Practical Nonduality & Spiritual Ascension
Ego, Soul, & Beyond Revisited — This Is the Reality We Live
How to be happy in your ‘ego-self’, ‘soul-self’, and ‘nondual-self’.
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I write a lot about our ego-self and soul-self. That is how I define my experience of our human existence. It has been my story of spiritual reality.
I write about those 2 aspects because we can experience and talk about them. But there are really 3 general aspects that we should be aware of…
Definitions
- Your Ego-Self — is who you are as a separate identity from everything else. Your ego-self is probably strongest in the 3rd Dimension/Density (3D). A weaker sense of ego separation or individuality seems to exist in other spiritual dimensions. (Some say there are “hell” dimensions worse than 3D.)
- Your Soul-Self — is who you are beyond your limited 3D identity. I also use the words ‘higher-self’ and ‘true-self’, but there are many other terms that people use (see Related Resource #[1] below). Your soul-self understands your reality from a higher, bigger, or larger perspective, including your past and other incarnations, for example. It can guide your ego-self at times, and it is who you are when you explore other dimensions of reality.
- Your Nondual-Self — is the aspect of you that cannot be described in words. Words exist in 3D duality and your nondual-self is beyond words. We use many words to try to point to the nondual-self. I often use ‘Source’, ‘God’, ‘The Absolute’, ‘Absolute-Self’, ‘No Thing’, and “It”. But I try to remember that no words can capture the truth of our nondual-self. It is like trying to see our own eyes without the use of a mirror.
Your ego-self is finite and ever changing. Your non-dual self is infinite and eternal. Your soul-self is in between those. There are no solid divisions between these 3 selves. They simply blend and transition into one another in the absolute unity of the universe.
We hold stereotypes of people who are mostly ego identified, as well as of those who are soul identified and nondual identified (or knowing). Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Ramana Maharshi fall into the nondual group, for example. But those are all stories we (our ego-selves) adopt to try to make sense of our 3D and 4D experiences.
“Love says ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two, my life flows.” ― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from his book, “I Am That”
Stories
- Your Ego-Self — is the story you (ego) identify with in your day-to-day, physical, waking experience (3D). That story includes your name, gender, ancestry, home, job, and likes and dislikes. Ego-self stories inherently increase our sense of separation from everything else. And there are at least 7.9 billion ego-self stories alive on Earth today.
- Your Soul-Self — is the story you identify with beyond your 3D physical reality ego-self. That story includes your psychological self (subconscious & shadows) and your spiritual self (multidimensional, psychic, & awakened). Soul-self stories are more diverse than ego-self stories because our alternate dimensional experiences are limited only by our imagination. (See this article for more on the soul dimension.)
- Your Nondual-Self — is beyond all stories of your ego-self and soul-self. But those selves have created many stories describing our nondual-self. I like the “oneness” story of “It” as “nothingness being everything” (which also means “everything is nothingness”). Another is the “unconditional love” story that the more we truly feel love toward everything, the more we overcome ego-self separation and become “It”. Those stories point to our nondual-self (or absolute-self), but never fully encompass it.
While life appears limited from our ego-self perspective, our soul-self is unlimited. We (as our soul-selves) live in an infinite universe where every story is possible. The most common story of spirituality is that the purpose of our life (and lifetimes) is to escape the suffering caused by our 3D ego-self separation. Doing so, we come to know the greater oneness and happiness of our soul-self experience.
Seeking Happiness
- Your Ego-Self — operates mostly in your physical/material/conscious reality (3D). It seeks happiness through objects, experiences, foods and medications, help and validation from others, positive thinking, and other external (separate) sources. In all that external seeking, we are trying to overcome separation (or suffering) and connect with (or love) things, others, and ultimately, our deeper soul-self.
- Your Soul-Self — operates mostly in your subjective mental, emotional, and subconscious reality (dimensions mostly beyond 3D). It seeks happiness in the path to oneness and the realization of our deepest truth or true self. That path includes introspection, meditation, dreamwork, channeling, imagination, creativity, connecting to our world and ourselves, and other spiritual and internal work. 3D tools may help, but the goal is to transcend your ego-self separation to become your soul-self, which is closer to the oneness of your nondual-self (but is not “It”).
- Your Nondual-Self — is everything (and, of course, it is not a thing). This absolute-self does not seek anything, and it embraces all seeking and non-seeking. It is both happiness and sadness. And it is neither of those. Another story is that our nondual-self is experiencing (or knowing) itself through the polarity of positive and negative energies experienced by the ego-self. The ego-self sees those as good and bad, or right and wrong. The soul-self comes closer to the nondual-self’s knowing that there is no good or bad, or right or wrong. For the nondual-self, everything is perfect as it is — it can be no other way.
From a pure nondual-self perspective, there is nothing right or wrong with the ego-self’s search for happiness. From the ego-self level of consciousness, we do the best we can do, which is all the universe asks, and all that is possible. The same applies to the soul-self’s search for oneness.
We can only do what we can do from our current level of consciousness and awareness of who we are.
“You cannot stop someone behaving from their state of consciousness.” — Thom Knoles
Who Are You?
