We are living in troubled times and a change in fundamental orientation and consciousness is clearly required. One crucial way to effect such a transformation, we believe, is to begin to shift our essential identity from the ego to the soul. These are both difficult terms to pin down and have varying interpretations. Our own position draws on a number of perspectives, primarily that of the contemplative core of the axial religions, western psychotherapy / psychology and contemporary integrative philosophy.
With regards to ego, the spiritual traditions have tended to view it negatively, something that needs to be transcended. Western psychotherapy / psychology, however, generally sees the building of a mature, differentiated ego, an individuated sense of self, as a necessary developmental process. And in philosophy there is a general critique of the philosophical discourse of modernity, which rests on the notion of an atomistic rational autonomous ego pitted against others and the world, with detrimental consequences. As to the soul, the materialist mechanistic philosophy that underpins modernity dismisses it out of hand, while the axial religions, in both their exoteric and esoteric aspects, have interpreted it in a number of different ways.
The new axial vision tries to make sense of these varying interpretations as follows. It takes a tripartite view of human beings, seeing them as being constituted by a false self (ego), an evolving self (embodied personality), and a deep self (soul). It argues that if we define the ego as a separate sense of self, an atomistic sense of ‘I’ness separate from other ‘I’s and the world, then it is indeed false and illusory – just as the spiritual traditions and a fair number of philosophical positions hold. This sense of separate self needs to be distinguished from the evolving self (or ’embodied personality’ in metarealist terms), which is obviously real and contains the illusory ego. This is what western psychology and psychotherapy sometimes refers to as the ego – hence the confusion. It is something that undergoes a developmental process, consists of myriad parts and requires structuring, nurturing and healing.
Finally, humans possess a deeper self or true nature, which the spiritual traditions call the True Self, the philosophy of metaReality calls the ground-state, internal family systems (IFS) therapy calls Self, and which we could also call the soul. It possesses a number of qualities that include creativity, love and the capacity for right action (metarealism), or compassion, clarity, calm and curiosity (IFS), and is uniquely expressed in each individual. This essence and its qualities have been arrived at variously through transconceptual insight (spiritual traditions), philosophical deduction (metarealism) and empirical investigation (IFS).
Our Foundational Programme – Axial 2.0: From Ego to Soul – explores the notions of ego and soul in greater detail and offers a general practice that facilitates a shift in identity from the former to the latter. To do so, it draws on the wisdom of the Axial Age and the contemplative core of the axial religions, the findings of modern science, the insights of contemporary integrative philosophy and metatheory and the interventions of modern therapy and psychotherapy.