Dear Prisoner and Prison Guy:
Thank you for you email and sharing your experience. Ramana used the metaphor that one uses a thorn to remove a thorn and, once done, throws both thorns away. I like it.
There is a particular contemplation in the series that deals with this dilemma but it takes some background to be effective. There is nothing wrong with what you are doing and your experiences are very common among students. If this ''situation'' was easy to grok then many more people would be free from the tyranny ''me''.
I'm going to go off on a strange tangent.. stay with me. If you build a bridge out of steel and it eventually fails for some reason, that failure will probably be gradual... things will start to sway and bend in a way that hopefully gives one some indication of the problem. Now, it you had built that bridge out of wood (not that uncommon in the past, like old train tressels) it may well last a long time however when it fails, it fails in a very different way. It's called ''catastrophic'' failure. Now you see it, now you don't. Are you with me? Predicting that moment of failure is virtually impossible.
Your ego is that wooden structure. In place for years and doing its ''job'' but once one starts picking away at it, failure is inevitable, BUT, just when is the challenge. One can pick away for a long time with no encouraging feedback, (except perhaps from someone like me). If I am not making sense to you don't hesitate to let me know and I will make another attempt...
This is when that frustrating word/concept arises... patience. You will not see what's coming, you might read about it, or have imaginings about it, but it is not something you can anticipate accurately because it is beyond ''mind''. It includes and embraces mind, illusion that it is, but is unimaginable. It is the context that everything occurs within.
So, just keep doing what you are doing. Be patient, and trust you are on the right road.
Love ya, Jed.