Spiritual Message for the Day – Discovering The Ego by Sri Swami Venkatesananda
Baba Times Digest© | 4 October 2014 14.55 EST | New York Edition
Divine Life Society Publication: Sivananda Yoga by Sri Swami Venkatesananda
"Adapt, adjust, accommodate, bear insult, bear injury." This is the highest Sadhana and the most direct path to self-realisation, because it cuts right through the ego. It does not mean that we should so live or act in this world as to invite criticism, insult and injury (then, of course, you deserve nothing else!). But to do your very best, to do the right thing at the right moment in the right manner in the right place, is your duty. That is Yoga. There is no compromise on this score. In spite of that, whatever you do you will always find someone who is annoyed, someone who doesn’t like you, or what you do or look like. What is your attitude towards such a person? Your first impulse is to eliminate him or run away from him, to eliminate, remedy or avoid such a situation. If you do that you have destroyed the best opportunity for practising the highest Sadhana.
In one of his very early letters to Swami Paramanandaji, Gurudev had written, "I want around me people who will criticise me, vilify me, scandalise me, even hurt me, injure me." This is not masochism. He did not enjoy being persecuted, nor did he suffer from a martyr complex; he neither invited nor looked for criticism; he was extremely careful in his behaviour; he conformed as far as he could to the norms of society and there was no objectionable behaviour on his part—it was all exemplary, but in spite of it, when he was inevitably criticised by someone or the other, it was there that his uniqueness was seen. There were occasions when even his own disciples openly or covertly mocked at him or criticised him—he knew it—but even then you couldn’t find the least trace of disapproval or displeasure. His love was uniform. Occasionally the critic would get preferential treatment—only occasionally, because even that was not made a religion. It was not that he relished or enjoyed it—that’s another trap. It hurts—it must hurt. If you have done your best to do the right thing and yet you are criticised you don’t enjoy it, but you utilise that opportunity to discover this great ego. That is an opportunity to enquire, "Who am I?" Who is it that is hurt, who is it that is insulted, and what is insult?
Gurudev often pointed out that insult or criticism is nothing but so much wind, air. There’s another way of looking at it. Most of you are familiar with these Kundalini-chakras and probably you know also that according to Shat-chakra nimpana the chakras are supposed to have a certain number of petals. It is said that certain sounds are associated with those and if you add up the whole lot you get the Sanskrit alphabet. The first of the vowels is ‘a’ and the last of the consonants is ‘ha’. Aham in Sanskrit (or I is nothing but all these sounds put together, and all the words attributed to it are also words, mere sounds. ‘I’ (Aham) is non-existent sound; ‘fool’ is another non-existent sound and ‘idiot’ is another non-existent sound. That non-existent sound is attributed to this non-existent sound. What does it matter? It is air blowing on air—absolutely nothing. One who practises this Yoga regards injury as a blessing, not revelling in it, not remedying it, but utilising it to discover this Aham, to discover who this ‘I’ is.
One should distinguish between physical pain and psychological sorrow. Physical pain may have to be dealt with and remedied. The body itself demands it. Gurudev was extraordinarily careful when it came to the protection of the physical body, and during the last few years he took more medicine than food. Physical pain may have to be dealt with, avoided, treated, cured or got rid of, but psychological sorrow should not be treated, got rid of or avoided. It should be utilised in order to discover that which experiences this sorrow. With each experience if one is able to trace the source of that sorrow—which is the ego—then that ego is got rid of once and for all and there is liberation. Only then is there liberation. Therefore, Gurudev exalted this. When there is a tremendous inner urge to find the ego, in the light of that urge the ego (the ‘me’, the self) is seen to be non-existent.
In that situation virtue flows effortlessly. All the Yama-niyama take their abode in you, all the disciplines that we have been discussing all these days become yours, effortlessly. You are unselfish, effortlessly—not because you think the unselfish self is going to lead you to Moksha, but there is Moksha already. You are freed from the self and therefore you are unselfish. There is no alternative. You love God, not because you expect to be given a right to heaven. There is no because. That life itself is a continuous meditation. This urge to liberation sought to find the truth concerning the ego, and having discovered its non-existence begins to realise that it was possible for it to arise on account of inattention, and if you are not attentive and vigilant throughout your life it can arise again—so there is constant vigilance.
That vigilant watchfulness of the potentiality of the ego arising is itself meditation. There is no other meditation. In that meditation the ego is prevented from arising. That vigilance itself is the inner light or insight and as long as it is shining bright the demon called ego doesn’t arise. That is meditation. And that is also self-realisation, God-realisation or liberation, whatever you wish to call it.
Excerpts from: Discovering The Ego - Sivananda Yoga by Sri Swami Venkatesananda
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