Terror = Ego pretending = Illusion?

In one of the recent shorter talks, the Master said that the reason we go into terror is because somewhere there is an ego pretending to be something one is not. He has also said that terror is actually an illusion. I could not understand how, then. But in the light of this — it makes sense.

Yesterday we had a work meeting with the Master. A good flow from earlier that day was totally gone. I almost froze. Even though I was genuinely interested in the subject — how to incorporate the Nirvan Method and online meditations into Pivot Point — it was sometimes hard to follow the discussion. Still, so much terror.

Once I rested, the Master addressed me. "Erik, there are so many layers in you. Why do you have this image that it has to be so big and grandiose? Just work one step at a time. Simple."

Listening to the recording this morning — what was the ego I must have unconsciously been pretending? The pretension sounds like: I've got this. I am good. I am useful. Or: I have to be. And instead of actually being and learning, one pretends it. Thereby one cannot follow, listen, or grow. The freeze and the terror become inevitable.

This connects to the theory that terror as a tool of control could not have existed in hunter-gatherer societies — that the slave mind emerged when ownership did. Which raises a deeper question: could the core ego be the identity of a slave — us living in constant terror because we believe (pretend) we don’t own our own destiny?

And can we begin to challenge that terror by asking: what am I currently pretending?