"Ego Death" and Objectivity       by Steve Gunn 

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It's long been a core issue of what is often referred to as "ego death" that prior to experiencing it we can't imagine anyone being able to work only from objectivity, and if they claim they do we naturally assign their words and actions that they are only considering that they can work from an objective place.





Well this is the ultimate paradox, that is, until we ourselves have tried the practises, worked the disciplines, and found that place, we can't imagine it.

Many times I've seen the statement that every human is trapped permanently within their personal opinion and experience, and often heard this from people with considerable knowledge of the human state, particularly those people trained in psychology.

When people trained in many of the classical techniques do achieve the objective state - there's often considerable conflict because the model they've been taught is that they couldnt have achieved an impersonal objective viewpoint ...and yet they have it, a view outside of what they used to consider "self'..

Ego death doesn't mean we suddenly lose the subjective processes of opinion or viewpoint, it simply means we detach from, see outside of it, and clearly see how we tended to personalize things, and how we react from personalization of certain emotions and triggers.

The ego-death part is that we gain a view and see these things as they are, the opinions, judgments, reactions and perceptions that are from individual subjective and emotional / experiential response and we detach from them..



I don't suppose there's a human being who wouldnt like to lose some of the pains of taking things personally, being hurt, rejection and other things that come from the ego state.

Often i hear people say "ah but i don't want to stop feeling". The truth is you don't stop feeling at all, you just feel whats real not emotionally react to triggers from old wounds, personal percetions and learned responses...



To anyone wondering about it all I would say is try it, its the foundation of so much of the real deep spiritual practises and even the act of learning some of the disciplines can be very empowering.

Like most worthwhile things it does take discipline, and a lot of it - this is not learning a new way of thinking its some hard core work but i would respectfully suggest something thats worth giving a try for the benefit of your personal peace and calm.


Once attaining the state theres a calm and peace and objectivity thats so peaceful you wont ever want to go back. Things that once confused often don;t and thats not always because we suddenly have the answer but often because we realized that we were asking th wrong question or that we couldn't actually find an answer at that point but the subjective mind coulnd;t accept tha tand so it produced latyer after layer of constructs or "what if", all which served to stress us out.

Achieving the 'ego death' state doesn't mean that people will suddenly say "Oh look s/he is being objective", in fact far from it, they will be guaranteed to say "ah that's just your opinion" and test your detachment even more..but heck ya can't have everything huh...

Or maybe that's just my opinion huh... Steve