LETTING GO OF THE EGO
When I first realized that it is my ego that stops me from my God, I was shocked. I could not digest it, as my mind kept me going round and round with contradictory thoughts. But this was not simple knowledge. It was a realization! I no more had any doubts about the truth. I had a choice – to let go of the ego, or to let go of God!
The moment ego appears, God disappears. It is like dark clouds that cover a beautiful blue sky. The sky exists, but we can't see it. The beautiful sunshine has not gone anywhere. It has been stolen by the dark clouds – our ego. As long as we are alive, we cannot kill the ego. People believe that we must annihilate the ego, destroy it completely! But can we? As long as there is breath, and a person is walking and talking, thinking, feeling and acting, the 'I', the 'me' and the 'mine' cannot be destroyed. Yes, we can transcend it. We can go beyond it by letting go of it.
Why are we in this journey wanting to let go of our ego? It is only because the ego distances us from God. It stops us from seeing God. It stops us from realizing the truth about God. Therefore, it is shocking to know that our own ego is our biggest enemy. Not only does it make us suffer the agony and the anguish in our day to day lives by creating desire, craving and expectation that makes us suffer, it also robs us of our biggest treasure – God.
As long as we believe we are the ego, there can be no self- realization and thus no God-realization. We must realize that the ego is an illusion, an imposter that is causing ignorance and suffering and taking God away from us. This is the first step towards self-realization.
There is only one way to find God – we have to let go of our ego. As long as the ego believes 'I' to be different from God, we have already started distancing ourselves from the truth and from the Divine. In the Himalayas, there is a deer called the musk deer. All through its life, it appears to be chasing this beautiful fragrance of the musk that seems to emerge from the forest, very close to it. It searches and searches but cannot find the musk. It goes around in circles as if the musk is just behind it. Ultimately, it falls off the steep cliffs and dies searching for the musk. Hunters below know of the musk deer and its ignorance. They tear open its navel and retrieve the valuable musk that was all along within the musk deer. We too are like this musk deer. Our ego is constantly looking for God. Due to ignorance, the ego lives and dies, without realizing the God it was seeking is within. If we let go of the ego, we will find God.
How can we let go of the ego? It is through realization. Realization that we are not this body, we are not even the mind, and we are not the ego that is constantly brainwashing us to believe all this is mine. Although we know nothing is mine – we come empty-handed and we go empty-handed. Still, it is the ego that makes us sink in the ocean of ignorance. Like the dark clouds, it stops us from seeing beyond.
People wonder why excellence is a mark of our ego. Excellence seems to be something beautiful, to be our best, to achieve, to stand out, but the question is, 'Who is it that is trying to excel, to stand out?' 'Who wants to produce excellence?' It is the ego. The moment the ego raises its head, we start losing the sight of God. Until we eliminate the ego, we will not find God and this is our ultimate goal. Therefore, excellence too, is an obstacle when it comes to God-realization.
Even though we may read all this, the ego will still rage a war within. It will desire and crave, till we reach our grave, only to be reborn again and again. The ego becomes the 'I' that is the doer of all action. Along with the Mind, the ME creates Karma and it is reborn based on its Karma. If there was no ego, then the mind wouldn't create actions that create Karma. We could live as an instrument of the Divine, acting on behalf of the Creator, in complete surrender, without any desires. This is possible only when we realize that the ego is an illusion. It is the enemy of God-realization. When one lets go of the ego, they find God. As the ego surfaces in a human being, the ego makes us live as an ordinary human being. It then seeks, craves, desires, and acts, creating Karma that makes the ME – the Mind and Ego experience rebirth again and again.
It is not easy to let go of the ego. It may seem impossible to renounce using the words 'I', 'me', and 'mine'. But the stronger the realization, that 'I' am not 'me' and that nothing is 'mine', the closer we become to God. The ME, Mind and Ego, is constantly fighting to destroy our realization. Although we may realize that we are nothing and God is everything and also, that we are just effects, God is the cause, still, the Mind and the Ego pull us back to being 'ME'. The moment we fail in our realization that 'ME' is nothing, we lose God. If we shoot down thoughts of the mind, in that very moment we become conscious of the truth of who we are - the Divine!
This world is a cosmic drama. We human beings are like waves in an ocean. We seem to appear, but then we disappear. We come on the earth stage, we do our part and we go. Unfortunately, we don't realize this truth. We become attached to the stage and we think the drama of life to be real. 'This is my house, my car, my money, my wife, my kids,' there is no end to it! The truth is nothing is mine. We are just manifestations of the Divine. Even science has proved that a human being may look like trillions of cells, that work together in a human life, but even if one cell is studied under a sophisticated microscope, science confirms that what appears to be mass of electrons, neutrons and protons is nothing but energy. The 30 trillion cells in a human being are nothing but energy. There is no 'I'. This 'I' is an illusion. It stops us from seeing the truth. It stops us from God. If we truly want to find God, we have to let go of the ego. It's a choice!