The ego allows us to differentiate, separate from our parents, from the womb, from our mother’s love; and separates us from the institutions that would otherwise control us and create us as nationalists or bigots or prejudiced people. So the ego allows us to detach from what we have become attached, and in that process we suffer pain. All separation causes pain, but at the same time it sets us free. When a child separates from its parents and leaves home, it is very painful. When parents drive the child to the university and drop the child, they know they have lost the child in a way forever. At the same time, they are happy for that; and of course the relationship continues because the child comes home. But that separation is necessary for a proper relationship, just as detachment is necessary in the new relationships that we build, because we now have a sense of self, a sense of who I am.
| ( Finding Oneself 1 Laurence Freeman ) |
