Ashtavakra Gita 8.4 -

Here the Sage brings a new line of thinking, about fostering and not fostering the ego. ‘I’ is actually a referral point, denoting oneself. It is relative to the other two, ‘you’ and ‘he, she, it or they’. The three references form a set. If the question, what is ‘I’, is taken up, it will lead one to the Self. So, ego has no stand at all.

But in actual practice, people identify the ‘I’ with the body and then go on feeling and saying “I have this, that and many things”. This is actually a claim of possession. If the ‘I’ is not the body, where is the individuality to possess anything any time? Does the inner spiritual presence need or possess anything at all? Is there anything to be possessed? Are not all the same single Self?

So any idea of possession, and hence non-possession, is unfounded, fictitious. The seeker should not foster it at all. Does space possess any planet? Do air and water possess any vessel they are in? How can the ‘I’, the Self, then possess anything?

‘I’ as a possessor should cease for ever. Realizing this well, the Knower should drop all ideas of having anything or leaving anything. Even when one says he possesses his house, the house remains where it is, and he remains distinctly different. Does the house follow him as his possession? So, all ideas of holding and not holding are a delusion. Leave them outright and be free.

The ‘I’ unites all, not separate one from another. Let all ideas of separation fall then for ever.