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[Coenrad Morgan]

I was so impressed with this that I cut and paste it and have since mailed it to my dearest one.......IT REALLY puts into focus the balance, the mix and the ultimate objective of it all, I AM SO GRATEFUL to Ta Tsu Wa for it and am glad I saved it as something to be treasured and it can thus be re-shared (Ta Tsu Wa's permision pending)

"In circles of "spiritual growth", Ego often gets short shrift. It's looked upon as something undesirable, to be gotten rid of ASAP. This seems a very short-sighted course of action. Ego is a function of the "self" (lower case S). It incorporates abilities and characterists such as the ability to think and to experience Individuality.
What most Ego bashers are really saying is, "Self = good, self = bad". Unity is the goal, Duality is something to be overcome and discarded ASAP. This does not square well with most ancient spiritual accounts of original creation. Whether it be Taoist, Judaism, Christiantiy (especially the Gnostic variety,) Buddhism, Native American and other regional, indigenous people belief systems, or most other spiritual traditions you could think of, they all tell similar stories about how creation got started.
There is One, which differentiates Itself internally into many, which learn to recognize themselves as bits of the One again in addition to their individual natures. Let me share with you my experience of this whole process.
There exists an Undifferentiated Totality. Some traditions express it in anthropomorphic concepts, others in very impersonal terms. Call this, Unity or Totality. Unity has no peer since it encompasses all that is, all that can ever be, as well as all that cannot ever be in one, homegenous mode of existence.
Unity realizes if there were others that could exist in relational form, Unity would know them and experience the joy of their interactions, and the perfection of Unity would thereby be increased.
So Unity subdivides or compartmentalizes Itself giving rise to individual structures that can now relate to each other. Call these Individualities.
Initially, all the units of Individuality are still very much aware of their oneness with Unity. This is so much the case that the experience of their own individuality remains very limited at best if they could even experience it at all. Since there can never be anything that is truly outside of the Totality, the only way to grant the Individualities a true sense of being an individual is by having them adopt some scheme of forgetfulness; a sort of amnesia, if you will. Under those circumstances, though they are not outside of Totality, they have forgotten this, and to them it feels as if they are outside. The feeling is so genuine that for all practical purposes it might as well be literally true. In any event, with this veil of forgetfulness drawn over them, the Individualities can now truly experience what it would be like to be absolutely separate and independent.

Unity uses these Individualities something like we use our five senses. It sees through them. It hears through them. It shares all of the relational experiences they have through them as if they were Its own, in a way It could not have done before initiating the process of Its own subdivision.
This is the first half of a great circle. For full joy to be experienced however, the circle must be completed. This necessitates the Individualities relearning through their own experiences what it is to be identified with Unity, similar to the way they were in their beginning. The difference is that this time, when this process is completed, they will possess not only the experience of complete Unity, but will also take with them the experience of Individuality. Both experiences will exist and be appreciated fully at one and the same time.
In this final state Unity experiences relationship through the Individualities just as they experience it. Unity increases by the joy of the collective experiences of all Individualities. Each Individuality increases its joy by its own experiences. As each Individuality advances and progresses towards and ultimately achieves a "reunification" (technically inaccurate word I know, but you get the point) with Unity, it then adds not only the joy of its own individual experiences to itself, but the joy of all other Individualities through its identification with the Totality/Unity. As the Individual increases in joy, the Unity increases in joy, and as the Unity increases in joy, the perfected Individuals further increase in joy. The process forms a circle or sphere that grows ever greater without limit or end.
This is what I am convinced is the basic nature of our existence based not only on study but on my own personal experiences (no pun intended.)
If this is correct it becomes quickly apparent that any attempt to annihilate the Ego or to abolish all Thought, extinguish the self (lower case S) etc., thwarts completing the circle of our existence. In the end it is not a case of either/or. I'm not either Unified or an Individual. I am both, and I am both at the same time. To cling to just one or the other (it doesn't matter to which) always leads to an unbalanced view of our essential nature."