In the first place there is only the real ego, and that is universal Mind, the relative ego being a distorted aspect of that. In the second place the relative ego is a percept of which the average man or woman is only aware as the nucleus round which has gathered the perfectly illusory complex of his personality. The relative ego, a pure percept like that of any other ‘thing’, is representation of a segment, of part of a whole, and devoid of any kind of evaluation. What a man regards as his ego is his interpretation of that, based on his collection of memories of reactions to his environment, no longer a percept but an affective concept, a false evaluation (false because an evaluation) that is entirely illusory.

It is in order to sustain this illusory complex, that he thinks is ‘himself’, that he feels obliged eternally to ‘do’ and to urge others to ‘do’, that is to behave as what the orientals refer to as a ‘mad monkey’, and it is from fear of the destruction of this illusory personality that he dare not face up to his real self in silence and the awareness of Being. (2003, p. 36-37)