- Your Ego-Self — is who you are when you experience 3D reality. For the ego-self, everything in 3D reality is as real as it can be. Your ego-self needs to treat it that way, although you do have some choice on how you react to the reality you encounter. — Most people speak and act as their ego-self all the time. They have glimpses of their soul-self, such as in dreams, but disregard them. They are unaware of their nondual-self, even when glimpses of it arise. Spiritually awakened people are also their ego-self all the time, but they are more aware of those soul-self and nondual-self glimpses.
- Your Soul-Self — is who you are when you experience 4D and other realities. For your soul-self, everything in an alternate reality (such as a dream) is as real as 3D is for the ego-self. Spiritual practices bring more of your soul-self into your awareness (awakening & enlightenment). But your ego-self is still very present in your day-to-day waking reality. — Spiritual seekers speak and act as their soul-self sometimes. Spiritual teachers speak from their soul-self more. Seekers and teachers are “both/and” — both operating in 3D reality and operating in a soul-self reality. Some do that more and better than others. Similarly, some are more aware of their nondual-self than others.
- Your Nondual-Self — is who you always are (which is why I sometimes call it the “absolute-self”). It is permanent, unchanging, and eternal. Another story sees our nondual-self as the underlying pure ‘consciousness’, ‘awareness’, or ‘beingness’ of the ego-self (3D) and soul-self (4D+). It is the “witnessing” of the ego and soul, though there is no “witnesser”. It is more apparent when the ego-self and soul-self dissolve (to some degree). — Your ego-self cannot force its own dissolution. Your soul-self can help your ego-self partially dissolve, but never fully. —Your nondual-self does not speak or act or express itself in any way. Speaking and acting spiritually come from our soul-self expressing itself through our ego-self. That soul/ego-self expression reaches its highest level when a nondual-self “knowingness” is present.
In the story I am telling in this article, none of these 3 levels of self is better than the other. Each has a role and purpose.
Be who you are now. And be proud of that, knowing you will change and evolve. Change is one of the few absolutes of 3D and 4D+ reality. Only the nondual reality is changeless because it is everything and no thing.
Your search for happiness (however you define that) will forever be moving you through layers of your ego-self and soul-self, toward your nondual-self. That is what we call spiritual ascension.
The 3 Selves in Mahayana Buddhism
I came across a portion of the Lankavatara Sutra, which was compiled around 350–400 CE in India. It is considered a foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism, which entered China about that same time.
While looking into it more, I found the following 3 levels of reality, which exactly coincide with the three levels of self that I defined above. The names and definitions in italics below come from (Buddhism-Guide.com):
- [Ego-Self] Terrestrial or Transformational or Reality/Dimension (Sanskrit: nirmanakaya) is the dimension of Buddhahood to which the unenlightened have access, and where the phenomena of the world exist — This is how we perceive human development from a purely 3D physical reality. It includes aging from infancy to old age, both physically and psychologically.
- [Soul-Self] Celestial Reality or Dimension (Sanskrit: sambhogakaya) is expression of the symbolic and archetypal dimension of Buddhahood, to which only the spiritually developed have access — This is the path of spiritual development that starts with an awakening to something beyond our physical 3D reality. There are infinite paths and experiences in this nonphysical, celestial realm.
- [Nondual-Self] Transcendental Reality or Dimension (Sanskrit: dharmakaya) — the ultimate level of enlightenment, which is beyond names and forms — As soon as we apply any names, forms, or descriptions, we are back in the Celestial (Soul-Self) realm.
Related Resources
- [1] The 3 levels of the self that I describe above are the simplest way I can think of to review this topic, but still offer something meaningful. Elsewhere (in the article ⬇ below) I listed and ranked (through 10 levels) the many ways the spiritualists describe the ego-self (levels 1 & 2), the soul-self (levels 3 to 9a), and the nondual-self (levels 9b & 10).
- [2] Rupert Spira suggests that we cycle between our outer-ego (conditioned memories) and our inner self (Oneness) through awakening experiences. So, we awaken to oneness. We then forget and the ego comes back. Then we have a new and different awakening. Then we forget and our ego arises again, bringing suffering and Dark Night experiences. The more awakenings we have, the weaker and shorter the ego’s return will be. — This is an excerpt from my article: Do You Take Your Awakenings in Large, Medium, or Small Doses?
- [3] For more insight into the relationship between the ego-self and soul-self, see this article ⬇. Seth/Jane Roberts coined the term “inner-ego”, which has the same meaning as what I call the soul-self.
- [4] This is a channeled message on the Soul Dimension, which is a very crowded place…
- [5] The gross body and subtle body are another way to look at the ego-self and soul-self…
- [6] For more on The Many “Yous”, see this collection of articles:
- [7] For more on Nonduality, see this collection of articles:
- Note that the articles in the 2 collections above are behind the Medium paywall. For paywall-free access to my articles go to www.AlanLew.com, linked below.
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- Written in collaboration with my Energy Group/Higher Self. This is our perspective of the truth and not the whole truth of reality.
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