“Remember, spirit is free when it is neutral. When you build up a charge, whether positive or negative, it engages and becomes whatever it engages with. This means that when you decide to engage in a desire, you charge your inner spirit energy. The desire of wanting to bring something to you has an attractive (+) charge, the desire to avoid something has a repelling (-) charge. If you choose to disengage your energy and consciousness from a desire, you return to neutral. Neutrality is ‘the straight and narrow way’ referred to by Jesus; Buddha called it ‘The Middle Path.’”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer: Discovering and Fulfilling Your Soul’s Purpose”
According to Tamura, neutrality is so important that he dedicates an entire chapter to it in his book “You Are the Answer.” In order to explain it, he first presents what the ego is, because neutrality lies “beyond the ego.” His definition of the ego stems from a profound transpersonal experience in which he went through the stages of ego formation through the lens of the soul’s evolution (an experience it took him eight years to understand and articulate).
“In the last chapter, we outlined the stages of ego formation, and we reclaim our neutrality in the reverse order of that. Energetically, the ego forms as layers of defensive protection around its pain of isolation, much like the layers of nacre that the oyster secretes around the pain-causing grit to create the beautiful pearl. The bigger the pain, the more layers of protection and the ‘bigger’ the ego. Like the beautiful pearl, the ego’s pain is in the center and the luster is on the outside.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
The pain at the centre of the ego-pearl is the pain of the soul’s separation from the primal Source. That is why, at its core, the ego is nothing more than the protective layers that provide security and a sense of identity to the small piece of consciousness that has become detached from “the unmanifested God.” Accordingly, the path of this now-individualized consciousness back to “the manifested God” passes through the stages of ego formation in reverse order.
“When we live as our ego, we project expectation, judgment, and blame onto others. We are in competition and effort. So the first step in growing our neutrality is to reverse that impulse of projecting out. We must bring the focus of our attention away from others as ‘cause’ and back into our inner being and purpose.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
People interested in psychology and self-knowledge know how crucial it is to become aware of our projections. Projections are the filter through which we distort our perception of the world. They are the reason some people see a bottle as half empty and others as half full. They shape the way we interpret reality and construct our personal narrative about it. A helpful way to shift the focus from outside to inside is to ask: “What does this thing from the external world that evokes strong emotions mean to me?” The answer brings us back to ourselves, because the psychic value of that “thing” lies within us, not outside of us.
The second step in peeling away the layers of the ego-pearl is to give up the mindset of competition and the efforts associated with it:
“The more effort you’re in, the more you’re caught in the ego’s web of illusions. In spirit, there is no effort. But the outer surface of every layer of the ego-pearl is hardened with effort and competition. So, for the next step in growing our neutrality, we need to step out of the layers of effort and competition…
To get back on track with spirit and your soul purpose, you must get out of effort. And getting out of effort means getting out of competition…
Competition in life invalidates spirit. It divides you against yourself. Whether you decide that you are better than others or that they are better than you, it comes from the same place: you cannot be who you are, where you are, what you are, or how you are…
When you’re in competition with anyone, you can’t be present and you can’t fully incarnate, so you can’t fulfill your soul purpose. In competition, you can get better and better in something, but you don’t grow spiritually. Only when you can be true to yourself can you grow and fulfill your destiny.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
This explains why Tamura presents the ego as protective layers around our innermost essence, which has forgotten its divine origin. This essence seeks value outside itself and clings to external forms in order to define who it is. It also explains why enlightened individuals describe the ego as an illusion and speak of reality as One.
The third step in dissolving the ego’s protective layers is freeing ourselves from expectations and judgments:
“Beneath the layers of effort and competition in the ego-pearl, you will find layers of expectation and judgment. We create expectations to avoid the condemnation and pain of judgment. And we try to escape the pain of unfulfilled expectations and unworthiness by incarcerating ourselves in judgment. Judgment is what you blame your pain on; expectation is what you hope will relieve it. Judgments hold you in the past and expectations keep you in the future.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
According to Tamura, we move through this layer by seeking the source of our value in what we are doing in the present. Even inactivity or suffering becomes meaningful when seen in the context of the process it serves. When our worth no longer depends on who we might become in the future, but rests in who we are now, we move closer to neutrality.
Behind the last protective layer lies the pain around which the ego-pearl first formed. This is why the most intense emotional reactions are found there:
“Stripping away the layers of effort and competition, and expectations and judgments, we begin to find the underlying emotional turbulence of the ego personality.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
What helps most in moving beyond this turbulence and connecting with neutrality is the attitude: “Whatever happens, happens.” This loosens our swinging between emotional extremes and allows us to witness experience without clinging to or rejecting it.
“Neutrality, on the other hand, is never for or against anything. It is detached awareness. And awareness, by its very nature, does not ignore. When ego asks, ‘Whose side are you on?’ spirit’s answer is always, ‘There are no sides, but only oneness of being.’
So, to choose spirit and to fulfill your soul purpose, you must choose wholeness, which includes the movement of polarities, not attached to one side or another. When you really get down to that level of the ego, you’ll find that the whole universe is all energies with positive, negative, and neutral charges interacting with each other and that you are in the center of it, experiencing it all without engaging in any of it.”
Michael Tamura, “You Are the Answer”
In summary, the path toward freedom and neutrality unfolds through four movements:
- withdrawing projections from the outer world;
- releasing competition, comparison, and effort;
- letting go of judgments and expectations that bind us to past and future;
- finding the innermost impartial centre from which emotions can be observed without identification, guided by the attitude “Whatever happens, happens.”
Much spiritual literature speaks about “liberating ourselves from the ego” or defeating it as the soul’s enemy. I disagree with this view, which is why Tamura’s perspective feels psychologically precise and humane. He does not propose fighting the ego, but understanding it as a vulnerable core protected by many layers of defence.
This understanding allows us to look neutrally at the part of us that prevents neutrality. Instead of attacking our ego-defences, we direct attention toward the fragile centre they protect. As this centre grows stronger, the need for defence naturally fades. What transforms vulnerability into strength is no longer running from pain. The ego defends itself against pain. Through presence (Eckhart Tolle) and acceptance – “whatever happens, happens” – resilience grows and fear of being hurt dissolves. The ego’s defensive structures loosen on their own.
And one day, vulnerability turns into invulnerability. The naked snail acquires the firmness of the philosopher’s stone, and the much-maligned ego becomes the gold of a completed individuality.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
