I dunno man. I've never really bought that Eastern distinction between pure consciousness and the ego. To me the only two possibilities are that either the self is either a unified whole, or else the self is such a complex combination of things that a bipartite division is insufficient or not especially useful. What about the interruption of bliss caused by society's woes? Is the society part of the self, and if so, must it be part of the ego? What about physical pain?

Basically what I'm saying is that unless you believe in higher planes of existence then the mind is something intimately connected to the body, and is part of a large functioning system.