When I first got this flash that it is the ego that stops us from realizing God, I wondered, 'How could the ego stop us from God?' My Spiritual Master had sent me an equation in his letter, and I pondered on the equation for long.
MAN – EGO = GOD
GOD + EGO = MAN
Finally, one day, I realized the truth.
To put it in simple words, my realization was this - If we let go of our ego, we will realize the truth about God. It is our ego that masks God. It makes us blind and we cannot see the reality. Along with the mind, it becomes our biggest enemy— Mind + Ego, ME. The mind and the ego make us live as 'I' and this very 'I' makes us live and die without realizing God.
Each one of us is not just the gross physical body that has two eyes to see, two ears to hear and a mouth to talk. We are conscious of our 5 sense organs just as we are aware that we have certain organs of action like our hands that grasp and our feet that walk, amongst others. We also have certain vital organs that make us live - our heart, brain, kidneys, and lungs.
However, this is just the hardware of the body. We also have a software that drives this body to act. It is MIME – the Mind, Intellect, Memory, and Ego. Unlike the gross body, this is the subtle body. We can't touch and feel it, although we know it exists.
Just like a computer cannot function only with the hardware and software, but also needs a power supply to boot it, our body needs power too to energize it. The life force within us is our Soul. Thus, it is these three essential aspects—the gross physical body, the subtle body - MIME, and the Soul—that together comprise us, that makes us a human being.
All along as we live, we think we are the ME, the Mind and Ego, the 'I'. We have a name, a surname, a nationality, a religion, and an occupation. We identify ourselves further when we say, 'My height and my weight is such,' and it defines our very existence.
Who is this 'I' that keeps saying this is 'my' hand or 'my' eyes? Who is this 'I' that proclaims that this house is ‘mine’, or this car is 'mine'? The 'I' that constantly says 'me' and 'mine' is our ego!
All through our life, till our last breath, we keep on believing that we are the ego. We have a body, mind, and Soul but we don't realize the truth. We live and die in ignorance as we are lost in the myth which we are taught. We just believe this lie till we die.
I was lucky! My Spiritual Master provoked me to go on a quest to realize the truth. I took with me 9 specific questions that had no answers.
After two years of being on a quest—my Talaash gave me answers that baffled me. I realized that I was not the ego that I thought I was for 48 years. Even my name was just my identity and not my reality. My biggest realization was that my ego was my biggest enemy. It was stopping me from realizing God.
With the grace of the Divine and the guidance of my Guru, I realized the truth about God, that God is not an old man with a long white beard sitting somewhere in the clouds. God is not a statue nor is God a saint. God is a Power that none of us can paint. God is the very Power that gives us breath. Without God, we would be dead. What we call 'the Soul', in reality, is Divine Energy that gives life to each of the over 30 trillion cells of our body. My realization made me even change my name from Ravi to AiR – Atman in Ravi or Soul in Ravi.
What stops us from the realization of the truth? What stops us from finding God, the Power that is within? It is our ego. If we let go of our EGO, we will find GOD.
Let me not give away the entire secret in the preface. Let me share step by step how I realized this Divine truth. I too thought I was the ego. How then, did I transcend my ego? How did I kill my mind to find out who I truly was? How did I realize that I am a manifestation of the Divine?
If you let go of your EGO,
I can promise you one thing – you will find GOD.
