The Ego and the Spirit

Here’s a useful way I make a distinction between the ego and the spirit.

I see the spirit as being the same as the heart, the soul, and God. To me, the spirit is accessing that part of me that is the God Force, the creative energy within me; the part of me that knows on a deep level, what it is I want, and how I want to live my life.

My ego I see as being a part of my mind. It’s the part of me that makes me individual. It brings down the universal energy and knowledge and makes it `mine’. It makes decisions about what I like and don’t like, and in doing that, makes universal mind, Christine mind. Because its main goal is that I the individual survive, it does whatever it needs to do to make sure that happens: fit in, have my needs met, have money to pay the bills etc . So often what it’s telling me is what I should-must-need to do in order to survive. And that’s when it sometimes goes out of alignment with my spirit. The spirit's needs are not individual, survival needs; they are universal eternal needs.

It’s when my ego is out of alignment wth my spirit that I feel the most confused, the most fearful, the most vulnerable: Things just don’t add up, don’t make sense. My ego is telling me what I need to do right now to ease the fear on a surface/ practical/doing level, but when I ask my spirit, it is taking the peaceful, meditative, do-what-you-love approach. How to make a decision between the two voices? I’ve found 100% of the time, that when I follow my spirit’s advice, I immediately feel calm, feel happy, and am loving what it suggests. When I follow my ego’s voice, I may alleviate the fear for a while by acting, but I don’t often find real happiness in the action, or the result.

I learnt to use them both in tandem. I ask my spirit, my heart, my happiness what I would love to do. I use my ego, my mind, to explore how I can do that, how to bring down that universal knowledge into some form that is meaningful to me. But that is all. Once I start hearing should-must-need, I tell my ego to take a back seat and let my spirit take the lead. Since I’ve made this distinction and am using the strengths of my ego to ASSIST me, I’ve found those moments of confusion don’t come around so often, and when they do, I recognise the misalignment immediately and tune into my spirit. And tell my ego to follow suit!