Ego, you could say, is a sort of an image of or a rough model of the true self. It’s a kind of consciousness, but it’s only a fragment of consciousness. It’s like a light bulb, but with a very low wattage compared with the true self which is blindingly bright – God is light. So the ego then we could say serves a function, but if it is allowed to believe that it is the self, the true self, the whole, then we have problems. Because then it begins to act as if it were God, as if it is the centre and the main test of reality – what I feel, what I want, what I imagine, that is the truth.
( The Brick Wall of the Ego 1 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
