Editors' note: Abdullah’s definition of ego is ‘the idea you have of yourself’. The ego is developed from our conditioning and from imagination coming from the negative force of the Earth. We create an ego identity for ourselves, but the spirit is our real being.

Esoterically all religions teach that the ego must be destroyed before we can merge with God. The procedure is that you must first make the body obedient, over many years, which builds up a very strong name part. The next step is to make this strong, active part become passive to the spirit and in the process of doing this, slowly destroy the ego. This idea has been stated in many ways; St George destroyed the dragon, the Sufis teach that you have to die before you die, the Christian teaching refers to being born again. Once a person loses his ego his state has nothing to do with the body or sensory experience, the body becomes just a vehicle. This has to be experienced to be understood.