Ego is a transient, holographic projection of mind, and a self-referent. Its nature, like everything else, is empty -- but unlike everything else, it asserts that "self" is responsible for what arises and dissolves, which leads to great suffering. It is a false persona layered upon present awareness, reinforced by stories of its own edification - "I think, therefore I am", and demands no interrogation or confirmation. It will in fact create mental bypasses to ensure its continued faux existence, and to prevent questioning of the circular logic responsible for its domination of the consciousness. It is, in essence, a program running in the foreground of consciousness which prevents the whole from being directly experienced. One litmus test of ego is that it cannot be an embodied experience. It's purely mind. Using the word "ego" makes the concept too abstract. We're basically talking about YOU. Anytime you talk about your SELF, or "I" or "me", then that's ego talking.
Basically, ego is the illusion of separateness that exists within oneness. Ego death tends to involve incredible suffering because ego does not want to die, or to bring it down to earth, you don't want to die. But what people don't realize is that it's just a concept that they don't want to die. They are present awareness that attached to SELF, and they don't realize that SELF can die without total oblivion, because SELF is tenacious like that. You are present awareness experiencing an ego, and are so attached to the story of the self that you think you are the self, when you're not the self at all. This can be easily proven, as there are many times in life when you're no longer a "you", but awareness continues: sleep, early infancy, near death, situations of blinding pain, intense bliss (the reason for drug use, in many cases, is people don't want to be themselves anymore), intense emotional experiences, etc. Ego is a really, really strong program that is determined to not be deleted at all costs, but interestingly, it only behaves this way when it's active. What you think of as "yourself" is not continuous. During your alone time where there is no outside engagement with others, there are easily moments where you're not thinking about "yourself", moments where you are just awareness. Then the persona activates for whatever reason, and acts like it has been there the whole time. Is that true though?
Real death voids all of that because "you" completely disappear as you get close to it. You will do anything to avoid being destroyed, including third-personing yourself so that you can pretend your ego (which is really you) was vanquished "over there" somewhere. If you want ego death, then all you are is an ego that wants to die. The true death of ego is pretty non-incidental because it just means sinking into present awareness, which is endless, and has no beginning and never ends; where this kind of semantic conversation is not only irrelevant, it's simply not happening anymore. But the process of getting there can be painful because you want to kick and scream and avoid death at all costs, and your body will even react to such non-sense with adrenaline and struggle. But once "you" are shut up for good, there's just silence, emptiness, the void. It's not non-existence, but it's totally still. It's in the body, not in the brain. The body will still experience all the transient states of being alive, but without the story, there is no pro-longed suffering. There's only stimulus without the narrative. Instead of getting angry and feeling guilty about it for days, there will be anger and then no anger. The reason why it's so hard for people to realize it is because they think of ego death as a state of attainment... if I do this number mantras every day, or meditate this many hours every day, or accumulate enough karmic merit, then my ego will subside. It's all just a trick. There's absolutely nowhere to go. You can't get more into present awareness if you tried. Right now is as good as it gets.
A side effect of the third-personing is that a lot of people talk about ego and oneness, but they don't realize that they are merely ego being aware of its own non-existence. That's not ego death, that's just a further trick of ego. It's just ego trying to be still, in the presence of Stillness. In other words, if you want to die, then just die already, don't "try" to die. The absence of ego means the absence of anything other than this present moment, a totally embodied experience of the emptiness of reality, and the permanent death of all stories, narratives and supporting fictions of the persona. The truth means the death of all concepts, including who you think you are, the people you care about, all of it. It doesn't mean those people literally die, it means your story about them dies. It all disappears and reveals just One Thing. Or as Daoism might put it, you become aware that the Ten Thousand Things are all just the Dao doing itself. The irony about ego death is that you have to do nothing in order to experience it. It's not something you "try" to attain. Trying is an activity of the mind. That's why it often takes so much suffering before some people get it -- suffering is one thing that vanquishes all the mental masturbation and the "trying". It puts you squarely into the present with zero story. It silences ego.
Your pain is so great that it shows you the extent of the lie. It's why a lot of extremely ill people end up seeing this, or people who undergo harsh physical trials; it's because they are so exhausted that mind no longer has the resources to project all this bullshit. They were so resistant to what was happening because they were protecting their own narrative, they were protecting themselves; but eventually the pain is so severe that there's no choice but to surrender, and it brings you to a place of great fear because it means confronting your own death. Then you come out the other end of that, storyless, "youless", and all that's left, is presence. Yet somehow, there is still awareness happening -- so what's that about? Something caves in and all that's there is total silence, and in it, the freedom that there's no "you" making shit happen. There's no reason for anything, no meaning, no attachments. Things seemingly exist but you're not responsible for the oneness doing itself. It's all totally pointless, without meaning, and there's no "you" to feel devastated about it. You're just pure awareness, and whatever's happening is happening. You might be angry one minute or sad the next, but it all arises and dissolves of its own accord. No story required, no tricks, no prolonging. It's all gravy, and every fiber of your being, down to your pores and toes, knows what's going on -- and what's going on, is absolutely empty.
God... this is way too long. Look, forget everything I just said. All you have to do, is STOP. Just stop. Stop everything. Stop thinking, stop writing, stop conceptualizing. Just sit there and shut up. Quiet everything. Be still, look around at where you are because that's all that's happening or could ever happen. Be still, and you've got it.