You have done the work. Years of it. The meditation retreats, the plant ceremonies, the therapy, the shadow work, the forgiveness practices, the fasting, the breathwork, the vision quests. You have shed layers of conditioning that most people will carry to their graves. No, really.You have faced pain that would have broken someone less committed. You have wept, raged, surrendered, and been reborn more times than you can count. And now something new has taken up residence where the old conditioning used to live. Something that feels like clarity. Something that feels like truth. Something that feels like you have arrived.
That something is the spiritual ego. And it is the most dangerous identity you will ever construct - precisely because it is built from genuine experience.
Palo santo has been used for centuries to clear negative energy and invite in the sacred. *(paid link)* But here's the thing - burning some wood doesn't make you enlightened. I've seen people wave that shit around like it's a magic wand, thinking they're clearing their chakras while their spiritual ego runs the whole damn show. The irony is thick. You're using sacred tools to perform your enlightenment instead of actually doing the work. The Shipibo shamans who taught me about palo santo would laugh their asses off at how we've turned their medicine into spiritual theater. Know what I mean? They'd watch some white dude in yoga pants ceremonially lighting his stick before posting about it on Instagram and just shake their heads. These guys burn palo santo like we drink coffee ~ casually, without fanfare, because it's just part of life. Not some big spiritual production. The real medicine isn't in the smoke. It's in sitting with your bullshit long enough to see it clearly, which most of us avoid like the plague.
The regular ego - the one that cares about status, money, appearance, social approval - that ego is relatively easy to see through. Its motivations are transparent. Its emptiness is obvious to anyone who has done even basic self-inquiry. You can watch it grasp, watch it perform, watch it attach to outcomes, and you can name it: that is ego. I am not that. And you are right - you are not that. But here's the thing that'll fuck with your head: the identity that says I am not that is itself a new identity. And it is often more rigid, more defended, and more impervious to examination than the one it replaced. The spiritual ego doesn't just want success - it wants to be beyond wanting success. It doesn't just want to be special - it wants to be beyond the need to be special. See the trap? This new identity has all the same psychological drives as the old one, but now it's wrapped in enlightenment language and spiritual concepts that make it nearly impossible to catch. You can't use the same tools that worked on the regular ego because this one has already incorporated those tools into its defense system.
How the Spiritual Ego Forms
The spiritual ego forms in the gap between genuine experience and the identity constructed around that experience. You have a real awakening experience - a moment of non-dual awareness, a dissolution of the separate self, a direct encounter with the infinite. That experience is real. It happened. It changed you. And then - because the mind cannot tolerate experiences without converting them into identities - you begin to build a self around the experience. I am awakened. I am evolved. I am conscious. I have transcended what others have not. This happens so fast you don't even notice it. One minute you're floating in pure being, the next you're mentally rehearsing how you'll explain this to people. The mind swoops in like a fucking vulture and starts collecting trophies. It takes the most sacred experience of your life and turns it into a resume bullet point. Know what I mean? The very thing that showed you the illusion of the separate self becomes the foundation for a new, supposedly superior separate self. It's like using dynamite to build a bomb shelter - completely missing the point while making everything worse.
The moment you have constructed this identity, you have lost the very thing the experience was pointing toward. Because the experience of awakening is the dissolution of identity. Period. And the spiritual ego is the reconstruction of identity using the materials of dissolution. It's like melting down gold to make fool's gold. Think about that. It is the most sophisticated f I remember a workshop in Denver where a client, after months of breathwork and shaking, looked me dead in the eye and said, “I’m afraid this new calm is just me playing, not me being.” That hit hard. I’d spent years untangling my own nervous system’s chaotic wiring, only to realize the ego was cozying up in the quiet, dressing up as clarity. That moment was a brutal reminder: the spiritual ego doesn’t announce itself; it sneaks in on the backs of our breakthroughs. I’ve sat with Amma, heart cracked open, feeling the fierce love roll through me like fire and water at once. It stripped away every layer I thought was my progress until I was just raw presence—and then the ego whispered, “Ha, got you.” Even after 30 years, ten thousand readings, and countless dark nights, the spiritual ego still tries to fool me. It’s a relentless shadow that thrives on pride dressed as humility. You learn to spot it not in your thoughts but in how your body tightens or numbs when you dare to be honest.orm of self-deception available to human consciousness - using genuine spiritual insight as raw material for a new and improved version of the very illusion the insight was meant to dissolve. The spiritual ego doesn't just resist truth... it weaponizes truth. It takes the very medicine that was supposed to cure the disease and turns it into a more potent strain of the same damn virus. This is why spiritual people can be the most insufferable assholes you'll ever meet. They've turned their awakening into armor. Seriously. Explore more in our healing hub guide.
Nisargadatta Maharaj's I Am That is one of the most direct and powerful pointers to truth ever recorded. *(paid link)* The guy didn't mess around with flowery spiritual language or comfortable platitudes. He'd sit in that tiny room in Mumbai and just demolish every spiritual concept you thought you needed. No cushioning the blow. When someone would come to him with their elaborate spiritual theories or their collection of mystical experiences, he'd cut through it all like a hot knife through butter. "You are not what you take yourself to be" - that's it. That's the whole teaching right there, and everything else is just commentary.
