Handling your own ego

The “I” or ego in you is a tiny atom. If this atom is associated with the body, with matter, it identifies with matter. If this atom is associated with the being, the infinite, it identifies with the infinite self. When this atom, this ego, identifies with the material world, it becomes miserable. But when it is associated with the spirit, it becomes Divine. It becomes shakti, energy, when it is associated with the being, the Self.

It becomes miserable when identified with the body. In a huge atomic reactor, it is just one atom that is exploded. In the same way, in our whole body there is just one atom of “I”. And when this “I” explodes, it becomes the light of the self. Usually we say “I am miserable”, or “I’m happy”. Shift this atom of ego from identifying with the body and the conceptual world, to identifying with the real world.

When you think well of yourself, in a very subtle way, you think badly about others. Then anger, jealousy and hatred follow. When you think badly about yourself, you feel low and again you become angry and you hate others. When you think well of yourself , you are in trouble and when you think badly of yourself, you are in greater trouble. So, drop your self-image. When is there ego?

1. When you don’t get attention.

2. When you seem to be losing attention.

3. When you get attention.

Ego causes heaviness, discomfort, fear, anxiety. Ego does not let love flow. Ego is separateness, non-belongingness, wanting to prove and to possess. Ego can be transcended by knowing the truth, by inquiring “Who am I?” Often, you feel contempt or jealousy towards someone with ego. Instead you should have compassion. There is also a positive aspect of ego.

Ego drives you to do work. A person will do a job either out of joy, compassion or out of ego. Most of the work in society is done out of ego. But in satsangs, work is done out of love. Ego is separateness and non-belongingness. It desires to prove and to possess. When you wake up and see that there is nothing to be proven and nothing to possess, ego dissolves. 

Transcending sorrow

 

The only thing you must remember is how fortunate you are. When you forget this, you become sad. Sorrow indicates your attachment to your negative qualities as well as your attachment to your positive qualities. Your negative qualities make you sad. And when you think you are so great, you start blaming others, this also makes you become sad. The purpose of sorrow is to bring you back to the Self. And the Self is all joy. But this realization is possible only through knowledge - through awareness.

Knowledge or awareness leads sorrow towards the Self. Without knowledge, the same sorrow multiplies and does not get completed. Knowledge completes sorrow. Only with the power of knowledge do you transcend sorrow. In this path you have everything. You have this beautiful knowledge that has all flavours - wisdom, laughter, seva, silence, singing, dancing humour, celebrating, yagnas, caring, complaints, problems, complications - and chaos to add colour. Life is so colourful. 

It is only through merit that you can have faith. When you lack faith, there can be no happiness in either the inner or the outer world. Happiness springs from faith. Happiness is forgetting the body consciousness. Pain or sorrow is holding on to body consciousness. When you are happy, you do not feel the body and when you are miserable, you have aches and pains.

Often in guided meditation, one's attention is taken to various parts of the body. For an arrow to go forward, it must be pulled back. In the same way when you take attention to the various parts of the body, that process frees you from body consciousness.

If you are unhappy, check if any of these are lacking - tapas or penance, vairagya or dispassion, sharanagati or surrender. Tapas is agreeing with the moment, a total acceptance of pleasant or unpleasant situations. Vairagya means “I want nothing” and “I am nothing”. Sharanagati is "I am here for you, for your joy”.

If you are grumbling, it is because these are lacking in your life. When you accept your situation you cannot grumble, when you take it as tapas you will not grumble. When you come from a state of dispassion - “I do not want anything”, you do not grumble, and if you are surrendered you will have no complaints.

If you do not do it willingly, you will do it later out of desperation. First you will say, “Nothing can be done”. Then in anger and desperation you will say, “I give up, I want nothing, I have no choice, to hell with it”. All three of these - penance, dispassion and surrender, purify your mind and uplift you in joy.

There is no problem that cannot be solved. When you have a problem that you think cannot be solved, you have accepted it. Then it is no longer a problem, it is a fact. Suppose you think it is a problem that the ocean in Norway is too cold. Obviously, you cannot heat the ocean. So it cannot be changed, you accept it, and it is no longer a problem. Only when you are searching for a solution is there a problem. Thus there is no problem that cannot be solved.

The moment you realise there is no solution, a problem ceases to be a problem. The solution is the tail of every problem. Solutions comes to you when you are calm and collected, when you use intelligence, when you are not lethargic but active, and when you have strong faith in divine law.