The ego does not allow us to see the soul, virtue, the good in others, because the ego hypnotizes the consciousness and makes us mechanical, asleep.
Having a focused consciousness is the ability to concentrate on one thing at the exclusion of everything else. This is the beginning of meditation: the ability to strip away filters, obscurations, and mistaken views in our understanding.
The ego filters our perceptions. To focus better, we must remove the ego and the delusions of self.
Meditation is not a technique. It is a way of being. Therefore, we must be attentive, focused all day, on whatever we are doing, to not be unconscious or asleep.
Without concentration and meditation, it is impossible to uproot the psychological causes of suffering in ourselves. Our current level of being is too superficial to extract the roots of sorrow, which exist in our subconsciousness.
Only meditation can help us access the roots of the ego and eliminate them, because meditation allows us to go into our internal worlds with clarity and precision.
For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought. -Bayazid al-Bastami