Spiritual Message for the Day – Lokeshana is Contrary to True Spiritual Aspiration by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Baba Times Digest© | 8 January 2015 12.32 EST | New York Edition

Lokeshana is Contrary to True Spiritual Aspiration

Divine Life Society Publication: True Spiritual Living by Sri Swami Krishnananda

We have what we call a sense of self-respect, which is inseparable from our individual being. We have a sense of importance. This is lokeshana, or love of good name and fame, and it materialises itself into power later on when it gets intensified. Even an idiot has a sense of self-respect. This is the precise character of the ego. It is an attachment to the body that we regard as self-respect. What is our importance? If we analyse ourselves carefully and remove the fibres of our being individually, we will find that there is nothing inside us which can be considered of real importance. Whatever is of importance in us has come from somewhere else. The great words of Sri Swami Vivekananda come to my mind. In a lecture he said, "If there is anything worthy in me, it belongs to Sri Ramakrishna. If there is anything wrong, that is mine." Well, this is a tremendous attitude of humility and wisdom, which is unknown to us.

Really speaking, an individual personality has no importance of its own. The importance that it assumes, or that it appears to have, comes from the element of universality that is inherent in it. This is not known to anyone. It cannot be known because the ego repels a consciousness of the presence of even that element of the Universal in itself. We resent the Universal so intensely that we would not even like to think about it, because even to allow a thought of it is to reduce the importance of the ego, which is very painful to us. We are important, and sometimes it looks that our importance is not recognised or known to people. Then we try to publicise it by various means, and the ego knows the ways by which it can announce itself or advertise its importance.

To free oneself from this evil of false self-respect, which has really no substance in it, masters of yoga, teachers of spiritual life, tell us that we should live under conditions of humility. We should live a very, very simple life so that the ego may not swell up unnecessarily. When sitting in an audience, we should occupy the last seat, not the front seat. We may even sit near the shoes. Even if we are geniuses, it makes no difference.

Dr. K. S. Krishnan, formerly the director of the National Physical Laboratories in New Delhi was a very famous man, a great personality in the field of science in India, perhaps even in the international field. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj had asked people to place a chair for him in satsang. One of the brahmacharis was sweeping and putting a dhari, and he put a chair there saying, "This is for Dr. Krishnan." By chance, Dr. Krishnan happened to come there with some other friends, looking very simple, wearing a dhoti, and nobody knew that he was Dr. Krishnan. He came and sat on that chair, and immediately the brahmachari said, "Ay! This is for Dr. Krishnan. You should not sit here."

"Oh I see. Sorry!" he said. He got up and sat down on the floor.

Then Swami Sivanadaji Maharaj came, and said, "Hey, you are sitting on the floor! Sit on the chair."

"No, it's all right," he said.

"No! No!" He pulled him up and made him sit on the chair, and then all looked up.  The brahmachari felt so ashamed. Anyone else would have given a retort or shown a sign of resentment, but he did not though he was an important personality, really speaking.

The greatness of a person does not depend upon outward publicity or even recognition by others. One’s greatness is a self-sufficient qualification which is self-existent and can shine by itself, like the sun in the sky. It is absence of real importance that makes us feel that we are small, and it gets annoyed when it is not recognised. The more is our vidya, the more also is our vinaya. The greater is our knowledge and wisdom, the deeper is our sense of humility. The bigger we become inwardly, the smaller we look outside in the eyes of people, so that when we are the largest inside, we may look almost nothing to the public eye. This is very important to remember. The characteristics of a true spiritual life are the other side of ego-centricity of any kind. Lokeshana – love of name, fame and power, and self-affirmation of any kind is contrary to true spiritual aspiration. The complex of superiority, which is really not there, is a bane on human nature. This has to be avoided.

Excerpts from: Lokeshana is Contrary to True Spiritual Aspiration - True Spiritual Living by Sri Swami Krishnananda

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