Meditation, Mindfulness, and the Threshold of Ego Death
“Die before you die, and find that there is no death.”
Sufi teaching
I was reading this article on ScienceAlert about the dark side of meditation and mindfulness. It highlighted research showing that more than 10 percent of regular practitioners report serious adverse effects—depression, anxiety, even psychosis—that can last for months. From a psychological standpoint, these concerns are entirely valid. If the purpose of therapeutic practice is to build a calmer, more stable, and more functional structured self, then anything that destabilizes that structure appears to be harmful.
But this is where the discrepancy appears. Many who teach mindfulness present it precisely in that way: as a method for calming the structured self, for cultivating peace, clarity, and stress relief. Framed in that way, the measure of success is whether the structured self feels better about itself. Yet this framing ignores, and often obscures, the deeper implication of mindfulness. Mindfulness, in its uncompromising essence, does not simply soothe the self. It exposes the self. It destabilizes the scaffolding that makes us feel solid and in control.
Two Frames, One Experience
When destabilization comes, psychology and mysticism diverge.
- The psychological frame views destabilization as a form of regression or pathology. Depression, anxiety, depersonalization, psychosis: all are markers of a structure that has lost its integrity. The clinical task is to stabilize the self, rebuild the container, and restore the person to functionality.
- The mystical frame sees destabilization as initiation. Zen speaks of “great doubt.” Sufism calls it fana, annihilation in the Beloved. Advaita Vedanta refers to it as the dissolution of the personal “I.” These traditions recognize that the terror is not incidental but inevitable. It is the veil thrown up by the self at the brink of its own extinction.
Which is correct? Both, depending on orientation. If the aim is worldly stability, then destabilization is harm. If the aim is truth, then destabilization is the gateway.
The Cliff Edge of Annihilation
The ScienceAlert article is right to warn that meditation can open onto terrifying terrain. People taught to expect only calm and comfort find themselves unprepared when they arrive at the cliff edge of annihilation. And that cliff is real.
As Adyashanti has said, “If your meditation isn’t scaring the hell out of you, you’re not doing it right.” His point is not that fear is a mistake, but that fear is the natural response of the structured self when it confronts its own dissolution.
The Zen master Danxia Zichun warned: “You must completely let go of all worldly concerns and sit totally still in the dry wood hall. You must die a turn and then in this death establish everything in the whole universe.”
The Advaitic sage Ramana Maharshi put it in more precise terms: “When the false ego dream-like fades into its source, the true Self rises of its own accord.”
And Rupert Spira, pointing to the deeper fear beneath all fears, said: “It is the fear of death: not of physical death but of the disappearance of the psychological entity we believe and feel ourselves to be.”
These are not metaphors for comfort. They are warnings that the structured self cannot survive what lies ahead. To meet that truth without preparation can be overwhelming.
Recoil and Its Consequences
When people reach the threshold but recoil, the consequences often linger. They have tasted the groundlessness of their existence but return to the structure they had believed in. Yet now the structure is haunted. The terror experienced at the brink fuses with the identity they try to preserve. It becomes part of the very ego they sought to stabilize.
This is why the ScienceAlert article is right to say some people experience long-lasting negative effects. The collapse of the structured self is not reversible; once glimpsed, it cannot be unseen. If one runs back, the terror of dissolution doesn’t disappear—it calcifies into the very self that resists it.
From psychology’s standpoint, that looks like trauma. From mysticism’s standpoint, it looks like unfinished initiation.
Fear at the Threshold
One of the essential differences in the Diamond Approach® is how fear itself is approached. Psychology tends to ask, What caused this fear, and How can we regulate or manage it so the ego calms down? That makes sense if the goal is a more stable, functional self. However, the Diamond Approach poses a different question: What is fear—phenomenologically and ontologically?
At the precipice of dissolution, what psychology calls “fear” may be seen in another light. For the ego, fear is terror—an existential alarm at the threat of annihilation. For the soul, that same energy registers as quickening—an intensification, a vibrational frequency that heralds the return to its own nature. The texture is the same: a piercing, high-frequency vibration. But the interpretation is utterly different.
When ego meets it, the energy feels like death. When soul meets it, the energy feels like awakening. In one case, the movement is recoil and defense. In the other, it is recognition and welcoming. The difference does not lie in the energy itself but in who—or what—is experiencing it.
A Different Kind of Safety
Between these two poles—the therapist shoring up the ego and the mystic dismantling it—the Diamond Approach offers a third way. It does not deny the risks, but it prepares people to face them without recoiling.
- Kath Meditation: Embodiment as Ground – Students begin with Kath meditation, which reconnects them with the body and grounds awareness in the hara. Instead of floating away into dissociation, they develop an anchor in physical presence. This embodied base strengthens the nervous system, giving more capacity to tolerate the intensity of destabilization when it arises.
- Open-Ended Inquiry: Curiosity Instead of Panic – From the beginning, students are trained in open-ended inquiry: What is this? What is happening here? This orientation transforms disorientation into discovery. Instead of interpreting destabilization as failure, they learn to recognize it as part of their unfolding. Inquiry reframes collapse as revelation.
- Psychological Insight: Understanding the Self’s Resistance – The Diamond Approach also integrates modern psychology into spiritual practice. Students learn about defenses, ego structures, and the ways the self resists change. By the time they encounter deeper dissolution, they have a framework for what’s happening. Even intellectual clarity here provides stability, helping them endure the terror without collapsing into confusion.
Together, these three elements—embodiment, inquiry, and psychological insight—create a path where the destabilization of the self is neither denied nor romanticized. It is met with presence, curiosity, and comprehension.
Three Perspectives, One Threshold
Seen from above, three perspectives converge on the same threshold:
- Psychology: The structured self is real. Its stability is the goal. Destabilization is a danger.
- Mysticism: The structured self is the veil. Its dissolution is the goal. Destabilization is initiation.
- The Diamond Approach: The structured self is both real in its function and illusory in its essence. Its stability can be supported while preparing for its ultimate dissolution.
This third way does not avoid the cliff edge. It gives students the tools and the capacity to meet it without recoiling.
Ego Death as Transformation
Ultimately, what psychology calls breakdown, mysticism calls breakthrough. What the self calls collapse, the soul calls liberation. Ram Dass once put it this way: “At the moment when there’s nothing more to lose, the Ego breaks open — and then we see who we are behind who we thought we were.”
This is the paradox at the heart of meditation and mindfulness. If we cling to the structured self, its dissolution feels like catastrophe. If we surrender, it is the doorway to the real.
Calming, Collapse, or Crossing
The ScienceAlert article is right. Meditation has a dark side, especially when taught only as a way of calming the structured self. The risks are real, and the scars of recoil are long-lasting. But those same experiences, understood from another frame, are the very gateway to freedom.
Which path you take depends on your orientation:
- To shore up stability, return to psychology.
- To risk everything, walk with the mystics.
- To be prepared, grounded, and supported for the cliff edge, the Diamond Approach offers a way of holding both.
The question is not whether destabilization will come. It will. The question is whether we recoil, reinforce, or step through.
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and a student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.