provisional ego...

"To avoid inaction on the one hand and pride of action on the other, it is
necessary for the aspirant to construct in the following manner a provisional
and working ego which will be entirely subservient to the Master.

Before
beginning anything, the aspirant thinks that it is not he who is doing it, but
the Master who is getting it done through him. After doing it he does not tarry
to claim the results of action or enjoy them, but becomes free of them by
offering them to the Master.

By training his mind in this spirit he succeeds in
creating a new ego which, though provisional and working, is amply able to
become a source of that confidence, feeling, enthusiasm and "go" which true
action must express.

This new ego is spiritually harmless, since it derives its
life and being from the Master who represents Infinity, and since, when the time
comes, it can be thrown away like a garment.

There are thus two types of
egos'

”one which can only add to the
limitations of the soul, and the other which helps towards emancipation.

The
passage through the limiting ego of the worldly man to the egolessness of the
infinite life lies through the construction of the provisional ego generated
through wholehearted allegiance to the Master.

The construction of a new ego
which is entirely subservient to the Master is indispensable to the dynamics of
spiritual advancement."


Meher Baba
_Discourses_
San Francsico: Sufism Reoriented, 6th. ed., 1967, vol. 2, pp. 179-180