Ego

हमारा मिजाज हमेशा दूसरों और परिस्थितियों पर निर्भर करता है। नतीजे आपकी उम्मीदों के मुताबिक नहीं रहे। इसलिए अब आपको मनोबल बढ़ाने वाले किसी प्रेरक वक्ता की ज़रूरत है। जैसे ही वह व्यक्ति चला जाता है, आपकी ऊर्जा भी थम जाती है। लेकिन जीने का एक और तरीका भी है। अपने भीतर गहराई में, मुझे एक ऐसा बिंदु मिलता है जिसे कोई बाहरी परिस्थिति छू नहीं सकती। जो कुछ भी होता है, वह सतह पर ही घटित होता है। वह स्थिर, उदासीन और तटस्थ बना रहता है। तब आप सचमुच स्वतंत्र होते हैं।

How do you, asks the chief of police, patrol a city, where the butcher shops are guarded by vultures, where bulls get pregnant, cows are barren,

“I will beat him!”

“I will destroy her!”

“Did you just insult me? Did you?”

Four hours forty-eight minutes of deep intellectual perspiration!

Just as the ego loves to take credit, it also loves to play the victim.

If something good has happened, “I did it!”

If something bad happened, “It happened to me.”

There was this king of the demons; his name was Hiranyakashyupa. The king worked really hard. He kept austerities, he forced even God to come down and bless him. So, it would have required a very special effort. But then, what did he want from God? Nothing but the extension…

You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.

There are three ‘you’s in that statement. The first two refer to the small self or the ego. The third one refers to the best that you can be, the Great Self, the Truth—classically, the Ātman. And classically…

Several people dislike their few glimpses of joy. They hold themselves accountable, they hold themselves guilty for having tasted even a few drops of joy, because joy is not a socially sanctioned kind of happiness. Joy is deep, disruptive, rebellious. It takes you far away from everything into yourself. It…

You are actually so powerful that you are scared of yourself. The ego doesn’t want to give up. That’s what the scare is all about, because betterment of the ego is nothing but the reduction of the ego. Who wants to reduce?

We all want to accumulate. We all want…

There is this new bunch of spiritual hoodlums who come up and say, “Be yourself. Accept yourself as you are.” And who are you? Somebody fundamentally dangerous to yourself. We said the ego is its own bleeding wound, and you are being told, “Be yourself, remain the wound. Remain the…

Ask yourself this one question: The way I am living, is it reducing my inner darkness? This question, only this question, determines whether you are living rightly.

It doesn’t matter how well fed you are, how well clothed you are, how well monied you are, how reputed, how respectable you…

The ego is nothing but the meanings and significances you attach to the world. You attach all that to the world because of a flawed notion of yourself. You look at stuff, and that stuff starts having value or meaning principally because you think you lack that value or meaning…

The ego does not live for the Truth; it lives for its own survival. And to live for one’s survival makes any sense only in the presence of challenges to survival. If there are no challenges to survival, whose survival are you protecting and living for?

Therefore, if you are…

The ego will forget 999 defeats and remember that one game when it was able to win a game in spite of being 0-9 down. The memory of that one game keeps your false confidence alive.

Then you repeatedly keep slipping to 0-9 positions.

It is 0-3; you say, “Not…

A leader is seeking satisfaction by looking at the twenty thousand bodies gathered to listen to him. Where is he getting his satisfaction from? Twenty thousand bodies. This is sexual activity, but you will not call it as sex. You will say, “Oh, it is just a leader addressing an…

We cannot blame somebody for history. History is determined not merely by the fact that there are two genders; there’s so much else that’s involved, a lot of freak accidents. Do not discount the possibility that you can have—and we do have, as a matter of fact—very, very healthy women,…

When it comes to all the nonsense, see how you succeed, don’t you? You want to go and satisfy your lust, and see how you find out ways, don’t you? Like a rat, you find a way into the house; then you know where the hole is. And if the…

Yes, Holika… Not to miss out on her. A smart woman, no? A smart woman with extraordinary powers. And it’s her smartness that brought her to flames. That’s a very important message to be remembered. The more smart you are, the more clever you are, the more are the chances…

Things that are absolutely rubbish keep on occupying important places in our minds and, therefore, in our lives. Stuff that you would never value at all if you were not so heavily conditioned comes to become the center of your life. And when you are asked, “But why is this…

Ego is a pleasure seeker. The ego wants to talk of life and its celebrations and beauties and fragrances. The Aghori says, “The ego wants to forget death, and I keep reminding the ego of death.”

He reminds the ego of death in the most ruthless way possible. He would…

You go to a shop, and how do you buy clothes? Good to touch, good to wear, and should appear expensive, shouldn’t appear cheap. This is what you do when you want to select a piece of cloth. And what would you do when you would want to select a…

Questioner (Q): All reflections are coming from my limited mind. And when you shower pure nectar in every session, it seems my words would just pollute everything. I do acknowledge that I am related or connected to money, family, position, etc. and for me, Dṛṣṭā or Ātman is merely a…

Questioner (Q): Sir, it is pretty evident that I exist and you exist, but you have also stated that the ego does not exist. So, when someone calls you Acharya Prashant and you reply, isn’t that an identification which reflects an ego?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It is a thing that…

Sufi Story: In the city of Bastan where Bayazid made his home, there lived a very respected and venerable ascetic. He enjoyed Bayazid's circle, though he never became one of his disciples. One day he said to Bayazid, "O Master! For the last thirty years, I have been fasting from…

Questioner (Q): We exist so that timeless can be discovered. Who is it that discovers timeless? If the ego-self, the 'I', is itself a product of time, how is it going to discover the timeless?

