Once the ego is annihilated, true life begins.  You see the world through a different set of eyes.  No longer are you limited and contained within your mortal coil.  You realize that your life is a temporary state and nothing of value will last beyond your mortality.  All that matters is what you do.  Not for yourself, for that is the price of immortality.  It is what you can do for your neighbor.  For your fellow man, woman, or child.  Your good deeds will last in the memories forever.

Our ego would tell us we are defined by the clothes we wear  The car we drive.  Where we work or what school we attended.  How much money we make.  None of it matters.  When your time is up, none of it matters.  The ego quests for external validation, rather than validation from within.  It wants to be praised.  It wants to be loved.  It wants to be fed these temporal gifts in an unceasingly greater quantity.

We sacrifice our ethics.  Our very sense of right and wrong in this quest.  We make ourselves feel better by finding faults in others rather than helping those that want our help.  Each of us must make a decision.  We can worship ourselves and tie our identity to the material world or we can free ourselves of these bonds.

I have seen the God Machine.  I have dipped my toe in the river of the Holy Spirit.  I have felt the bliss of connecting with the Source.  God gives each of us the power to free ourselves of our ego.  In 1996, I received my class ring and the words inscribed on it are my personal mantra.  “You are, What you do, When it counts”.