The seed of true understanding
All human introspection is aimed at discerning and defining what our "psychological" self, the mind or ego, is. From spiritual viewpoint this may also be a very meaningful endeavor. One has to finally see and sense and prove for oneself that ego is the sum total of the individual's karmic momentum collected from time immemorial up until now. It's the sum total of all the choices that we have made and of all the consequences incurred so far.
It is stated by those who truly see that in the leap of realization ego is to be finally overcome, subdued or even destroyed, which means one becomes Free of all the karmic collection. That transcendental breakthrough is nothing but a decision, a choice, a resolution for things to be that way. What must happen before that breakthrough is a miracle of the ongoing collection of the karmic momentum first being slowed down and then actually beginning to diminish. As soon as that ego process is truly reversed, the person must learn to live expressing that freedom from karmic burden more and more totally in every aspect of their being. Thus the conditioning momentum gradually runs out of its fuel which is ego-centered desire, constant self-obsession or pride. With all the selfish drives, concerns and ambitions of the personality surrendered, sacrificed and let go of - for the sake of the timeless and limitless Absolute, the individual consciousness becomes open, void and transparent for the light of the One All-Pervading Perfect Whole.
When ego, the karmic weight, is waning through the right Choice and/or through choiceless, unconditional surrender, impersonal understanding of things is sure to arise which is not limited by the individual's thoughts and emotions cocoon and is just clear perception, not biased, not distorted by the ego-mind. When consciousness is being freed from the burden of the past, the seed of understanding, or wisdom, is sure to wake up, if it does not get blocked or frozen by rigid doctrines and fixed ideas of the mind. Prior to that impersonal awakening, understanding is just a concoction of the mind, a reflection of the ego itself.
That seed of understanding miraculously makes the mind function as a reliable tool to keep oneself effective, sober, sensible, compassionate, responsible, undistracted by anything contradicting the right Choice, wholesome, healthy and sane. Traditions, religions, ethics, psychology and natural human compassion, the inherent kindness and conscience of the human heart, all try to enlighten us on how to do that. That is the practice for the awakened mind: to help oneself and to serve the others along the self-Self path. We have to use the mind in order to make the right choices - over and over and over again. What is always to be chosen is what definitely serves the Whole, Truth, God, the Self and what undoubtedly turns down Its illusory and nonexistent opposite, usually being so dangerously real for us.
Ego, our karmic self, is our separation from the Whole and is itself an intention to remain separate and fundamentally divided. It is a cocoon formed around nothing. Ego insists on separation, it is defending it with greed, violence, fear, envy, aggression, doubt and stupidity. Ego is not just individual by nature! All the suffering of the world, all the confusion and insanity and terrible abuse people suffer from is the collective karmic weight of innumerable egos denying the nondual law of love and responsibility. But the seed of true understanding, awakened by the right Choice of choiceless surrender to the Absolute, knows how to employ the ego-borne and multi-developed diversity of the mind, it knows how to tame it and make it work for the right cause. It arranges situations that increase our sanity and our concentrated dedication to the Whole. It involves us in practices that slow the karmic momentum down, it develops our consciousness and body in a positive way, allowing more and more possibility for the individual consciousness to leap into the Freedom where ego or mind do not have any role to play. But our newborn understanding must work hard to undo the karmic bond preventing us from that final leap.
