How can I overcome the ego?

You’re asking the wrong question. Let’s go back to basics:

Direct Experience

All I ever know, or come into contact with, are experiences.

Experiences: Types

1. Perceiving

2. Sensing

3. Thinking (and feeling)

The I-Sense (aham vritti)

The I-sense or I-thought is just a type of thought. In fact, Ramana Maharshi insists that it’s the preeminent type of thought, but for our purposes here it’s enough to note that it’s just a thought, a type of thought.

“Awareness of Ego Arising”

One needn’t be “more gentle” or “less gentle” with an ego arising. One simply opens to this ego arising, i.e., to this I-thought.

Take the screen/image analogy:

• You are the screen of awareness.
• All objective experiences–e.g., seeing, sensing, and I-thought arising–are appearing on you, the screen.
• Therefore, you don’t have to “do anything” to or with any I-thought. Just let it be.

Why?

• To try to do anything is to presume that one is another I-thought: to wit, a doer. This I-thought is trying to get rid of the prior I-thought. In this way, one continues to pretend that one is another character on the screen.
• Does the screen need any experiences to be changed or removed in order for it to be itself? No.
• Does the screen need “more clearance” in order to watch? No, it’s not like clearcutting a forest in the hope that, by so doing, one will be able to see the coast. The screen, as screen, is never perturbed and its “field of vision” is never obscured.
• So, just leave it alone; let it be. Surrender it.

Agitation, Stress, and Anxiety

You’re concerned about certain feelings arising.

1. Understand that agitation, stress, or anxiety is either a thought (again, an I-thought) or a sensation.

2. Start with the first case: suppose that agitation is a I-thought. Ask the question:

• To whom is this I-thought appearing? See. Open right here. Be the unseen seer.

3. Suppose there’s no more thought; there’s only a sensation. 

• Let the sensation naturally “spread out.”
• Continue to open and watch until it’s clear that this spread-out sensitivity is ananda (peace).

4. Therefore, all feelings are resolvable into consciousness or peace. And: consciousness = peace.

Releasing…

As the path unfolds, more gunk will come up. Let it be released. It may come up again. Fine. Let it be.

Slowly, let all gunk point to your nature, to you, to your being.