As long as we continue speaking of 'the' ego, time and space, thereby making mental images of them, each one a concept, as though such things existed, and despite intellectual conviction regarding their unreality - we are never likely to leap over the then almost insuperable barrier that lies across our path.
How to realise the veritable inexistence of these notions, that they are not phenomenal (relative) reality at all? That is not easy and is vigorously resisted by the self-identified aspect of mind. Rare are those who will face it: usually people will not even listen, or their attention is only a polite pretence. But in these observations I have tried numerous lines of approach - for this requires intuition rather than reasoning for its apprehension.
Perhaps it is necessary to ask, perhaps it is necessary that the vital information shall be in reply to a question, to an urge, in order that the intuition may successfully be communicated?
Let us remember: 'the' ego, time and space are really symbols - like algebra, technical apparatus of the intellect devised in order provisionally to explain an anomaly. They are convenient hypotheses - like the 'aether'.
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This understanding has never been easy in any civilisation; probably in no other has it been so difficult or rare, surrounded as we are from birth by people so firmly convinced of the reality of their individual entity. Every element of our civilisation is based on this supposition, every aspect of our lives is permeated by it. Personality is a cult, and the evils that surround us are the direct result of the development of this assumption.
Even an intellectual understanding of the inexistence of our 'selves' is a rare and bitter attainment which few even attempt. And that is only the elimination round which qualifies us for access to Reality.
Note: Intellectual understanding should not be indispensable to a simple 'mind', but, with our conditioning, it would seem to be an almost inevitable preliminary.
Need we wonder ...
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