If thought doesn't interfere in your direct experience, and you closely watch what your direct experience looks like, you'll find you exist only as "thought". That is, the ego is a thought. Close your eyes, and try to find the "watcher". Is there a watcher in your experience? Or a doer or a person? Is any of that there? Only when you believe in a thought and use thought, you create a "watcher", a person, a separate entity. There's just a space of knowing. Without thoughts, that is, prior to thought, there's just you (Self).