We are not human beings that have spiritual experiences. We are truly spiritual beings that are currently having a human experience. In The Road to Freedom: Letting Go of Your Baggage, Peter Allman explains that our primary purpose is to create a divine union between our human essence and our spiritual essence and provides the road map for doing so.
The ego is the main reason the divine union does not occur. The ego is a way of thinking. It is a mind - a mindset - that is built on the absence of the Divine and creates a false sense of self. The ego mind sees the world in terms of I want this or I dont want this. The three letters of ego could stand for edging God out.
People of all faiths have a prayer that is similar to Not my will, but Thy will be done. My will equates to the ego. Thy will equates to our spiritual nature. It is said we need to live in the world but not be of the world. We need human strengths to live in the world. Because we have a great capacity to subvert the will of God to our own, we need to access our spiritual nature to be able to not be of the world.