| Question:
What about the ego? Where does it fit in Vedanta? Swamiji: Ego is not a noun, but a verb. It is nothing but a bundle of past actions and reactions. Who are you? Only this record of actions and reactions from your birth until now. So you carry this stinking bundle on your shoulders and accuse the world of stinking. The Lord is only asking you to give this bundle to Him, nothing else. Throw the bundle down and look at the world without this muddy poison. Drop this ego. Where it is dropped, divine experience arises. The Ego survives in us only so long as we entertain thoughts. Any amount of removing the negativity will not completely cleanse the mind. All dictations from within are from the mind and will be conditioned by the residual desire-prompted thoughts. Even our desire to lead a spiritual life can bloat the ego it we begin patting ourselves on the back at how good and positive we have become. When all thoughts are dropped, the ego is dropped. Only then the dancer’s steps will be in unison with the background music. The rhythm of our actions will be pure and divine if deep within us is the constant detachment from the idea that “I” am performing this action, and “I” am to reap the rewards of this action. Q: What about the techniques we have in the United States, such as the est Training? There is a definite experience of “I created the whole thing—I am totally responsible.” S: Yes, it is an enlightenment. However, there is no preparation of the mind; therefore, it is not the real thing. It is something gained, an experience of power. This is an illumination of the ego. Enlightenment is never gained; it comes. Q: I have noticed that many of the graduates of the est Training do not have the love that the scriptures talk about. S: Yes, look how disturbing they are to others—just like the rakshasas [extroverts] in our Puranas. However, est has enabled many to have the courage to face life and make a success of it. Vedanta is not contrary to having a successful life. Worldly success can be a necessary step. These methods of the West are very useful as a means on the path, but one must not confuse the means with the goal. One must beware of all these new techniques. That is the value of Sanatana Dharma [Eternal Truth] as taught by our rshis. It has been tested and re-tested throughout the ages. [This afternoon Swamiji was sitting in his cottage in the Sandeepany ashram. He leaned back and looked out of the window at the bright orange blossoms of a gulmohar tree.] S: We have such lovely flowering trees in our ashram garden. It is indeed nice to look out and see the lovely flowers. Q: The sight of flowers gives us sublime happiness! S: Yes. If we cannot find the sublime happiness within ourselves, then flowers are a means to invoke it. Yes, Vedanta explains that these bits of bliss are only a small reflection of the one great bliss, our Real Nature. Q: If that’s so, why do I fog it up? S: Because that is what that “I” is for. Go beyond the ego. Q: Is it possible for a Self-realized person to become re-attached to the ego? S: Yes, there are several examples of it in our Puranas, but the attachment is temporary. When one wants, one can get out of it easily. However, an ordinary individual working in the world finds it difficult to drop the attachment when some circumstance hooks his mind to the lower ego. He must always be cautious of that “devil.” Q: You Hindus are always harping on the ego! What’s wrong with it? S: What’s wrong with it? You tell me what’s wrong with it! It is an obstacle. It limits you. Put a wooden beam one-and-a-half feet wide and thirty feet long on the ground. You will walk across it; even bike across it. But raise it to the fifth floor between two buildings and you will not take a single step on it, even if we were to offer you one hundred dollars. You would look down and you would become afraid. What is it that fears? What is it that inhibits? THINK! Why is it that in the parlor of your own home you can talk on a subject with your own friends for hours—rattling on until you even bore them. But put you on a platform in front of five thousand people to speak on the very same subject, what happens? You freeze up. You only have to put your thoughts through your mouth; you are only to repeat the same words you spoke in your own home. Such intelligence you were displaying for your friends! But where is all of your intelligence now? You have the knowledge, but when the moment comes to use it, it is not available. Take another example. A doctor is to operate on his own son. He has performed this same surgery hundreds of times. But the thought—this is my son—comes into his mind along with anxiety for all the possibilities of all the things that might go wrong. Because of his emotional reaction, he is unable to perform the surgery and has to turn the knife over to an associate. He has the knowledge, but at that moment what happened? If it were you or I on the table, he would have taken the knife to us without a second thought. He would not even have imagined any future complications. Later, he could even claim: “The operation was a success, but the patient died!” To live and act in the world without ego and ego-centered desires is the secret of success. The Bhagavad Gita is a practical manual, an instruction book, to enable us to make the inner adjustments necessary to conquer this universal ego disease. In the Eastern cultures, it has been through an inner adjustment that happiness has been found. In the Western cultures, happiness has been sought by making outer adjustments: continuously rearranging the world with the idea that some particular combination will bring happiness—new wife, new car, new children, new job. It’s endless! The inner adjustment must be made so that the intellect is available to do any work, or to face any crisis. Q: But I do feel like I should do something to improve the world. S: You improve yourself! That is the real challenge! Wanting to help others—that is ego too. You think you are going to bring the experience of the Ultimate down to the physical reality? It is already here! That is like wanting to go to the moon to bring space back to Earth. |