You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself || Acharya Prashant (2020)

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”?

Acharya Prashant (AP): There are two or three “you’s” in that statement. The questioner is quoting me to me. The quote says “You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself.” How many “you’s” do you see in that statement? How many instances of “you”? Three. The first two refer to one thing. And the last one refers to something dimensionally different. The first two refer to?

Q: Ego.

AP: Of course. The first two refer to the small self. The small self or the Ego. And the third one, “yourself”, refers to? “You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself.” In this, “yourself” refers to the best that you can be. The Great Self. The Truth. Classically, the Ātman, and classically the first two “you’s” will refer to Ahaṃ, the Ego. The third one refers to, you could say the dissolved Ego, the ascended Ego, the purified Ego.

So the Ego is afraid of its own betterment. That’s what that statement says. The Ego is so used to its littlenesses, to its familiar excuses of powerlessness and worthlessness, that it just cannot tolerate coming to a point where its usual excuses do not hold anymore. It’s almost like telling a fat guy “You can run 100 meters in 10 seconds” and he can. The fellow might be just 22. He has a lot of time. He can shed weight and he’s well-built. He has all the basic biological ingredients needed to be athletic. But he has a lot of additional stuff. A lot of flab, and a lot of habit.