Did My Ego Death Experience Make Me Enlightened?

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

The very question, “Am I now enlightened, for making it through this overwhelming, yet essentially elective and recreational experience?” and the fact that it is so often posed after surviving an experience of ego death, is kind of telling.

The TL;DR answer: it kind of depends on your definition of the term, but probably not. Let’s get into it.

What is Ego Death?

What do we mean when we use the term Ego Death? What is it that dies? Is this a good thing? What happens during an ego death experience? And what happens afterward?