Ego is like a hard outer shell of a seed. Its role is to protect the nascent psychic being and the spiritual life in its infancy against the intrusion of all kinds of forces that impact and influence us.
Later as the psychic being arrives to a certain degree of development, the ego begins to become an obstruction to the expression of the growing spiritual life. Then one begins to feel inwardly stifled and as a stranger to the world around. One is no more able to identify with the ordinary life and its goals. Along with this there develops within an aspiration for something higher, something true and beautiful and divine.
This means the time has come for the outer crust of the ego to slowly dissolve for the higher life to emerge and blossom freely.
