So, the ego's sitting comfortably. You're relying on it for your identity (a separate, special being), value (certainly more than others), and purpose (grab me some specialness ). The problem is, you're full of guilt for the 'shameful crime' of separating and dissociating from Universal Consciousness and liberally hate yourself for it. That's super uncomfortable. There is a risk that you will realise that the shameful crime, the guilt, and the attendant fear of retribution for that crime are baked into the system you've bought off the peg from the ego. If that's fully realised, you'll twig that the modicum of specialness ain't worth the price.
What would happen then? You would backtrack to the fork in the road where the ego beckoned with its questionable black-market counterfeit goods, choose against it, and re-join the Broad Highway, leaving the ego behind as a momentary aberration.
What's the ego's plan therefore? Firstly, for you to descend into the material, whilst it casts a veil across how you got here: there is no Broad Highway; there was no fork; there was no decision; there was no wandering away; there is only here and now; there is only the material world. If you think you've always been here and that this is all there is, you won't know you can leave and you won't know there is a path back.
Secondly, the material world, being a world of dissociated parts, offers opportunities to wrest specialness at others' expense, in a zero-sum game to the death. Because every ounce of specialness represents theft of others' specialness, all benefits come with an equal and opposite cost. The original guilt is now redoubled with every material action to secure and maintain specialness.
So far so good, but this guilt will ultimately become insufferable, so there's a risk you'll question the system and realise the Emerald City looks green only because you're wearing green glasses. The ego's position as Pharaoh (with you as its slave) is insecure. What's the answer?
Take the guilt and repress it. Pretend it's not there. That removes it from consciousness, but this will leave an eerie feeling of uneasiness. Because it's still there, it's felt, though its source is hard to pin down. The masterful move is therefore to locate the guilt in others:
It's not me, it's them! With resentment comes relief from guilt. I can't be blamed for anything: if they hadn't acted the way they'd acted, I'd not have retaliated, I'd not have launched my pre-emptive strike!
Poof goes shame; poof goes guilt; poof goes fear. What's left? Glorious, righteous rage.
So, the ego's plan is to keep me here, apparently trapped in the body, securing whatever sex, money, power, prestige, comfort, thrills, and appearance will cast a glamour of specialness, and constantly pumping away the guilt by uploading it into my perception of others, so the evil is always located elsewhere, the lightning conductor for the universe's thunderbolts of retribution, leaving me, high and dry, safe in the care of my ego, until the lights one day go out completely.
It's quite a remarkable plan, when you come to think about it.