Spiritual egotism is something that needs more awareness brought to it as it is a “trap” that many fall into, at one point or another, on their spiritual journey. I am a firm believer in “when you know better you do better”, but I also understand that you “don’t know what you don’t know” and by that, I mean, you don't know, what you haven’t experienced or what you don’t have an awareness of.
Your ego is your conscious mind, the part of your identity that you consider your “self”. This sense of self is what we use to distinguish or separate ourselves from others. The ego is also made up of a collection of beliefs and past experiences that influence how a person interacts with life. Spirituality is a path in which we move beyond or past the ego. Each of us has a “bridge” to cross on this journey should we choose to. On one end of that bridge is our ego and on the other end divine unity or oneness, as you may sometimes hear it referred to. This path requires one to practice open-mindedness, humility, and most importantly the willingness to be brutally honest with oneself. Often time shadow work is used to achieve these things.
(To understand more about the practice of shadow work check out this previous blog post https://www.childofbalance.com/post/hunting-shadows-healing-our-shadow-self)
But when spirituality is used to serve the ego instead of moving beyond it, the spiritual ego begins to take form.
What does it look like to be in spiritual ego?
There is a wonderful article: www.lonerwolf.com/spiritualnarcissist that goes very in depth into how the spiritual ego begins to form and it's something I highly recommend everyone take the time to read, but here is a short list of examples (there are many more in the article linked above) on how the spiritual ego can manifest itself:
Believing one’s connection with Source/Spirit/Creator is somehow deeper or more special than someone else’s.
A need to bring focus to how much more”spiritually evolved” one is to others
Believing oneself to be the reincarnation of a superior being
An unwavering belief in their own awakened perspective
Looking down on or judging “unawakened people” or people they claim “aren’t on their level”
Claiming access to special or exclusive knowledge that only they have
Low or no tolerance for others who question anything other than their beliefs
Although it may be easy to “spot” or identify these things in others, sometimes it can be more difficult to see them in ourselves. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to bring awareness to the spiritual ego because it has the ability to hinder and limit our growth. When we think that we “know all” or we have “no more healing to do” or we think we have reached our “final level”, we have in fact become so ego-based that we are actually disconnecting from the divine connection we sought out when we first began down this path.
So how do we make sure we are keeping that spiritual ego “in check”. One of the most important things is to make sure that you are doing that inner work. Inner work is made up of many things, but self-awareness, self-love, self-acceptance, mindfulness, and shadow work are HUGE pieces of that, that need to be practiced consistently. Try bringing awareness to and observing the ego without judging yourself (or others). The next time you are having a conversation or a discussion with someone and you find your immediate reaction is to become defensive, ask yourself “is this my spirit speaking or my ego speaking”. Letting go of your ego, in any form, requires that you truly want to know yourself and this is why there is always healing that needs to take place along your journey.