Now that my twin and I have been in union for a few years, we can more clearly see what many of the obstacles to union are. Before union, we were confused about what union is.
The twin flame community and other spiritual communities are full of advice from people who are not in union yet are advising on how to go into union. It doesn’t make much sense, but it goes on, and it is often related to the spiritual ego phase of the journey to awakening. Some that are not in union have incredible insight and are very much on track with their advice but, from what I see, the majority are not and are giving bad advice. Go with your heart and what resonates above all else when taking advice from anyone on how to navigate the path to union.
We are currently working on a book to help shed more light on what we view are the obstacles to union for twin flames and others who are simply seeking Truth to find their way out of suffering. We hope that this book might help people see through blockages they might be blind to that are delaying union.
Your Awareness itself is the cleanser to help clear blockages. You have the power within you to move through these things. But if you don’t know what they are or where they could potentially be hiding, you cannot see them so they can clear. You cannot clean a dirty window if you can’t see the dirt.
One of the main blockages to union is the spiritual ego that often develops while people are going down the spiritual path as insights begin to flow in.
To understand what the spiritual ego is, you must understand
what the ego is first.
What is the ego?
The ego is not an entity.
The ego is a set of ideas, stories, and beliefs that the mind adheres to.
These stories, ideas, and beliefs are what block us from perceiving the full nondual Truth. The first idea within Consciousness being the identification with the “I” thought, as in “I am separate from everything else.” I wrote more about what Consciousness is here: https://zeropointshamanism.com/what-is-consciousness/
Once that separate identification idea was formed, other false layers began to grow on top of that first false idea. These layers are what build up our conditioning. Our past conditioning is what we must willing to go back into so we can see through it all to the origin, which is the nondual Truth. If you use meditation and/or deep self-inquiry on your spiritual path, truths will be revealed to you the further you go along until the full nondual Truth makes itself known.
The spiritual awakening process is an unlearning process.
It is not about taking on more layers of ideas; it is about seeing through them all so they can fall away into the full Light of
Truth and dissolve there.
The full nondual Truth is what we are Awakening to, and it exists underneath all of these layers of ideas. Ideas, stories, and beliefs create separation and division. They divide what is inherently Whole. We will go more in-depth into this in our book. But I wanted to introduce this idea of the spiritual ego for those who may be caught up in it at this very moment and who could easily see through it and move out of it and closer to union. I want to help people untangle themselves from it before it gets out of hand and causes even more delays and further suffering.
What is the spiritual ego?
The spiritual ego is a set of ideas, spiritual in nature, that the ego/mind has taken in and has yet to see through. It is a new layer of ideas that have been built up, more often than not, to help the ego feel more special, unique, or better than others in some way. It can also work in the other direction.
Someone can be telling themselves ideas related to being inferior to others in some way. It works both ways. These are all false ideas. All that is going on when the spiritual ego develops is that more layers of division are being created that are taking one further away from the nondual Truth.
It should be noted that when I am referring to the ego, I am referring to the mind. They are the same thing.
For the full nondual Truth to be known and lived in, one must see through their past conditioning, and this includes all ideas they carry with them that help to create separation. Ideas like I am higher or lower, I am better or worse, or I am more advanced or less advanced. These are all ideas that keep false separation firmly intact.
The Spiritual Ego is A Natural Development Along The Spiritual Path
It is quite natural for a spiritual ego to begin to develop as spiritual insight, glimpses into Truth or openings occur within the mind due to the mind looking at itself. It is part of the unraveling and digesting process of the mind during the spiritual journey into Truth. It becomes a problem when we get stuck in these ideas that make up the spiritual ego. All it does is delay union the longer we stay stuck there. And in the spiritual communities, twin flames included, more are stuck there than not.
Some people have built up such a large spiritual ego that they have amassed many blind followers, which further perpetuates the ego’s stories. These people are not yet in union with Truth, but they have had certain insights or glimpses into Truth. Because of those brief openings, which were only limited experiences and not the full Truth yet, they talk a good talk, and they may even sound like they are awake. They sound like they are awake only to those who are not yet awake. But they are far from being awake. They are still living in ideas of separation. They may have even entered the Oneness state, and while this is a much more open seeing than the previous perception, it is a deceptive state because it feels like you are fully awake when there is still further to go. There is still some mind to see through in the Oneness state. And those that are not in union themselves cannot differentiate who is in union with Truth and who isn’t. So it all gets very confusing for people. It becomes the blind leading the blind. And what ends up happening is that the ego gets even further blown up and union further delayed.
I was very confused about all of this before union, and I know I started to develop a spiritual ego as insights came through the more the mind digested the mind. But all these things that were beginning to take root were, in the end, seen through, and they fell away too so the full Truth could be known and lived in.
