Hello all, I think it’s time for me to introduce the concept of ego intoxication, since that’s what most of us are actually looking for when we say we want to be happy. The following is an excerpt from my book manuscript, Ego Rehab:
Ego Intoxication
Here’s another interesting phenomenon I touched on before. It’s when you think you’re in a state of joy but it’s actually ego intoxication!
Yes, Little Bitch sometimes gets me drunk, and it’s not from alcohol. You see, most of us are closet ego addicts looking for our next ego high. Ego intoxication is that feeling of happiness or accomplishment when you get something you wanted. But as all the spiritual teachers will tell you, this happiness is fleeting and not real.
So, the question is how do you differentiate between true joy and ego intoxication?
True joy could also be called joie de vivre—the joy of living or the joy of Being—and does not depend on external objects or validation. Which brings us back again to the emptiness of wanting. Form-associated happiness is temporary. The thrill of receiving a package in the mail—one of those late-night online impulse purchases, for example. Sometimes the thrill lasts only as long as opening the box, then you’re already on Amazon again ordering your next splurge! Or the thrill may last until the newness of the thing wears off, like my $600 Japanese toilet seat. A couple months in and it’s not that exciting anymore. A bigger purchase like a house or a car will keep us “happy” a little longer but none of it is permanent or true joy.
Eckhart Tolle says true joy is the absence of desire. Michael Bernard Beckwith says, “Happiness is our true nature.” He advises us to make sure we’re pursuing authentic happiness and not its shadow “pseudo pleasure.” That’s the ego intoxication I’m talking about! He also asserts the ego is driven by “exaggerated self criticism interspersed with waving pom-poms of ‘you did it, you hot thing you!’” If your inner voice is telling you how great you are, you can be sure it’s your ego! Being/Soul/Awareness/Consciousness doesn’t try to pump you up with flattery—or put you down, for that matter. When you’re rooted in Being, there’s a background peace that doesn’t need acknowledgment or validation to exist. In fact, you don’t even have to look for it, just open to it.
And if you’re on the path of awakening, Adyashanti warns not to chase bliss. Bliss is a by-product of awakening, he says, not awakening itself.
Ego “joy” is always short lived and leads to a feeling of emptiness. It’s that childish feeling of “Yay! I got what I wanted!” or, like the previous example, “I’m such hot stuff!” Sometimes it depends on someone else being unhappy so that you can be happy. Little Bitch loves to one-up people. That’s why she hangs out on Facebook and other social networks so much. There’s always more to prove and show off in Ego Land! This can also sneak in as a feeling of false empowerment, which is actually a form of superiority. “I’m special or better than them because I got so and so or achieved so and so.”
There’s another interesting phenomenon that I would put under this header as well. Eckhart Tolle calls it “God Intoxication,” from the Sufi term mast-Allah. It’s apparently more common, or at least more commonly identified, in Asian countries. He gives the example of crazy “god intoxicated” people, masts, who wander around in the Middle East and India. They’re immature vehicles who’ve been overwhelmed by higher consciousness coming in. Too much download too fast! They weren’t ready. In the West, they would probably end up in a mental institution (and he says there are likely many in these places).
A friend recently forwarded me an article about just this: “‘Travelers who were lost forever’: why tourists experience ‘India syndrome’” in the Guardian. According to the article, there’s a certain percentage of travelers to India who are forever changed – and not in a good way. They go a little crazy, and not necessarily from drug use. They’re generally young spiritual seekers who probably just got too much divine insight too soon or too fast. Circuit overload!
My guess is the ego is so strong and clinging to its old belief system that when the crack opens up and higher consciousness comes in like a lightning bolt, there’s such a disturbance within and frenzy to regain control that the ego explodes! All that’s left is the blown-out sedan—the frazzled, disconnected, empty, crazy-talking ego shell. Which in the West looks like: OMG, you cray-cray, need be locked up!
Image by Freepik
