Death of Mental Maturity

Driven by a disease called "Expertism"

Apr 24, 2025

Yesterday on “World Book Day”1 I visited one of the oldest libraries (the Abbey of St Gall), which boasts a collection of some of the most ancient European books in an absolutely magnificent setting:

Looking at the artefacts and discovering facts I wasn’t aware of, my thoughts started to wander and I wondered whether in a few hundred years history would teach how the 20th century changed the meaning of the word “expertism” during its scientism decades into something like —

Expertism // The convenient desire to put someone else’s opinion above one’s own inner knowing.

What triggered my curiosity was a historical globe, depicting a spherical structure of our planet, which surprisingly had been documented much longer back than I originally thought.2

It became clear to me that the course of our recorded history actually hangs on a string of very few scriptures that survived different spiritual and worldly wars during which more than 98% (!) of written materials were destroyed — mental maturity and humanity clearly don’t go well with each other.

Luckily such maturity doesn’t have to come from the books we read or the things we consume, indeed it might have a completely different origin altogether.

Gods, the Death of Ego and the Rise of Self

I wrote extensively about realizing our potential, perfecting our performance, using rhythm and flow states etc. to maximize wisely utilizing our time here on Earth.

What I missed out on and what is the key factor for success or misfortune when applying any of the aforementioned concepts is addressing the elephant in the room: Ego.

One could argue a newborn doesn’t have as many attachments, pride and sense of ownership as we acquire during our adulthood and yes, we are born in this world without even the ability to hold our excretions, and (at least many of us) leave it in the same state.

In between of course we meet all sorts of “Gods” — our parents, teachers, best friends, the love(s) of our lives, (real and fake) spiritual Gurus, medical doctors and other people of authority that we accept to take instructions from either by force or simply because we trust, admire or look up to them.

Courtesy of our ability to analyze and compute the outcomes when following other people’s guidance, during the course of life we eventually learn to put these (good and bad) experiences in perspective.

However, we never look at the “Anti God” quite the same way — our Ego. It stands supreme, beyond any glimpse of a doubt, keeping ourselves in check. And yet it’s only when the ego dies, that the self rises, and with it, real mental maturity can begin.

Most of us are so busy with our day to day jobs, that we miss to recognize the things that really matter across the board, across our life.

When was the last time you’ve asked yourself where your Self begins and your Ego ends?

In fact, who is truly able to differentiate and question whether a desire or an opinion is born of ignorantly following an outer God or “expert”, is influenced by ego processed information, or truly comes from inner experience?

To distinguish, intelligence alone, clearly isn’t enough.

Real mental maturity demands from us the ability to not think of ourselves as a name (or what it stands for) and instead needs us to acquire the skill of experiencing oneself through the eyes of the world and the universe:

Or as Niko from Awakened Species who sent this clip from Jim Carrey puts it:

Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. The sooner you awaken to who you truly are, the sooner you can live in alignment with yourself.

Sustaining Mental Maturity

It doesn’t stop there. The challenge of sustaining mental maturity is that even if we think we’ve reached a certain point, it takes work to maintain such a state.

“Unthinking”, catching the difference between “being” and “feeling” (emotions), plus letting go of the many concepts we’ve derived from engaging in the world certainly all help, but like our ability to hold bodily liquids, mental maturity doesn’t stay in our life without making continuous effort.

So who are the saviours of mental maturity?

Those who challenge us.
Those who hear us after we challenge them.
Those who bear witness to help us see through the noise and enable us to focus our abilities inwards.

Then we can discover what was always there: the lack of ego and the rise of self, without our memories and emotions being trapped in our actions and perceptions.

Or, as Madālasā sings3 to her son in this beautiful song from Gaiea Sanskrit:

You are pure, conscious and taintless
You are not subject to the illusoriness of the world
Give up this sleep of delusion, this dream which confounds the mind
Why are you crying?
You are pure
The name you have acquired is not yours, merely a mind-created fiction applied to you
The body is not you, nor are you of it
The Lord of the universe doesn’t cry either!
This sound is an illusion attributed to you
The qualities imagined as yours are inherent in all the senses
The insignificant elements within the man acquire the condition of growth…
...through the addition of food, water and drink
It is not a growth or diminution of You
Within the body shell
You remain constant
Do not become confounded by this body which has been fastened upon you
“Father”
“Son”
“Mother”
“Wife”
“Mine”
“Not Mine”
Do not assign much significance to what is only an aggregation of elements
The deluded man thinks pains alleviate pain
The deluded man thinks enjoyment of pleasures gives happiness
The intelligent man whose mind is free from confusion knows pleasures and sorrows to be alike
The carriage goes upon the earth, the body is seated in the carriage
The Self resides within the body
The deluded Jīva (soul) thinks “I am this body”
The Self has no attachment to His carriage
Foolish is such ignorance!
You are pure, conscious and taintless
You are not subject to the illusoriness of the world
Give up this sleep of delusion, this dream which confounds the mind