As of now, for me, there is the undertanding that thoughts are the scaffholding that holds the ego in place. As long as there are thoughts, there will be identification with this approach. And besides, there has to be at least the illusion of effort of stilling the mind.
Actually, what is referred to as the "ego" is an actual collection of anatomical structures that include an area corresponding with the forebrain, part of the throat chakra and solar plexus. There are actual connective structures to hold these in place; thoughts are fleeting and do not make for good scaffolding. I comment because there is a danger that with too much mind-stilling, these structures can atrophy, and there is also a high demand for their theft and reuse by many of the same influences that are outwardly anti-ego. Thoughts are the communication medium of the ego; they are not the ego itself. I was formerly in favor of stilling the mind to the point that it could be used deliberately like lifting an arm; now I tend more toward deliberate thoughts and those that drift through on their own being associated with the active and passive principles; both useful in their own way.

As an aside, I have become aware of a major problem on the astral (that I'm being heavily prodded to include), wherein as an extension to all this anti-ego / anti-thought rhetoric, people lose the ability to think consciously, and over time, the capacity for language erodes entirely. I can personally vouch for this effect, as I used to have serious problems converting thoughts into speech, before I found the connections between my throat chakra and the others completely detached. Fixed those, and suddenly I had an enhanced ability to communicate vocally that I'd never had in this lifetime.

Harness and discipline your conscious mind, but be nice to it, too.