Difference Between the Ego and the False Self

Bernadette Roberts

Carl Jung once pointed out that many people mistake the emergence of the ego for the emergence of the numinous or true self. I suspect, however, this is the way it goes for everybody. The ego-self can only be known in retrospect, but never at the time we are living it— or are it. When living it, the ego is the deepest, truest self we know - it is not our superficial or false self. This is why we go through a tremendous dark night when the ego falls away; the falling away of anything less would not result in a radical upheaval, change, or readjustment of the whole psyche. A false self, on the other hand, never falls away; it is only seen through for what it is. 

There is an enormous difference, then, between the ego and a false self. Failure to make these distinctions clear has led to many false notions regarding the authentic contemplative journey.

Path to No-Self, Footnote in Preface, page xi