Acharya Prashant (AP): What is meant when we say that the ego-self is a product…

Questioner: Acharya Ji, I have come to understand that reality of for us is entirely dependent on the sensory apparatus that we use. Also you have taught in the ‘Karma Yoga’ session that ‘Aham’ will always demand something and we should give Aham such a big thing that it dissolves…

Question: How do I overcome ego?

Acharya Prashant: You do not overcome anything if you do not understand it. You do not overcome anything without understanding it. No problem can be solved if you do not understand the question. Am I right? If you do not understand the question, can…

Questioner: How will I dissolve?

Acharya Prashant: By watching the one who wants to dissolve. (Silence)

Who is the one who wants to dissolve? And why does he want to dissolve? And if he is really serious and honest why has he already not dissolved till now? Surely, there is…

Probing inside, I came Seeking the moon within me: Sifting the chaff from the grain. I went seeking The Like, Alike, Thou art Narayan. Thou art Narayan, then, Why this will-of-the-wisp?

~ Saint Lalleshwari

Question: Acharya Ji, Why do I have ego?

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, Ramana Maharshi talks about ‘transcending and turning inwards'. Who is transcending and who is turning inwards?

Acharya Prashant (AP): The Ego, the I tendency. Whatever advice is given, is always given to the “I” tendency. Because at the center of everything lies this “I” tendency that…

Acharya Prashant: Deepanshu (Questioner) says, “If everyone drops their ego, there would be no civilization and everybody would be roaming naked in the Jungle.”

We have to understand what is ego and what civilization? What is it that is meant by civilization? Civilization refers to a particular order in living.…

Conversation between Roark and Hopton Stoddard at the end of which Roark agrees to raise the Stoddard Temple: “Roark rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, helplessly. It was not possible. It simply was not possible. That could not be what the man wanted; not that man. It…

Acharya Prashant (AP): Whenever something is addressed to the ego, whenever a word is delivered to the ego, it is delivered with the intention to take the ego to the Truth. Remember, it is the intention to take the ego to the Truth. Whatsoever is being told to the ego,…

Questioner 1 (Q1): Dropping the knowledge, is it dropping the method, or is it completely dropping the knowledge?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Dropping the feeling that I already know what is best for me. Would you call knowledge as knowledge, if you are not sure of it? Would you call yourself…

Questioner: There is a passage from the preface of Open Secret - “There is abandonment of a phenomenal center constitutes the only 'practice', and such abandonment is not an act volitionally profound by the identified subject, but a non-action leaving the noumenal center In control of phenomenal activity, and free…

Questioner (Q): What are you working for and where are you working from? These two have the same answer, so how to understand this in the context of for Truth seeker who are indulge in their worldly activities, how should they approach their worldly lives?

Acharya Prashant (AP): See, often…

यस्य नाहङ् कृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते ।।

हत्वाऽपि स इमाँल्लोकान्न हन्ति न निबध्यते ।। 18.17 ।।

yasya nāhankṛito bhāvo buddhir yasya na lipyate

तस्मात्त्वमुत्तिष्ठ यशो लभस्व जित्वा शत्रून्भुङ् क्ष्व राज्यं समृद्धम् ।

मयैवैते निहता: पूर्वमेव निमित्तमात्रं भव सव्यसाचिन् ।। 11.33 ।।

दातव्यमिति यद्दानं दीयतेऽनुपकारिणे ।

देशे काले च पात्रे च तद्दानं सात्त्विकं स्मृतम् ।। 17.20 ।।

dātavyam iti yad dānaṁ dīyate ‘nupakāriṇe

यत्रोपरमते चित्तं निरुद्धं योगसेवया । 

यत्र चैवात्मनात्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति ।।

yatroparamate chittaṁ niruddhaṁ yoga-sevayā

तानि सर्वाणि संयम्य युक्त आसीत मत्पर: ।

वशे हि यस्येन्द्रियाणि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता ।।  2.61 ।।

tāni sarvāṇi sanyamya yukta āsīta mat-paraḥ

You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself ~ Acharya Prashant

Questioner (Q): Pranam Acharya Ji, you write here “You are scared of yourself.” This quote — “You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.” What does that mean”?

All that one gives to others, one gives to one’s self. If this truth is understood, who will not give to others? ~ Sri Raman Maharshi

Questioner: In this statement, Raman Maharshi is saying that giving to others is giving to oneself, but the mind discriminates between ‘I’ and ‘the…

Howard Roark: “I didn’t know it then, but it’s because I’ve never believed in God.”

Henry Cameron: “Come on, talk sense.”

Howard Roark: “Because I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on the earth. I want to change them.”

Question: Dear Master, if everything is consciousness, why does prakriti (nature) exist? Why for the survival of one specie one must take another life? Why this effort must be done to sustain the body, when we are not the body?

Acharya Prashant Ji: Shirin when you are not the body,…

Question: Acharya Ji, a few minutes back in the session you said that in today’s times we will not approach God to Love him. We will approach Him to stab Him. You also said that animal operates from the centre of prakriti (nature), and the Saint operates from the centre…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, how do I have good relationships with people?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Which people?

Q: Friends, etc.

Questioner (Q): There are certain things that we can observe very easily. But there are certain things that are not very obvious, that cannot be detected obviously.

I have noticed this very recently that when I get into discussions related to Spirituality, especially with my wife, it becomes more of…

Question: Acharya Ji, I neither understand fakeness nor the depth hidden in words. If someone says, “Nice to meet you, let’s meet again sometime,” I start thinking that the person actually wants to meet me. Someone says, “You will get this contract,” I believe in him.

Such fake assurances are…

Question: Pranaam Acharya Ji. Allow me to apologise for the abrupt question last time. This time too, I was a little afraid to write another question. However I do wish to write. Please talk about it as I am your avid listener, and whatever you say shall be good for…