Spiritual work is all about cutting through the ego – the false – to encounter the real. The ego is just layer upon layer of accumulated conditioning, so thick and crusty that any sense of an underlying truth has been largely lost. The only times that truth gets a chance to peak through is when the ego momentarily cracks during trauma, and such events we spend most of our energy avoiding. We have become so successful at manufacturing an artificial 'good life' that we have no idea what a natural 'real life' is.