been.

Present.

Witnessing.

Being.

You see, the spirit’s imperatives are not the same as the ego’s. It is unconcerned with survival because being is eternal. It is not interested in reproducing because there is no “other” instance to create - all is already spirit. There is no separation in its experience.

So, the spirit has no vested interest in what the ego does. It has no preference for whether the ego pursues material goals or performs faux “spiritual” practices. Its only imperative is to bear witness.

That’s it. No practice. No growth. No development. No path. Just awareness.

The spirit is already entirely and eternally itself. It lives in an ever-present now. Or rather, it is the ever-present now.

Now, there are many spiritual practices that focus on the act of observation or ‘witnessing’ as their main focus - like zazen and mindfulness. But these are also become sophisticated tricks for the ego to pretend to be spirit. To become the ‘one bearing witness’. But, the reality is the ego cannot bear witness.

The ego also cannot bear being witnessed.

There is a time in a seeker’s journey, when a strange experience transpires. One begins to experience a background “presence”. It is as if an invisible eye is watching you. A silent unknowable something that is aware of you.

At first, the ego responds with discomfort and attempts to ignore this presence by distracting itself (the vast majority of human egos are at this stage, hence the success and proliferation of consumerism and technological distractions). Then, when that becomes impossible, the ego begins to become horrified - projecting all its fears upon that presence. Calling it “a void” of “emptiness” or “meaninglessness”. Eventually, when feeling horrified does nothing to diminish the presence, it might switch its strategy to idealizing the presence. The ego may call this presence the “divine” or “god” - it may attempt to worship it in the secret hope that ingratiating itself in this way will make the presence lose interest in it.

Finally, when worshipping this presence does not diminish the presence in any way, the ego will attempt the great coup d'État of becoming the presence. Using profound platitudes and declarations such as “I am awareness itself” or “I am one with all that is”, it will attempt to negate the presence by simply occupying it. After all, how can the ego be witnessed when it is the one doing the witnessing? It is really quite an ingenious and Machiavellian tactic. This is why the ‘spiritual ego’ is one of its most impenetrable imposter identities.

So, if the ego is really that sophisticated and crafty, what solution is there? Many advanced seekers report the feeling of being trapped in a catch-22 where no matter how much one seems to ‘evolve’, the ego is always one-step ahead. No matter how much one grows in awareness, the ego is always their to claim: “I did it.” No matter how deep one’s mystical experiences, the ego inevitably claims ownership.

Except, here is the kicker.

Only the ego asks such questions and suffers from such conundrums. And only the ego feels like it is caught in this double-bind. And only the ego thinks it is an authentic self that is attempting to evolve beyond the ‘ego’s craftiness’.

This whole game of spiritual development, mindfulness, self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-realization, spiritual evolution and transcendence is the ego’s make-believe. One that the ego is encouraged to indulge in by other egos that have, in turn, indulged in such spiritual fantasies for millennia and built an elaborate culture that, in Hawkins’ words “gives (the ego) authenticity by the mutual agreement of society”.

Just a dog chasing its tail endlessly, convinced it is progressing.

YOU are the ego. And you are not progressing. You are simply masturbating yourself endlessly. You are self-soothing. Because life is hard, suffering is inevitable, and you will not survive it in the end.

Yet, the spirit, that presence to which you have turned a blind I, is not blind to you. It bears witness to you in every moment for eternity. Aware and watching at all times. You cannot hide from it.

It exerts no force whatsoever. It has no material or tangible impact. Yet, it has a soft power that erodes away at you just as water erodes rock. All the strategies you adopt to resurrect yourself are for naught. Be mindful or mindless, you cannot save yourself. You are helpless. You can do nothing to influence it - neither to avoid or accelerate its impact. Whether you deny that awareness or pretend to be that awareness makes no difference.

You will eventually capitulate.

Thy will be undone.

In the end, the ego is nothing more than a flash in the pan, related to this human incarnation.

Yet, the spirit abides.