The so-called ego too, is not an enemy; on the contrary, Atmananda said it is a help: “Even the much despised ego is a great help to the realization of the Truth. The presence of the ego in man, though in a distorted form, is infinitely better than the absence of it, as for example in a tree”; and “It is the whole ego that seeks liberation and strives for it. When it is directed towards the ultimate Reality, the material part automatically drops away and the Consciousness part alone remains over as the real ‘I’-Principle. This is liberation.”
