Intuition vs. Ego — How to Tell the Difference

4 subtle and not so subtle signs

Many spiritual teachers talk about following your intuition. They say that intuition is how your Higher Self talks to you. I’ve long followed this advice. My peculiar problem however, was that I started reading and listening to a lot of these teachings long before I was spiritually evolved enough to understand them. So often I’d listen to my ego thinking it was some kind of higher guidance from the Divine in the form of intuition.

A lot of times it was just the anxious, impatient ego, rushing me into destructive action. This caused me to create a lot of unnecessary difficulties for myself. Now that I’ve become a little more aware, I can share a few things to help you avoid this problem.

The ego employs many tricks to try to fool us. And there is a distinct difference between our intuitive guidance and the deception of the ego. Here are a few ways to tell them apart.

Urgency

The impulses of the ego will come with a sense of urgency. The ego wants you to act immediately, rashly. And there is a sense of threat about what will happen if you don’t. In contrast, intuitive guidance is gentle and doesn’t come with any feeling of threat. Guidance from the Universe doesn’t need you to rush to accomplish anything because the universe is complete unto itself.

This doesn’t mean that intuition will never ask you to act quickly. In an emergency situation, like a fire in the building, your intuition will tell you to vacate immediately. Or we can think of an athlete in a competitive sport. Their intuitive impulses are always guiding them into quick movements to outplay their opponents.

The difference here is the motivating feeling behind it. There is a kind of joy in acting on your intuition, even in seemingly tense situations. The intuition is an inspired call to action. The ego wants to motivate you through fear of what will happen if you don’t do what it says.

So if you ever sense your ego impatiently demanding you take some urgent action, take a moment to pause and observe that feeling. See if you really need to do this right now. Be kind to that impulse. You may chose to act on it or not. But either way, don’t punish yourself. The way to dissolve the ego is with kindness and compassion. The kinder and more loving you are to both you and your ego, the easier it becomes to ignore its impulses.

Instant Gratification

The ego will offer you instant gratification. Its urges come with the promise of immediate pleasure in the fulfilment of some desire, often relating to the five senses. Again, the way to tell that you are being advised by your ego and not your intuition is the accompanying anxious feeling.

The ego craves things. Intuition allows things to be. The ego is demanding. Intuition is gentle and benevolent. This is a tricky one. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t get swayed by instant gratification from time to time. We all like immediate pleasure, or at least our egos do. And it is difficult not to give in sometimes.

Intuitive guidance usually doesn’t promise instant results. It promises long term fulfilment. It doesn’t feel like an anxious urge, but rather and inspired idea. It invites, rather than demands. The intuitive impulse isn’t as much about achieving a result through some action, but about the enjoyment of the action itself.

The ego sees action as a means to an end. And action’s only purpose is to achieve some result that promises pleasure. Divinity sees action as a way to express itself. God takes delight in our creativity. Think of dancing or listening to music. These actions are not performed for the sake of their completion, but for the joy and pleasure that are derived from partaking in them. So if the impulse is to act for its own sake, then it is one to follow.

Guilt

Another way to call it is defensiveness. The ego loves to provoke us into a defensive stance to protect some mental position. Have you ever found yourself having an argument with someone in your mind? I sure have. It is totally futile and a complete waste of time, but not to the ego.

The ego loves it when we get offended by things, and get into arguments. The ego’s victory is not winning the argument, but getting us to argue. I have to admit I fall for this one quite a bit. Though simply being aware of this trick has helped me to let go of a lot of mental baggage. The remedy to this, again, is kindness. Be kind to that voice in your mind. It doesn’t matter who’s voice it appears to be. It’s just the ego talking. The ego likes to project itself in many forms.

The internal arguments will absolutely drown out any Divine guidance. The louder you argue, the less you hear your intuition. The solution is to simply ignore any provocations into an internal argument, to the best of your ability. As the great spiritual master, Sri Yukteswar Giri, once said, when talking about the mind,

“An ignored guest quickly leaves.”

If you ignore your ego enough, it will quiet down and bother you less. I can confirm this through experience. It still gets me, though not nearly as much as it used to. This one definitely requires practice. But awareness of it leads to liberation.

Fear

Finally, there is fear. Fear is at the root of all the other negative emotions. The ego drives stem from it and can’t operate without it. Fear will come in the form of doubt, worry, anxiety, pessimism, negative self talk. It can lead to other negative emotions like sadness, anger, embarrassment.

The way fear interferes with intuition is by following after it. You’ll receive an inspired idea. You’ll get all excited to act on it. And then, the doubt will show up. One of my favourite musicians, Noel Gallagher, once said,

“You don’t get nervous making records. You get nervous before gigs.”

Writing a song, creating a painting, crafting a sculpture can be blissful experiences, complete unto themselves. The feelings of self-consciousness come afterwards, when it’s time to show your work to someone.

The ego loves to insert itself between you and the expression of your creative idea. If this happens, and you doubt whether your idea is worthwhile, ask yourself,

“How did I feel when I first came up with it?”

“Did it excite me? Did it bring me joy?”

If it did then you were following your intuition, your Divine guidance. And now the ego has decided to interfere, casting a shadow of uncertainty on your endeavour.

Try to reconnect with those initial feelings of excitement and joy. Gently tell the ego that you appreciate its concern, but you’ve got this handled. The ego is just trying to look out for you, the only way it knows how, by manipulating you with fear. This is the ego’s only mechanism, underneath everything it does.

Let’s not make an enemy out of the ego. That will only strengthen it. The key to dissolving it is kindness and compassion. The ego needs to be appreciated. It is a wonderful survival mechanism that’s helped us evolve through the ages, from very primitive early humans, to the spiritually aware beings that we are today. I love my ego dearly. I just don’t listen to it as much as I used to.

The kinder we are to our ego, the clearer we hear our intuitive guidance. That may sound like a paradox. But you can’t fight fire with fire, or darkness with darkness. You bring water and light, respectively, to deal with those. The way to dissolve the ego is to love it. And the more it dissolves, the less it obscures the call of our intuitive higher knowing.