Ego Death: A Yogi's Personal Experience

For yogis, ego death can become a practice that helps bring about spiritual discoveries. For an unprepared person, a similar inner crisis can turn into a personal hell. The abundance of crises around us is pushing many people toward this experience.

What follows is my personal spiritual experience and a metaphorical model, not a medical diagnosis. If someone may harm themselves or others, loses touch with reality, or is in immediate danger, they need urgent professional help.

What I Mean by Ego Death

It is difficult to define the ego precisely, but an intuitive understanding is enough for this discussion. One sign of distress is a general dissatisfaction with oneself. When the ego is inflated, dissatisfaction may not be felt, yet the connection with reality gradually weakens. The more inflated it becomes, the less it relies on facts. Eventually it reaches a limit beyond which it can no longer grow.

The opposite process is also possible: the ego contracts under the weight of circumstances. In my experience, familiar psychological explanations were not enough. Returning to a traumatic experience without a sense of support can sometimes intensify the pain.

The Balloon Metaphor

People use language to create images. To describe the ego, I use the metaphor of a balloon that either expands or contracts. The balloon contains emptiness and, by changing its boundaries, shows the outside world how much of that emptiness it holds. We often describe a person with an inflated ego as an "empty person."

In fact, this emptiness exists in all of us. Some people hide it by shrinking the ego; others put it on display.

A person cannot exist in an absolute vacuum, so the inside of the balloon can be imagined as smoke. It moves and curls into strange shapes from which consciousness creates images. Emptiness remains emptiness, but we choose to find things in it that resemble objects from reality, just as we see animals and objects in the outlines of clouds.

Inner and Outer Pressure

Pressure always acts on the walls of the balloon, both from within and from outside. When these forces are balanced, a person gains stability. When external pressure is stronger, stability is lost. When inner pressure prevails, we say that the personality is growing. Normally, the forces eventually return to balance.

If they do not, the ego balloon bursts and the personality falls apart. Inner emptiness, in the form of smoky images, escapes outward. A person begins to lose themselves. Consciousness can no longer distinguish between external and internal images because they have mixed together and are circling all around.

Yogis work with altered states of consciousness that allow phenomena to be observed as external. Most people do not have that preparation. Consciousness, confused within reality, reaches for something familiar in order to regain support. Yet only fragments of the former balloon remain, and consciousness clings to them.

The closer it comes to the remains of the lost personality, the stronger the gravity of the dead ego becomes. At a certain point, an unbearable feeling appears: "I cannot endure this anymore."

When a Minute Feels Like Eternity

To consciousness, our existence can look like an endless process of overcoming obstacles. When we succeed, we feel uplifted. When an obstacle is stronger, we become upset, gather our strength, and try again or look for another route.

We constantly have to endure something, but our endurance is not unlimited. Everyone has their own limits. Normally, the feeling of "I cannot do this anymore" does not last long. During ego death, a person may feel that it will never end. A minute feels like eternity. No external torment is required; being left alone with one's own pain is enough.

How to Help Someone Close to You

My main recommendation is not to let the situation reach its limit. To be honest, I still do not fully understand how I found my own way out, even with my knowledge of yoga.

If someone close to you is going through something similar, do not leave them alone. Help them contact professional support and create a calm, safe environment. Bring their attention back to what is alive and harmonious: the sky, trees, human presence, and simple everyday actions.

How to Reduce the Pressure

It is important to reduce excessive pressure and change focus. Journeys through created realities, such as films and books, can sometimes help fill the inner emptiness with new images.

We have an illusion of complete control over life. Judging from the number of astrological charts I have studied, we do not possess such control. Reality exists by itself. We are guests here, not its managers.

When the inner space is filled with new impressions, resisting external pressure becomes easier and stability returns. The ego balloon grows again: its death is not permanent. A scar may remain in the soul, but it too can heal over time.

If the situation is reversed and the ego burst under inner pressure, the recommendation is different: spend less time in virtual worlds and pay more attention to reality, especially to its harmony.

Good is not when there is a lot, but when there is enough.