The ego performs an essential function: it provides the sense of identity that helps us navigate through the physical world in order to survive and thrive. Without this sense of I, our ability to think, speak, feel and remember would cease to function as we know it today. The problem arises when this sense of identity becomes so powerful that our perception of who we really are as pure consciousness gets buried under its weight. At that point, our inner self or Atman , which should be our true identity, becomes overshadowed by an external experience that we mistakenly identify with as who we are.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://ubuntuvillageusa.org/2022/11/09/when-the-ego-shadows-the-self-the-problem-of-limited-identity/