The practice of meditation keeps the ego accountable. It makes the ego as it were give a progress report. It makes it transparent. And so it trains the ego to serve, not to act by itself. Not to get above itself, to think that it is the master. When your servant thinks that it is the master, you’re in trouble. When the ego is under discipline in this way (meditation is a discipline and helps every aspect of ourselves to be disciplined), when the ego is under discipline in this way, it can even be told at times, ‘You can take the day off. I don’t need you, I don’t need the ego now, thank you. I’ll call you when I need you. Go away.’ And we can then at times experience real egoless consciousness, pure moments of grace, of contemplation. Meditation does this by discipline, by training us in the discipline of the mantra and the discipline of the daily meditation, morning and evening.
( The Brick Wall of the Ego 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
