DISCOURSES Volume II - Avatar Meher Baba Trust

THE NATURE OF THE EGO AND ITS TERMINATION: III 83of separateness, completely disappears and is substituted by theTruth which knows no separateness. The intermediate steps ofslimming down the ego and softening its nature are comparable tothe trimming and pruning of the branches of a wild and mightytree, while the final step of annihilation of the ego amounts to thecomplete uprooting of this tree. When the ego disappears entirelythere arises knowledge of the true Self. Thus the long journey ofthe soul consists in developing from animal consciousness theexplicit self-consciousness as a limited "I," then in transcendingthe state of the limited "I" through the medium of the Master. Atthis stage the soul is initiated into the consciousness of thesupreme and Real Self as an everlasting and infinite "I am" inwhich there is no separateness, and which includes all existence.