We can even get very caught up in psychic experiences. Psychic experiences, although very exciting to the ego, are still limited experiences and not the full Truth. I wrote more about that subject as it pertains to Kundalini here: https://www.quora.com/When-do-Siddhis-begin-to-develop-with-regards-to-Kundalini/answer/Amy-Bergh-1
Throughout my journey, the mind attempted to re-root itself many times until a full settling into nonduality (Truth) finally occurred. It is easy for one to get caught up in more ideas as they unravel because the mind is always looking to analyze as that is its nature. The mind is extremely good at tricking us into keeping ideas at the forefront of our awareness and locked onto them instead of allowing them to all disappear into the perfection of the silent and still Truth. The mind is the master deceiver. It is what, I believe, Jesus was pointing to when he was talking about the devil. It is all just ego/mind. It is the darkness within us, all of us, that needs to be seen through so that God or pure Light (nondual Truth) can finally blow it fully out.
We are all demons, and we are all angels. We are the fallen angel until we wake up fully into our angelic Home or Heaven, which is union with Truth. None of us is immune to falling prey to the mind’s tricks and deception. But it is Self-deception.
The first thing the ego will feel when it suddenly realizes it is developing or has developed a spiritual ego is that it will feel shame. Shame is only the ego judging itself. So there is another story there being created that needs to be moved through. The mind is very sophisticated. Its life-breath comes from creating new ideas. It cannot understand Truth. Truth is too subtle and simple for it to understand. That is why even when it has a taste of it, it immediately covers it with ideas as it attempts to analyze the seeing and make sense of it.
Truth is what created the mind in the first place. The devil could not exist without God. Darkness was born from light. The mind must dissolve more fully before Truth naturally breaks through and blows the remaining darkness out. All darkness will eventually be absorbed by infinite Light.
Awakening Into Truth
We could not get away from this process of Awakening into Truth if we tried. We are all on a journey to it. We can delay it, but we cannot get away from it. We all crave more happiness and freedom, which is our birthright, and that is what falling into Truth naturally brings. We are pulled to it by the nature of what we are. Pure Light is us. Our hearts, our built-in compass, pull us towards it as long as we are not shutting our hearts down with the mind.
Shame is not necessary. Only more Awareness is necessary to move out of this temporary spiritual ego phase that might be developing. Shame only causes the ego to go into further hiding and create more complex ideas to shroud itself in. Shame does not feel good, so the ego will immediately create more stories to try and justify actions, and it will attempt to live through those stories. Attempt to see through all stories your mind creates and adheres to.
In the end, all stories need to be seen through for the Nondual Truth to naturally emerge.
As more stories are seen through, the mind will grow more porous as the Light of Truth begins to filter in. The Light of Truth is helping to blow out all stories so the full nondual Truth, where there is no separation, division, or darkness, can be fully known and lived in.
This is Home, and it is the origin of the mind/ego itself, and it is the ground of being. It is infinite peace and clarity. It is you, your true
Self, without all the false mental layers in the way of it. It is your unlimited Self before the mind took over and created transient/limiting ideas.
It is nondual. It is not two or more than two, not even one. The closest label for it is zero. Once this infinite space is fully settled into, the mind cannot cover over it any longer. Why? Because at this stage, the mind has fully seen through itself, and it can no longer take itself seriously after
that. The mind/ego and all of its ideas burn up on contact when propped up against the Light of Truth.
Light always wins over darkness. The mind will still exist after full Awakening into nondual Truth; it will just be seen through.
In the end, we are not the ego or the mind. We are that which is aware of it. We are the Light that reflects it.
On the spiritual path, the ego always believes it is ascending. But the ego cannot ascend. It can only be seen through. As mentioned before, the ego is not an entity. It is a set of ideas and beliefs. Once fully seen through all perceptions and past experiences, melt into the full Light of Truth on contact. Here, all attachments and ideas have dissolved. Here you live in the world but also not in it. Time and space are also seen as limiting ideas/illusions. There is only the infinite Light. Everything else is mind play for the sake of experience.
This is what being in Union with Truth is. And if you are a twin flame, moving closer into this Light is where you are more likely to be pulled into a physical union with your twin. Some may even make it to union with their twin before this full seeing has occurred or is settled into. But the more you move towards it, the more likely it is you will move into union with your twin. Twins are naturally pulled together in this eternal Light, hence the phrase twin flame. They are pulled into it as the divine light begins to pour through the mind when the layers of past conditioning are seen through and fall away.
