My father must have read L'Amour because there were some of his books on our bookshelf when I was growing up, but I never did myself. Maybe I'll have to read a couple of them. It's nice and thoughtful prose. And I think I have to agree with this sentiment. I'm not the sum of all things and know it, but if I didn't at least somewhat disregard this knowledge and act as if I had primacy over everything else, I would not survive and would probably have my bones picked clean by others as well.

This reminds me of the oft-discussed tension between egoless non-duality and actual day-to-day functioning in the world. You can center yourself on the meditation mat (or similar practices) but that doesn't pay the bills. "Before enlightenment, the laundry; after enlightenment, the laundry". Mystics yearn to transcend the human condition but are forced to participate in it. They seek liberation from ego and yet ego in and of itself is not the problem, and is actually essential for some things. This is the whole reason that some Eastern religions have monks, so that a minority of citizens can devote full time to enlightenment, and in some vicarious way, pull the rest of society along with them. Or that's the theory anyway.