Is the Ego Necessary for Survival?

Question:with it, and move on with your life.
The “problem” with spirituality as I see it is that itThere is a difference between being cautious and
is not enough to know what to do, it is all experiential.getting attached.
We have to see for ourselves and learn the lessonsCaution is simply common sense. It’s knowing that
ourselves to really understand. And this is one bigsomething may be detrimental and thus avoiding it. It
difference between religion and spirituality in my opinion.often comes in through your intuition or gut feeling.
Most religious people I have met only do what they doEmotional attachment is when the mind gets its hooks
because they have been told by someone else that itinto something potentially dangerous and starts spinning
is the right thing to do. They are blindly followingits wheels on the subject, often making you think of
guidelines because “God” says it’s right. Theirpotential “what if” scenarios so that you can be
ego’s are so tightly glued to their beliefs that anybetter prepared… just in case!
reasoning with them they take as an attack onIs it possible to live without an ego? Do you and your
themselves and they get angry.body literally die once the ego is completely
Of course they do. It’s their whole story, it is whotranscended? Simply look at enlightened masters for
they think they are. Who would they be if all of ayour answer.
sudden everything they thought they are would“Love your neighbor as you Love yourself.”
dissolve? You see, the ego provides a very usefulRemember that loving yourself includes honoring and
function in our lives on this planet.taking care of yourself. You Love all and take care of
How else would we know to protect ourselves? Howall. It’s not that you suddenly stop taking care of
else would we know to feed ourselves? How elsethings and you forget how to eat, breathe, and brush
would we know to not put our hands in the fire, stayyour teeth once you drop the ego.
away from things that makes us ill, gather food for theTwo guys were once walking down the street. The
winter, dress ourselves warmly, spread our genes tofirst stated that the whole world is an illusion and that
ensure that the species lives on and fight when wenone of it was real. The second guy, being a very
have to?intellectual yet skeptical man, took a rock and threw it
Ask yourself this question: Where would you beat the first man, drawing blood. As the first man cried
without your ego? Probably dead. Long time ago.out in pain, the second man said, “Why are you
Spend some time thinking about that one if youscreaming? The pain is an illusion! The rock is an illusion!
haven’t before. Use 5DC on your own ego.You are an illusion!”
So one of the functions of the ego is to ensure theThis is a very logical conclusion that the mind makes,
survival of this body that we are in. It does so that webut it’s a radical misunderstanding of the nature of
think that we are our thoughts, our minds, our body,“illusion.”
emotions, the stuff we do, the things we have andIllusion does not mean “This does not exist.” in
everything else. Without the sense of self, there wouldthe traditional sense of the word and thus is
be nothing to protect. If there was no other, thereunexperiencable. Rather, it means, “What you see
would be nothing to fear and we’d have becomeis not how things actually are. There’s more to the
extinct long time ago.world than meets the eye. There is something beyond
My response:what we are consciously aware of. This is not it.”
First off, props to you for realizing that you do indeedAs you deepen your connection to your Higher Self
have to EXPERIENCE Truth in order to know it. Simplyand strengthen your connection to Source, higher level
intellectualizing or believing, buying into any structuredTruths such as “Time is an illusion” or “This is
external belief system of any sort will necessarily holdbetter than that” or “Love is all there is”
you apart from the highest Truth.become radically apparently, experiential truths. No
Truth can not be verbalized, only known. Wheneveramount of mental debate can ever bring you to the
you put it into words, you are filtering down the infinitesame level of certainty or understanding.
vastness of all that is into a few letters and sounds.By transcending the ego, you will come to know these
The word “apple” is not the same thing astruths, even if you had never heard of them.
eating an actual apple.It truly has to be experienced to be understood.
Interestingly, you brought up this point and then wentFrom there, the state is SO clearly real that, just like
straight back into imagining (read, going to the mind forlooking back at a dream when you wake up in the
answers) as to what life without the ego would be like.morning, it becomes obvious that this physical
You’re directly going against exactly the issue youexistence we live in is pure illusion.
just brought up.It truly is possible to be in this world, but not of it. To be
Intellectually wondering what life would be like without“not of it” means to not be sourced in the
an ego, while STILL coming from a place of ego willdomain of duality, of ego. Rather, it means to be
not work. You can’t transcend duality throughsourced in the energy of your higher spiritual self. From
duality. You have to reach Oneness by going tothis place and ONLY from this place can you truly
Oneness, not by going through the world of illusion.come to know (as opposed to merely knowing about)
Living in this world is like dreaming while you’rethe realm of Oneness, to truly experience Unconditional
asleep. When you’re asleep, everything feels realLove towards One and All, towards everyone and
and you know it to be so. You can’t say this is justeverything you meet.
a dream because you have nothing to compare it to.To know and to know about are two totally different
things. To know you must experience. To know about
It is only when you wake up that you can look back atyou can read about or hear about, but until you
the dream and accurately determine that it was all aexperience, you will not know.
dream, all a made up illusion in your mind.So, let’s experience it.
This life we live in is the SAME thing. In order toIt is only from the place of being completely beyond
experience it as a dream, to see the world of illusionego that you will realize that the ego is truly is not
as illusion, you have to first WAKE UP and then oncenecessary for survival. It must be surrendered
you have awakened, look back at the dream andeventually.
identify it as such.Yes, the individualized “you” that exists right now
You don’t need the ego to survive. The idea thatwill die with that happens. The dream will “die”
you do is one of its BIGGEST lies. It’s sourced inwhen you awaken, yet you will realize that nothing real
the ego’s fear of death.actually ceased to exist. Quite to the contrary, you will
You know that leaving your hand in a fire will lead itrealize that you always have been, always are, and
getting burned. There is a caution system built into thealways will be. And even more accurately, because
body so that it protects itself. The ego is what takestime is an illusion, you simply are.
this caution and spins it into worry, guilt, regret, andThe real you is simply asleep, but You can not die. You
anxiety, basically neurotic fear in the past and future.can either be asleep or awake.
You can have awareness of bacteria so you washTime to wake up.
your hands before you eat. You acknowledge it, dealThanks for your question.