"Ego-reduction requires intelligence and the grace
of God right from the beginning. Courage and willingness to suffer are
needed, but they are not enough.
You have to learn how to work along
with it as the job is being done.
It is a skilled operation, and the
skill can only be acquired slowly, by actual experience, by trial and
error.
The practice of the presence
of God and the practice of ego-reduction are complementary and mutually
interdependent experiences.
If you practice
the presence you will find ,as a corollary, that your ego has been
reduced. If you work at dissolving the ego, you will find that
the presence of God consequently becomes more real to you."
Thomas E. Powers, "First Questions on the Life of the Spirit," 1987, Self-Realization Fellowship Magazine