How To Stop The Spiritual Ego in Its Tracks
So if you feel like you have gotten caught up in the spiritual ego phase of the journey, it is all fine. Try not to worry too much about it. Now that you know what it is, you can see your way out of it. Know that it is completely natural and just another part of the waking up process for almost all of us. Some bypass it without going through it, but most do not. The key is not to get stuck there, as so many do. You don’t want to get stuck in the spiritual ego and amass a bunch of blind followers that only help to perpetuate it further. Because when you fall off that spiritual ego pedestal, which you likely will, you will be so high that the crash down will be agonizing. And when the spiritual ego gets really out of hand, people start doing things like serving up Guyana Punch at spiritual retreats. People end up getting hurt. In more ways than one. We don’t want things to go that far. So stop it before it grows more tentacles and creates more layers of illusions. Start attempting to see through it before it roots deeper within your mind. If you want union with Truth and the infinite peace that will bring, ignore all the stories the ego creates related to ideas of specialness that further sustain false separation and division.
By paying attention to the stories the mind is creating, you can quickly see and slip your way out of all illusions until they all dissolve. You must be willing to remain in a higher awareness state so you don’t get sucked into ideas that will delay union even further.
All ideas must be seen through. Even spiritual ideas.
Know that all ideas are boxes, and the Truth cannot be contained in any box. Ideas such as I am a twin flame, and that makes me higher or I am a Starseed or an Ascended Master and I am more spiritually advanced. These are the kinds of ideas that can keep union from naturally occurring. They keep the ego’s dark shadows in place. They are fun and entertaining for the ego for sure, and some rare few can use the terms and still see past them. But, in general, they are all about maintaining the ego’s reign in separation, and they have nothing to do with union with Truth. If you want infinite peace and happiness that does not waver, seek Truth above all else.
The world we live in is a world built by the ego and full of people looking for reasons to feel more special and prop themselves up against others. This is the nature of the duality of mind that has lost its Home. It is the fallen angel that lives in a constant state of insecurity (Hell), so it will always be seeking specialness due to that. To come fully out of it, it does not need new ideas or even “better” ideas or ideas that seem more “advanced.” What it needs is to see through ALL ideas so it can finally go Home and find the infinite peace, bliss, and clarity that endlessly flows there.
It needs to back through all ideas to find the root of the mind itself. This is going to the origin, and this is where true grounded peace and happiness are found. This peace and happiness are unchanging and permanent because it is not based on transient ideas to maintain it.
Truth is “the peace which passeth all understanding.”
In spiritual communities, while attempting to be spiritual and awaken, most are actually going in the opposite direction. Instead of looking for the root of the mind,they are creating more ideas and more separation within it. It is like looking for the root of a tree by playing in the branches and leaves. It makes no sense. It is part of the cosmic joke and why so many people laugh hysterically when they fully awaken. They see how ridiculous it all is and how easily they, too, got caught up in the illusions that kept them from the full Truth for a time.
In Truth, at our core, we are all Consciousness and all the same. There is no separation.
The trick to understanding the Mystery of existence here is an exposition that I hope may be ‘helpful:
The ALL interacts with itself through a limitation of itself, which is to say us: The Individuated Consciousness/es: US.
This is Consciousness creating an Appearance Only Duality, which basically is the manifestation of uncountable number of ‘physical’ beings in matter: The Individuated consciousness.
But note, no matter if Consciousness appears to be manifested in any relative reality such as our 3 D physical realm as us and animals,plants etc, all individuated consciousness/es are also simultaneously It-SELF that is to say their True Identity is the ONE Consciousnesses or to use a religious term Spirit. Thus humans are not bodies but spirits/ consciousness in their Essence.
So..The WAY the whole Mystery of existence in a sort of summery:
Through limitation, the ALL can become individualized, or else it would remain the ALL.
The All is ONE and it is STATIC/ Stillness with Infinite Potential.
Unless It/ He/ She divides itself in TWO / Duality it can not actuate it’s potential and thus can NOT know ITSELF.
So the Supreme contracts Itself and sends out from within itself , individuated souls or emanations to actuate his own infinite potential. This can be done only through experiencing ‘LIFE’ in a world of Contrast.
Such a world is ours, where everything is set to appear in Dual mode. It has to be so ,otherwise there is NO Experience.
Look at it this way…a White Canvas has No images but as soon as you make a mark, viola ..there ‘something’ shows up >> experience!
So all of us individuated consciousness who ‘live’ Life here on 3 d in our physical bodies in the Matrix or the relative reality are the images that are projected on the Grand /Ground Canvas which we Call Source or Supreme Being/ God etc.
Therefore the ‘problem’ of knowing Itself and actuating his own infinite potential is ‘solved ‘since the original Dilemma It had was while the Ground is Static now the Dynamic is ‘created’ and Moves and Experiences Life.
So let us note:
Thus in this WAY, we have the ALL and the Many at once meaning simultaneously: No Separation ever exists or could exist at all.
Multiplicities of individuated consciousness experience Life through the physical world, but yet all individuated consciousness who live in the Relative Reality ( Matrix/ Illusion) are all at all time connected with each other as well to the Higher Absolute Reality through the One Source of Consciousness ie their Source of Being The ALL the Supreme Consciousness, which is ONE without a Second.
