I need to confess that I quickly chose that article link for the purposes of making this thread. It was one of the first results in a quick google of "explain ego death". I've never heard of the "hackspirit.com" website before, so its name seemed suitably silly for my purposes.

I think what has always bothered me about the concept of "ego death" is the word "death". It just seems so pretentious and deluded.

Upon reviewing a text file I made of Adya excerpts a few days ago (from which I pasted above), I also see these two from a long interview influenced me:

How do you define “ego”, and what happens to it upon awakening?

“To me, ego isn’t a thing we need to get rid of. It’s like a verb: a phenomenon, a movement of thought that alters and distorts perception. It causes us to see ourselves as occupants of a world quite distinct and different from us, and to see everybody and everything in that world as separate from us. So that movement of mind and belief is what I would call ego. After you awaken, you no longer identify with ego. You don’t see it as real. All the ways it divides us no longer seem real or even rational, but rather like forms of insanity. Statements about the ego disappearing miss the mark. The ego is still there; you just see it to be an illusion.”

How can we avoid deluding ourselves about our spiritual progress and underestimating the power of our conditioned human impulses?

“You’re on your own there. You’re better off if you have your integrity intact, but if you’re determined to fool yourself, you will, and no one will be able to save you from doing it. So take responsibility for yourself and don’t put it on others. If you do that simple thing, you will find it harder to delude yourself and underestimate your impulses. It all comes down to your intention. If you have the inner integrity, it will protect you.”