How to 'extinguish' the ego

The individual ego becomes real by extinguishing itself in the collective ego or the spirit of the nation but how does one do that?

The first step is to love the common culture of our society. The last step is to allow the consensus of our society to overrule our individual judgment - and hence "courtesy is the beginning of religion and love is its end."

Today there is no dearth of people who claim to be denying the ego or even negating it, but:

• How many of them would be willing to concede that the opinion of a purely unschooled person about the future course of society should carry the same weight as their own?
• How many would be willing to accept that the consensus of their society can reflect Divine wisdom more than their own well-informed opinion?

True selflessness comes from seeking and respecting consensus - this is the common message of Rumi, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Iqbal.