By Eowyn OR In our journey towards enlightenment, the biggest battle we face is control of the ego. Note that I say "control" and not annihilation. There has been an erroneous drive in spiritual conditioning through blatantly- and at times, deliberately manipulative and irresponsible psychological language- to suggest ego annihilation is necessary for evolution; this has caused great harm to those seeking enlightenment. The mind and ego are incredible forces within our intelligence and mental activity is the centre of consciousness: every thought creates a new centre of identification and what we describe as the ego is actually a flow of conscious or semi-conscious events, which can operate in a relatively integrated way.