Awakened Quotations: Jed McKenna on “Ego”

“The process of awakening looks like it’s about destroying ego, but that’s not really accurate. You never completely rid yourself of ego—the false self—as long as you’re alive, and it’s not important that you do. What matters is the emotional tethers that anchor us to the dreamstate; that hold us in place and make us feel that we’re a part of something real. We send out energetic tendrils from the nexus of ego like roots to attach ourselves to the dreamstate, and to detach from it we must sever them. The energy of an emotion is our lifeforce, and the amount of lifeforce determines the power of the emotion. Withdraw energy from an emotion and what’s left? A sterile thought. A husk. In this sense, freeing ourselves from attachment is indeed the process of awakening, but such attachments aren’t what we have, they’re what we are.”

-Jed McKenna, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment