Unlike the predominating metaphysics in India, self is not the source of problem.  Ego is a natural outcome of Emotion.  Emotion is a natural outcome of lack of confidence.   Lack of confidence in oneself, and its substitution with a false sense of confidence, is the source of the problem.    There are three sources of the false sense: one’s experiences that reproduce the past, one’s extroversions that reproduce the present using everybody else’s experiences, and one’s introversions that produce the future by circling back to experience the extroverted reality and the circling forward to relive the introverted reality of one’s past experiences seeking to derive a sense of confidence from the full circle of derived reality.