Sorry @psynergy, this is for everyone…not just you, so please don’t take too much offense.
Who Cares About the Ego? I Just Want to be Happy!
That’s the Ego talking…
The only way to have completely “helpful” beliefs is to “RESET” the Ego “programming” completely.
And the only way to be around “others” who only have helpful beliefs is to “RESET” the Ego programming and decide move on to other planes with others who have done the same.
Using a familiar analogy…
YOU, the REAL YOU, are the computer…the hardware…
The Ego is literally software programming with all kinds of viruses, back door exploits, malware, ransomware, and all kinds of nasty things in it.
The most nasty programming it/the Ego has installed is a ransomware program that has convinced you(everyone) that if you uninstall the program, your computer will die.
Or that you will not be 'you" in some way…
or the infinite other “exploits” and faulty reasonings to convince you to not remove the software
and simply REINSTALL A FRESH CLEAN COPY.
You can literally be on this Earth with a clean fresh copy with the “programming”,“beliefs”, “thoughts”, “feelings”, “attitudes”
that YOU have programmed fresh…clean…
NOT from one’s parents…
NOT from society…
by you and only you…
THAT’S Enlightenment…
THAT’S “Ego death” (or rainbow bunnies and butterfly reconditioning or whatever term makes one happy)
The “Ego” Before Freud…
So seems alot of people seem to have an issue with the word “Ego”…
It’s the CONCEPT of the ego that matters.
Plato was talking about the “ego” all the way beck when he told the Allegory of the Cave.
The people watching the “shadow movies” in the cave who think it’s real are the masses who don’t even REALIZE yet, that their Ego is the problem and showing them a 4th hand version of Reality.
Again, the Zen OX Herding pictures were talking about the concept of the “Ego” well before Freud decided to add his “spin” on the word.
Again, here the CONCEPT of the Ego is the bull.
Just like Plato, the Bull doesn’t even appear in the first few frames indicating that most people do not even understand what the “problem” is to begin with.
The Images
I. The Search for the Bull
II. Discovering the Footprints
III. Perceiving the Bull
IV. Catching the Bull
V. Taming the Bull
VI. Riding the Bull Home
VII. The Bull Transcended
VIII. Both Bull and Self Transcended
IX. Reaching the Source.
X. In the World
As I’ve talked about in other posts, and is thoroughly explained in my recommending reading list,
however one wants to “label” the Ego doesn’t matter.
Some have you used the term “Separate Self”…
Old Buddhist and Zen writings often referred to it as the small self (with a lower case s) as opposed to the Self (with an uppercase S) or what many call the Higher Self nowadays.
The words DO NOT CHANGE the concept of the thing.
“Ego Death” and How Killing Things Is Bad…? 
Again, whether one wants to call it “training” or “killing” or “destroying” or “uprooting” or whatever rainbow flowering word instead, does NOT change how the Ego reacts to one consciously trying to “regain control” of it.
It feels like “death” to the Ego… in fact, it’s the only real “death” one ever experiences.
People’s fear of “physical” death is ultimately just a extension of the Ego’s fear of losing it’s control of the “computer hardware” known as the REAL you.
So yeah, your “Ego”, especially if one is identifying with it as who and what you are, is going to make ALL KINDS of excuses and issues over the “word” choice or how it needs to survive
ie
“Enlightenment isn’t my goal”
“I don’t like the term killing the ego”
“I just want a healthy Ego…”
They are one of the multitude of “tricks” the Ego has at it’s disposal (as it has complete knowledge of ones’ fears, desires, etc) to convince you to let it stay in control.
Numerous movies have depicted this issue in a multitude of ways.
- The Matrix,
- 2001 Space Odyssey
- Lawnmower Man
- Any movie where a “robot”/created beast that was built to serve, but ultimately takes over and becomes a greedy power hungry tyrant where the “hero” has to “unplug” it to regain control and return it to it’s original purpose.
- Any story with a “Christ” storyline where the originally selfish and reluctant Hero has to learn unconditional/unselfish love which is demonstrated by DYING (aka death of the selfish Ego) only to be “reborn” again in some manner as a stronger, IN CONTROL OF THEIR OWN LIFE, self.
THIS is the storyline that this “Star” Being (aka the Sun) has written for this Solar System.
It’s the “game” it chose.
And like any RPG game, there can be infinite ways to play it but the MAIN PLOT POINTS of the game have to be accomplished to “win” the game.
These don’t even allow you to sleep peacefully my chocolate coated rice cake, they’re giving you headaches and dreams in which your bed is burning, awwww how terrible… Tell you what: just go and listen to some relaxing kyyskydkyc sound my strawberry fudge 
”.