ego process

[un824 at FREENET.VICTORIA.BC.CA]

Namaste,

Someone sent me email recently about how wonderful it was to see
clearly. It made me very happy to hear about how joyful things are
just as they are whenever they are not obscured by whatever
the dastardly trick is that causes all the suffering in the world.

It also made me more curious than ever as to what exactly this obscuring
process is and exactly how it comes into being (apparent being?) It is
wonderful to enjoy even a temporary reprieve from the tyranny of the
ego/mind/thought but I wonder if it will be possible to be permanently
undeceived by the magician's trick without knowing exactly how it was
produced?  Even a superficial variation may dupe us all over again...

I remember Ramana Maharshi mentioning two analogies which are very
intriguing in this regard. 1) the inch worm which is anchored on one
end (the heart?) and can't move until it finds another purchase with
the other end. This purchase is not findable so it remains where it
is like the bird who flies in circles around a ship at sea only to
return for lack of anywhere else to roost.  2) the thief who escapes
by shouting "stop thief!" and slipping by in the ensuing panic.

Ramana also says the ego is the "I am the body" idea. Perhaps the ego
is the general form "I am X" for any X where "I" is somehow supposed
to be X AND different from X simultaneously. Of course there is no
possible X which could actually meet these conditions and make the
statement "I am X" true. Might the abscence of attaching/identifying
 "I" with any X be the very abscence of ego itself?

regards,

Allan Curry

P.S.

I asked the list ages ago if you felt Ramana's "nan yar" (who am I?)
vichara marga (self enquiry) was actually directed to finding the ego.
I don't remember getting any replies to that question, so I'll ask it
again. Is the ego looked for in order to facilitate the vision of its
abscence? Is the true self the seeing of the abscence of the ego?
I'd say "yes", but you might disagree. If "yes", how does that square
with Sankara and Advaita proper?