Before my teacher started Taiji in 1967 he was a folk singer. I asked him once if he liked Bob Dylan. He said he loved the tunes but not the lyics. I asked why, since Dylan always sang about freedom, and his reply was telling: I already had far too much of that sort of freedom. The ego is not meant to be free. It's job is to look after the animating spirit. It is rightly shepherd of being rather than a being in and for itself. When it gets ideas above its station it desperately needs to be knocked down to size otherwise it will quickly become like a spoilt child.