Changes

The limited ego is only an intermediate phenomenon of consciousness necessary for a certain line of development. Following this line the individual can arrive at that which is beyond himself, that which he represents, and can yet continue to represent it, no longer as an obscured and limited ego, but as a centre of the Divine and of the universal consciousness embracing, utilising and transforming into harmony with the Divine all individual determinations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-ego-and-the-dualities#p15</ref>

“...the first state of your being is a state of an almost total mixture with all things from outside, and that there is almost no individualisation, that is, specialisation which makes you a different being. You are moved—a kind of form which is your physical being is moved—by all the common universal forces, vital forces or mental forces, which go through your form and put it in motion. (The Mother, 14 December, 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/14-december-1955#p18</ref>

It is purposely, mind you, that I have not mentioned the ego as one of the causes of the sense of individuality. For the ego being a falsehood and an illusion, the sense of individuality would itself be false and illusory (as Buddha and Shankara affirm), whereas the origin of individualisation being in the Supreme Himself, the ego is only a passing deformation, necessary for the moment, which will disappear when its utility is over, when the Truth-Consciousness will be established. (The Mother, 3 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/3-march-1951#p31</ref>

Our self-ignorance and our world-ignorance can only grow towards integral self-knowledge and integral world-knowledge in proportion as our limited ego and its half-blind consciousness open to a greater inner existence and consciousness and a true self-being and become aware too of the not-self outside it also as self. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p9</ref>

The ego was created for the work of individualisation; when the work is achieved, it is not unusual for the ego to accept its own dissolution. (The Mother, 7 December, 1968) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/7-december-1968#p2</ref>

Individualised life-force here is an energy of individualising and ignorant Mind, Mind that has fallen from the knowledge of its own Supermind. Therefore incapacity is necessary to its relations in Life and inevitable in the nature of things; <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/death-desire-and-incapacity#p13</ref>

The ego is what helps us to individualise ourselves and what prevents us from becoming divine. It is like that. Put that together and you will find the ego. Without the ego, as the world is organised, there would be no individual, and with the ego the world cannot become divine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-ego#p14</ref>

I suppose the ego came there [into human activity] first as a means of the outer consciousness individualising itself in the flux of Nature and, secondly, as an incentive for tamasic animal man to act and get something done. Otherwise he might merely have contented himself with food and sleep and done nothing else. With that incentive of ego (possession, vanity, ambition, eagerness for power etc. etc.) he began doing all sorts of things he might never otherwise have done. But now that he has to go higher, this ego comes badly in the way. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/ego-and-its-forms#p1</ref>

To live without a fortress is extremely difficult—people have the feeling that they are not living, that they are not individualised, that they are floating about. It is extremely difficult to live in something infinitely vast, moving, constantly changing, perpetually in progress, not to be held by anything to which one can cling, saying "I am this; this is my way of thinking." It is very difficult, one must not try it too soon; there are those whose mind gets deranged by it. (The Mother, 12 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/12-march-1951#p19</ref>