In the human form, however, [with the mind fully developed] a difficulty is confronted, to remove which prophets and Spiritual Masters have periodically visited this earthly plane. Besides full consciousness in the human form as a result of previous conditions of life, the ego, the I, is evolved.
The ego is composed of fulfilled and unfulfilled desires and creates the illusion of feeling finite, weak and unhappy. Henceforth, the soul can only progress through the general suppression of this finite ego and its transformation into the Divine Ego, the One Infinite Self, but retaining in full the consciousness of its human form.
When man realizes this state of divine consciousness, he finds himself in everyone and sees all phenomena as forms of his own Real Self.
The best and also the easiest process of overcoming the ego and attaining the divine consciousness is to develop love and render selfless service to humanity in whatever circumstances we are placed. All ethics and religious practices ultimately lead to this. The more we live for others and less for ourselves, the more the low desires are eliminated and this in turn reacts upon the ego, suppressing and transforming it proportionately.
The ego persists to the last. Not until all the six out of the seven principal states on the Path are traversed, culminating in one God-conscious state, is the ego completely eliminated to reappear on the seventh plane as the Divine I — the state of Christ Consciousness to which Jesus referred when he said, “I and my Father are one,” and which corresponds to the state of living in the Infinite and finite at one and the same time.
The above is the normal procedure for one who works on his own initiative without having come across a living Master. With the help of a Perfect Master, the whole affair, however, is greatly simplified. Complete surrender to the living will of the Perfect One, an unflinching readiness to carry out his orders, rapidly achieves a result not possible even by rigidly practicing all the ethics of the world for 1,000 years.
-www.lordmeher.org, p1426 May, 1932; Los Angeles