One very important thing we need to realize:
Consciousness, or what we might term the primordial consciousness which interacts with itself to create individualized consciousness through space and time does indeed perpetuate itself,
because It Must.
What scientist have observed (indirectly) popping into and out of existence in what is almost a vacuum or VOID (there isn’t such a solid, or true manifested ‘thing’ as all what exists in the Universe is Sound and Vibration) is this creative process of consciousness.
And guess what?
It is eternal.
We may ask ourselves, what is the import of all of this type of ‘knowledge’?
Well.. to my understanding, we are to enjoy Life fully and accept EVERYTHING AS IS.
Because at the end of the ‘game’ Spirit and Matter ARE ONE.
As mentioned above, they are two sides of the same coin.
Whether we live life as ‘awakened’ or not awakened’ individuated consciousness ,..well..we are IT and IT is us. And Eternally So.
IMHO…No need to force ourselves or hurry to choose one state over another.
Especially not when there is no End to enlightenment /Evolution. God evolves through us. So let us all be ‘good sports’ play the game to the full, ..and one game program ends..well another will start up again.
So, awakening to our True Nature is cool, but only when the soul has had it’s fill of experience of Life in one setting and environment and is ready to ‘graduate’ on to the Next level.
I conclude by emphasizing: Spirit and Matter are One..Always and Forever: Eternally so!!
Hope this bit of info helps us all to stay grounded in What IS.
Thanks for reading
Yes, this is the way I perceive it as well. And to take it a step further, I view 3D, 4D, 5D, (whatever label people want to give the different perspectives in Consciousness) as really all the same because their is no separation. Consciousness is One. There are just different ideas for the mind to create from within that One Consciousness. Truth is very simple. It is the mind that makes it overly complex and keeps us in confusion for lifetimes. That is, until we go back through the layers of mind to see through all the ideas of separation(concepts, boxes, etc.). Thank you for the comments. 🙂
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I couldnt agree with you more and Im quite happy someone at last came out and said this. Thanks for the wisdom, Paul
Great article Amy .I needed this . Sometimes I feel like m high with spirit sometimes I feel very low. I was searching for something like this. Thank you so much…
Thank you, Neetu. Eventually you will find that perfect equilibrium that lies between high and low, yet is higher than any high could ever be. But it is stable. It is zero and it is what you truly are beyond the mind and emotions. It was always there, just hidden from view, covered over by mind. The mind pulls us in so many different directions. But the mind is not all we are. We are much, much more than that. Good luck to you. 🙂
Great article Amy – I’m fairly new to the journey and I have been astonished watching some self proclaimed “gurus” continually segment within the community. it can be very confusing in the early days of awakening. I went through a period of feeling special and chosen and as a result became quite preachy, whilst not knowing what I was actually preaching 🙂 So I think the book will be very well received.
Hi Liz, thank you for the comments. I appreciate it! I know it is so funny when we catch ourselves in that phase. I think it is fairly common and really nothing to be ashamed of, just seen through eventually, hopefully. Some people stay there for far too long, and it keeps the suffering in place when they could move beyond it. While going through the awakening process, my mind would re-root itself again and again. It took a long time for the full non-dual Truth settle in. The mind is so good at covering over it. Such a sophisticated trickster, always wanting to divide what is eternally Whole. 😊
EXCELLENT post! It really emphasizes the heart of the matter and unity.
Thank you, Grace! 🙂
Interesting article Amy. I agree with you, in general terms but it would have been useful to hear more specific examples of the spiritual ego in action as it pertains to the Twin Flame journey; not just in relation to the perceived ‘specialness’ of being a TF, but regarding the ideas and teachings within the community that you feel are detrimental to Union.
Hi Dany. Thank you for the comments. I did mention a few examples but I did not go too in-depth because of it being an article. We will likely go more in-depth in our book. But it is ideas such as people using the label Starseeds or Ascended Master or similar terms to place them at a higher level than others. It could very well be true from the ego/soul/identification perspective, but the problem with it is that from the non-dual perspective, it makes no sense at all. So we have to be willing to see beyond these limiting labels because people end up getting stuck in them. There is another one and this is the idea of twin flames being the 144,000. These are a bunch of ideas of higher vs. lower that keep false separation in place. These ideas only matter to the ego that seeks to keep separating itself from the Whole. I hope that makes sense.
I agree with Danys comment. I’d love to understand this in practical terms and understand how to actually break through and identify mind narrative.
For me, it was meditation and deep self-inquiry that was the route to see through mental stories. That is how I was able to eventually see through all the stories that the mind was attempting to stick to. Even stories of “specialness” are still stories and still keep suffering in place when compared to the full nondual Truth. Stories are boxes and they keep us from the ultimate freedom, which is freedom from all stories.