The second trap: the ego
Consequences:
The second barrier we encounter during our spiritual growth is the ego. The ego must be healthy, i.e. it must have its place, not dominate us as humans, nor be undervalued. If we meet someone who claims to no longer have an ego, we should run from it. We all navigate with an ego, it’s not necessarily inherently good or bad. It’s up to us to give it its rightful place. Not too big, not too small.
In fact, an ego imbalance can have two sides, i.e. manifest itself in two different ways. An unbalanced ego can be due to a surplus of energy in the solar plexus chakra, the “I” dominates, we lack empathy and we find it hard to question ourselves, which slows down our spiritual growth. We think we are the center of the world when in fact we are the center of our world. No more, no less, and that’s enough!
An unbalanced ego can also be due to an energy deficit in the solar plexus chakra, in which case the person will feel inferior, not able to keep up or will think that others are better than they are. They won’t dare to do or say certain things for fear of the consequences (see article part 1, Spiritual growth: the 3 traps to avoid).
Characteristics :
The ego trap in our spiritual growth is not limited to the fact that it can be overactive or underactive, but also to the limits it sets. In other words, the ego trap keeps us in a limited vibration because we think of our single earthly identity as the sole purpose of our actions, and this confines us to the 3D dimension, the matter we know so well, locked up in this body of ours.
We can’t envision anything other than what we know, and we think that down here is our only plane of existence and our only incarnation. We are disconnected from our soul. We live in the illusion of separation between ourselves and others, between ourselves and Mother Earth, between ourselves and the spirit worlds.
Often, the predominance of the ego in our lives also prevents us from accessing a higher, universal space of consciousness, because it disconnects us from our heart. Disconnection from the heart holds back our spiritual evolution because we don’t reach an absolute and complete state of being. It’s as if the engine of a car were missing. In the case of a surplus, we do things for our own benefit and despise others, and in the case of a deficiency, we do everything for others, putting them before our own needs.
A good example of that is showoff spirituality, a phenomenon whereby a being, who is a channel, claims to understand and explain everything, and is adulated and worshiped by others who admire him instead of themselves. This can lead to all kinds of abuse. It can also happen when we think we’ve done “enough work” on ourselves. Often this is a sign that we need to do some deeper work. It is those who have “worked enough” who actually need to work on themselves the most. The ego defends itself and is afraid of change, so it does everything to avoid it, including putting brakes on its own evolution.
In a nutshell:
In this particular case, and in order to enable our spiritual growth, we need to look beyond the ego, recognise it and accept it. Acknowledge our earthly identity and our finiteness. But instead of limiting ourselves to the realm of the ego in our spiritual evolution, we need to transcend it, i.e. move beyond it. Accepting that we are neither perfect nor the best. The seed to cultivate is humility, but also acceptance of the impermanence of what is.
