In Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching, what is commonly called the ego is essentially a misidentification: the belief “I am the body, I am the mind, I am this person with a name and story.” This personal “me” is seen as a construct made of thoughts, memories, desires, and roles, all of which are transient and conditioned. For Maharaj, such identification with the changing body–mind complex obscures one’s true nature, which is pure awareness or consciousness. The ego, as this imagined center of individuality, is not a real self but an appearance within consciousness, a kind of provisional fiction that has been taken too seriously.

He draws a sharp distinction between the bare sense of being, the simple “I am,” and the ego’s elaborations upon it, such as “I am this” or “I am that.” The pure “I am” is the doorway to one’s real nature, whereas the ego arises when this basic awareness becomes entangled with thoughts, sensations, and personal history. In this view, the ego is the root of suffering because it generates separation, fear, and craving; all problems are bound up with the personal standpoint. Liberation, therefore, does not lie in perfecting the ego but in seeing through its claim to be the true self.

Maharaj does not advocate waging war on the ego or trying to “kill” it as a separate project, since that would only reinforce the sense of a doer. Instead, he emphasizes understanding and direct observation: one is encouraged to remain with the pure sense of “I am” and to witness all egoic movements as objects appearing in awareness. Through such steady self-inquiry, the false identification with the body–mind naturally loosens, and the ego is recognized as an illusion rather than an entity that must be destroyed. In this recognition, the standpoint shifts from being the person to being the consciousness in which the person appears.

Ultimately, his pointers extend even beyond the conceptual opposition of ego and no-ego. The true reality, as he describes it, is prior to all such notions, including the very sense of being a separate individual or a seeker of egolessness. By abiding in the unqualified “I am” and allowing the ego’s claims to be seen as passing phenomena, one is led toward that which is beyond all conceptual divisions, the supreme reality that does not depend on the presence or absence of a personal identity.