HOW TO DISSOLVE THE EGO?

The “I” or ego is a tiny atom. If this atom is associated with the body, with matter, it identifies with matter. If this atom is associated with the being, the infinite, it identifies with the infinite. When this atom, the ego, identifies with the body, it becomes miserable. But when it is associated with the spirit, it becomes Divine. It becomes shakti - energy - when it is associated with the being, the Self. In a huge atomic reactor, it is just one atom that has exploded. In the same way, in our whole body there is just one atom of “I.” And when this “I” explodes, it becomes the light of the Self. Usually we say “I am miserable,” or “I am happy.” Shift this atom of ego from identifying with the body and the conceptual world, to identifying with the real world.

Ego causes heaviness, discomfort. Ego does not let love flow. Ego is separateness, non belongingness. It desires to prove and to possess. When you wake up and see that there is nothing to be proven and nothing to possess, ego dissolves.

We make a big fuss about how we feel. ‘I follow my feelings’. Feelings come and go. You feel good and a little later you feel bad about the same thing. And whatever you felt bad about, a little later you feel good about it. So, our feelings about things, good or bad, they all change. When we base our life on such temporal things, that are so impermanent, then there is no stability in our lives. So, be in unconditional love. Ego automatically disappears.

Ego can be transcended by knowing the truth, by inquiring “Who am I?” Often, you feel contempt or jealousy towards someone who is egotistical. Instead you should have compassion or even pity. There is also a positive aspect of ego. Ego drives you to do work. A person will do a job either out of compassion or out of ego. Mos of the work in society is done out of ego. But in satsang, work is done out of love. Ego is a sense of seperateness, a sense of identity.

There are three ways to see ego.

1. Ego is identity. I am this. This is one ego.
2. Ego is also I am not this.
3. Ego is also I am separate from others.

HOW TO DISSOLVE THIS EGO?

Either you expand your ego. I am this, I am that, I am that too. For instance, one ego is that you think you are an officer. But if you are stuck with only being an officer, and you come home and be an officer to your kids and wife, you create a problem. Your one identity is that you are an officer, but you are a father/mother with your children, you are a husband/wife with your spouse, you are a son/ daughter with your parents and so many. When you balance all these identities in your life giving equal importance to all these, that is the way you dissolve your ego.

Ego is getting stuck with any one identity. From that limited identity to identify with the unlimited divinity is the path of expanding, or you can call it dissolving identity. So you move from me to Aham Brahaman, I am somebody to becoming I am nobody, and I am nobody to I am everybody.

Now this looks very philosophical. You can’t go to your office and say that you are nobody, nor can you say at your home that you are everybody. It is not going to work. So, I would say that the simple way to counter your ego is to be natural. Ego makes you feel uncomfortable, unnatural and separate. Egolessness,or expanded ego or transformed ego is being at home, being natural with everyone in every circumstance.

If you find you have any ego, then don’t try to dissolve it. You can keep it in your pocket. Don’t meddle with it, and don’t bother about it. Let it be there.

WHO WOULD ELIMINATE THE EGO?

If you eliminate your ego, that is a bigger ego. Oh! I have eliminated my ego, it is like saying ‘I’m the most humble person in the whole world’.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR The writer is an Indian yoga guru, a spiritual leader, founder of The Art of Living