Healing the Ego

Throughout history the spiritual aspirant of most faiths were required to recluse themselves from the world in order to undertake the perceived necessity to annihilate the ego in their path towards God. Although this may very well have been a necessary process or stage in the evolution of human consciousness, in today's world and environment, we can no longer afford to, nor is it necessary to adopt this approach. We are now at the stage as mystic Caroline Myss eloquently puts it " to resolve the paradox for the need for a strong and healthy ego and the still fundamental need to release the ego in order to experience God or the Higher Self ".On the surface this seems like an almost impossible contradiction to reconcile. How can we both strengthen our ego and at the same time release it or transcend it. In my view the ego itself is not the problem. It is the unhealthy ego that creates the void and separation from our basic divine nature and realty. This begs the question , what is a healthy and unhealthy ego ? An unhealthy ego which perplexes 99.9% of humanity, is based on the idea that our are fundamental identity is our ego. In other words it is confused about its role in the overall functioning of the human being. Thinking that it is the be all and end all of life itself , it is attached to things and tries to control or dominate our being. It has become ,and we have allowed it, to be a maniacal tyrant over us both individually and collectively. This happens on many subtle levels and reveals this disfunction when we face minor and major difficulties or challenges in our lives. It becomes very resistant to the perceived erosion of control and creates tremendous fear in defense of its territory. The healthy ego , which was created by life is one that functions in the role of servant and supporter of our deeper nature . So instead of blocking or distorting our aspirations to know ourselves at the essential level of heart and spiritual being , it would help point the way and lead us to that ultimate place within the depths of life itself. At this point we should focus our attention and energy on educating the ego of its true role and place , and make Friends with it. This seems like a much more healthy approach than the old days of total annihilation!!