it must be emphasized that analogies between consciousness and an object of consciousness, however elusive – such as a reflection – are potentially very misleading. The ego does not exist as a thing, so it is not an object of consciousness, but a way of being conscious of things, a way of being, of behaving. Nor is it really even that. It is not an it, not an anything. The ego is like a reflection only in a very limited, specific sense.
