JOURNAL - MARCH 1, 2005

Ego vs Non-Ego-The conflict

On a recent trip, a follower of Bhagavan asked me a question “I do not want to be egoistical, but when I was doing some work, I was expecting credit-I wanted to jump up and be recognized. A part of me rebelled against this, since this is egoistical. This means I am filled with ego, I should not have ego”

As I looked at this, the consciousness of Buddha came to me and I started to see the whole process clearly and empirically. Not as it “could be” or “should be”, but rather as “it is”. So I said, Do you see how you have built up a picture of “non-ego”? This picture looks something like non-ego means I do not praise myself, I am quiet and unassuming, etc, etc. There is this picture we have in our mind and we are striving to achieve it. However, our reality contradicts this picture and we are in conflict, we suffer and we try to move from non-ego to ego. This is known as “psychological becoming”. Note that this is similar but distinct from physical becoming, physically you can become a doctor, nurse, etc through achievement of certain qualifications. Similarly, you have made up some qualifications for non-ego and are trying to achieve this.

Let us now look at this process more closely. What happens when we try to achieve this non-ego? To see this we must see what is driving us to achieve non-ego. It is an “spiritual” ego is it not? We want to be a better person, a spiritual person, a better follower of spiritual teachings, etc. Thus, in trying to be non-egosotical, our ego is persisting and in fact growing is it not?

This same process can be observed if we try to move from anger to non-anger, fear to non-fear, judgement to non-judgement, etc. Thus, we speak about the futility of psychological becoming. In this sense you are helpless-you are chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or you are a dog chasing its own tail!

If you can clearly see this as it is happening, the futility of becoming will become clear to you. When this clarity comes, the ideal of non-ego will drop-it will lose its power and you can now turn to the “what is”. Till now you have been obsessed with the non-ego, the “what should be”. And because the “what is” clashes with the “what should be” there is suffering and conflict. Many teachings and traditions talk about about the “what should be” but remember they are frequently written by people in a different state of consciousness! We are “upside down”, we focus on the “what is”. As my teacher, the great master Acharya Sri Anandagiri used to frequently say “The journey begins where you are”

Now, you have focussed on the what is. What do you see? If you look closely, all that is there are thoughts, there is emotion and there is a flow of energy, and this is what you have labeled ego, judgement, etc, is it not? And you will see that the things you resist like fear, anger, ego, etc are simply repetetive thought processes draining your energy.

Just see this as it is happening and tell me what happens! I will say no more at this time!

My thanks to all the higher Divine beings for this clarity and insight