Hi - I'm new to this thread - great topic.
I've read the previous posts and very much agree with 14 Chakras view re: the ego being the illusion of a separate self. As to what causes the sense of separateness, I see this arising (perhaps inevitably to some extent) from the identification of consciousness with the body - since people's bodies are in fact separate and distinct.
It's interesting to consider how this illusion of separateness get created and maintained. It seems that consciousness gets 'localized' in associating with a particular body and then this localization gets entrained and the sense of separateness becomes habitual. Such entrained localization would also tend to obscure an awareness of the inherent unboundedness of consciousness.
Considering the ego (illusion of a separate self) in this way, the question of how to transcend the ego would be framed as how to release consciousness from its entrained identification with a particular body, thereby allowing it to realize its inherent unboundedness.
What would the experience of such release be like? There have been several references to the guru/disciple relationship and encounters with realized people (David Hawkins, Eckhart Tolle). One of my favourite accounts is posted at the website of Thomas Ashley-Farrand - a western Vedic priest who teaches mantra meditation.
In his book,
True Stories of Spiritual Power (2001), Thomas describes a remarkable encounter, which occurred around 1975 when he was 35. He had been meditating for about two years at the time. He was doing temp work for a consulting firm and was assigned to the U.S. Dept of Labor in Washington DC to help them reconcile their property book.
Shortly after arriving, he found himself among the whitest of white hats - a mutually-telepathic group of employees who proceeded to disclose that they knew his every thought and feeling. They also had remarkable healing powers. In fact, the purpose of the encounter seems to have been to clear certain blockages from his nervous system (and restructure his worldview!). Although he had been hired for two weeks, he was told at the end of the first week that the assignment was complete and he never saw them again.
The account is similar to the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (John 4) where Jesus disclosed to the woman that he knew her marital history (she went back to her town and said "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did" Jn 4:29).
In Thomas's case, the entrainment would be to a transcendent communalization that would indeed definitively dispel the illusion of a separate self. I am familiar with Thomas's work, have spoken with him, and believe this account is credible.
"Very Civil Servants" -
http://www.sanskritmantra.com/laser.htm
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