The ego, our sense of being a separate self, is part of our false ground of being.

Our true ground is vast, encompassing and embracing. It includes personal, archetypal and universal elements.

Spiritual development is not about attaining a state; it's about the search for truth.

A deep trust in life is the result of accessing our true ground.

This is Part Two of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.

A brilliant outlier in the overlapping fields of depth psychology and spirituality, John J. Prendergast sheds much-needed light on what he calls our “deepest ground.” Bridging Western psychotherapy with the perennial teachings of nondual philosophy, his work as a teacher, writer, and therapist focuses on the powerful process of “waking down,” emphasizing embodied insight—the illumination of emotions, relationships, and ordinary life—as much as transcendental awareness. The author of several books, including Your Deepest Ground: A Guide to Embodied Spirituality and The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, he offers residential retreats in the U.S. and Europe, as well as online workshops and teaching. In this second half of our two-part interview, we talked about the insecurity that arises when we put our trust in the “false ground” of ego, and tools for touching into our spiritual core.

Mark Matousek: You’ve written that many are “deeply confused” about where their “essential safety” lies. This comes from putting their faith in the “false ground” of ego rather than “authentic ground”—if I understand you correctly?

John Prendergast: Yes. The ego is part of this false ground, the conventional way that we take ourselves to be a separate self. I’m in here, you’re out there. I’m this body, and there’s the world (which is not me). Believing ourselves to be the complete agents of our own actions. These positions are part of the common-sense experience of being a separate self.

This experience is accompanied by many levels of contraction........

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