I see this constantly. The meditator who has logged ten thousand hours on the cushion and uses it to feel superior to people who have not. The plant medicine veteran who collects ceremonies like trophies and subtly ranks their spiritual depth against others. The yoga teacher whose humility is a performance so polished it has become its own form of pride. The non-dual student who uses the language of emptiness to avoid emotional engagement - who hides behind there is no self whenever someone asks them to be accountable for their behavior. Hell, I've been every single one of these people at different points. The breathwork facilitator who name-drops their lineage and teachers like spiritual street cred. The mindfulness coach who can't handle feedback without launching into a lecture about projection. Know what I mean? It's fucking insidious because it wears the costume of wisdom. These people - and again, I include myself here - have genuinely touched something real, something deeper. But then the ego swoops in like a vulture and turns even that authentic experience into another way to be special, another layer of separation disguised as unity.
The Signs You Cannot See in Yourself
The spiritual ego is uniquely resistant to detection because it has co-opted the very tools meant to detect it. Self-inquiry? The spiritual ego will perform self-inquiry. Mindfulness? The spiritual ego will be mindful of its own mindfulness. Surrender? The spiritual ego will surrender with such grace that the surrender itself becomes a display of spiritual accomplishment. It's like trying to catch a pickpocket who's also the police chief ~ every investigation just reinforces their authority. I've watched people sit in meditation for decades, becoming increasingly proud of their humility. Think about that. They've turned the absence of ego into the ultimate ego trophy. The spiritual ego doesn't just use these tools... it becomes them. It wears enlightenment like a designer suit, carefully tailored to look effortless. Paul explores this deeply in Forensic Forgiveness.
Here are the signs that the spiritual ego has taken the wheel, and I share them because I have personally exhibited every single one: You find yourself measuring your spiritual depth against others - subtly, silently, in ways you would never say aloud but that shape how you regard people. You feel a flash of irritation when someone less experienced offers you spiritual advice. You have a catalog of transcendent experiences and you reference them - even if only internally - as proof of your progress. You use spiritual language to deflect genuine emotional conflict: that is your projection, I am just being present, I have already released that. You confuse spiritual knowledge with spiritual realization. You have read extensively and can discuss non-duality with fluency, but your relationships are still a mess, your boundaries are still absent, your anger still leaks sideways.
If you are ready to face what is hidden, a shadow work journal provides the structure many people need to go deep. *(paid link)* Look, I get it ~ diving into your dark shit without guidance feels like trying to perform surgery on yourself with a butter knife. Most of us need some kind of framework to keep us honest when we're poking around in the messy corners of our psyche. A good journal doesn't just give you prompts. It holds space for the ugly truths you'd rather avoid. Think about that. Without structure, shadow work becomes either spiritual bypassing or endless self-flagellation. Neither gets you anywhere real.
The most reliable indicator is this: when someone mirrors back to you something you do not want to see, what happens? If genuine humility is present, you feel the sting and then get curious. If the spiritual ego is present, you feel the sting and then deploy a sophisticated spiritual defense. You explain why their perception is limited by their own unprocessed material. Hang on, it gets better.You invoke a higher perspective from which the criticism is irrelevant. You perform compassion for their inability to see what you see. And underneath all of it, you are furious - because the one thing the spiritual ego cannot tolerate is the suggestion that it is still an ego at all.
Dying to What You Think You Have Become
The dissolution of the spiritual ego is the hardest death on the path. Harder than the death of the social ego. Harder than the death of the achieving ego. Harder than the death of the relational ego. Because the spiritual ego is the last stronghold. It is the identity that forms after all other identities have been seen through - and it is made of the finest material. It is made of your real experiences, your real insights, your real devotion. It is not built on lies. It is built on truth - and then it turns that truth into a fortress. You might also find insight in Sai Baba Of Shirdi: Sufi Saint, Creator, Sustainer, And D....
The way through is not more practice. More practice will just feed the identity that is doing the practicing. Think about that. You sit there for another hour, recite another mantra, attend another retreat ~ and who's keeping score? The same ego that got you into this mess in the first place. It's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. The way through is a radical willingness to not know. To stand in the space where you cannot claim any spiritual accomplishment, any level of realization, any identity at all - and to let that emptiness be what it is without rushing to fill it with a new version of I know. This is fucking terrifying for the mind because it lives off knowing, off having something to hold onto. But here's the thing: that terror is exactly what you're looking for. It means you're getting close. The spiritual ego will throw everything it has at you to avoid this space - sudden insights, mystical experiences, anything to keep you from just sitting in pure not-knowing. You might also find insight in The Principle of Least Action and the Elegant Economy of ....
Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now remains one of the most important spiritual books of our time. *(paid link)*
Ramana Maharshi was asked by a devotee how to dissolve the ego. His answer was devastatingly simple: find out who is asking the question. Not as an intellectual exercise. As a lived investigation. Who is the one who claims to be spiritual? Who is the one who feels awakened? Who is the one who is reading this article right now, checking it against their own experience, measuring whether they have fallen into the trap I am describing? That one. Look at that one. Not with judgment. Not with the intention to destroy it. Just look. Because in the looking - in the pure, undefended, non-strategic looking - the spiritual ego cannot survive. It requires darkness to operate. It requires the unconsciousness of someone who does not know they are performing. The moment consciousness turns on itself with genuine curiosity, the performance collapses. And what remains is not nothing. What remains is what was always here before you started building identities on top of it. The ground. The silence. The Self that needs no spiritual accomplishment to be what it has always been. If this connects, consider an working with Paul directly.