Inquirer: This is a realization that’s really been deepening in me lately: the fact that what is beyond ego is not trying to get rid of ego. Only ego has that goal. The one beyond it all is Love, it is embrace, it is discrimination through clear seeing, and clear seeing comes with total acceptance of this moment and all the tortured beings within it. When the ego sees itself as a threat, it tries to hide itself. This is not in the best interest of the whole being; only Self can begin to approach this mind and body with true Love.
Sundari: Well put. The ego cannot (and never will) free the ego. Only when you can see the ego objectively as the ‘I’ wrongly identified with the body/mind can we be free of it.
Inquirer: Beyond this moment in awareness I cannot extrapolate the Self’s ultimate goal or the role of the ego in accordance with pre-existing philosophy.
Sundari: There is no ‘beyond this moment in awareness’. There is only the recognition that you are only ever experiencing Awareness/Self (same thing) in every moment. Even though as the Self, your you are never ‘in’ any moment because you are not in time. The Self has no goal because it is not a person.
The nondual teachings of Vedanta are a finger pointing at the moon, but the knowledge they deliver has never not existed because it is the logic of existence. Vedanta is not a philosophy but the science of Consciousness, a timeless means of knowledge capable of revealing your true identity as Awareness/Self, assuming qualifications and that you are properly taught by a qualified teacher. If not, you will interpret the teachings according to your own ideas, which will be conditioned by duality (ignorance).
Inquirer: I save that for inquiry into my actual state in this actual moment.
Sundari: As the Self/Awareness you are what is actual, and you are never in any ‘state’. All states exist in you, as do all moments.
Inquirer: In becoming a blank slate and re-approaching the problem again and again, I find that we could align with endless perspectives on what is going on. The common point is awareness, in which all perspectives melt down and are constructed out of. It is the Omega point of Truth beneath all plurality.
Sundari: There is no need to ‘become a blank slate’ if you can discriminate between the limited personal ego identity and who you are as the unborn, ever-present, non-negatable nondual witness of the limited ego or person. You do not need to align with endless perspectives to do that, quite the opposite. There is only one fundamental truth, which is that reality is nondual, not a duality. This is ‘the point of truth beneath all plurality’. That is all you need to know to discriminate.
Once you have assimilated nondual Self-knowledge, you have no problem with the ego, as you said above. You see how it operates, understand what conditions it, and you have compassion for it. But it is as good as non-existent for you because you no longer identify with it.
Sundari