Like morality, prestige also gives rise to fear; prestige, name and fame, social status – all these give rise to fear. These fears are nothing but fears of your ego. What prestige are you trying to cover? Just live with inner fulfillment and dignity, that is enough. The people who guard their prestige are the greatest hypocrites on planet Earth.
They are also the people who live in constant fear. Their so-called prestige is so much in control of them.
A small story:
One man was fishing in the river one day.
He was sitting for a long time without being able to catch any fish.
He dozed off with the fishing rod in his hand.
Suddenly, a heavy fish caught the bait and tugged at it.
The man just tumbled into the water before he could wake up.
A boy was watching this from a distance. He asked his father, “Dad, was he catching the fish or was the fish catching him?”
With prestige, you have to be very careful. When prestige becomes larger than life for you, it will start consuming you. It will simply consume you, that’s all. You no more need to go in search of it.
And why are you afraid of losing your prestige? Because your prestige makes you feel that you are extra-ordinary. Your prestige gives you a solid identity in society. People with money and prestige do all sorts of nonsensical and immoral things and get away with it. People talk about them behind their backs and greet them on their faces because of their power and prestige.
This is the kind of prestige they are trying to guard so carefully. Let me tell you one thing: Existence will never choose you if you are like this. In the material world, you may get what you want, you may appear successful, but in the eyes of Existence, you will remain poor. Existence has its own ways of choosing.
Understand that prestige, name, fame and power are all your own imagination. You give life to them; you create them and develop a fear about losing them.
Just live with infinite love for everyone and everything around you. Feel deep love for anyone and anything that comes your way. If you live this way, automatically prestige will come to you. People will respect you for your quality and not for your quantity. And with this kind of prestige, there is no fear of losing it; you don’t have to guard it all the time; you are simply liberated from such fears.
Even things like fear of public speaking etc. are fear of losing one’s prestige in a way. When you are afraid of talking in front of a gathering, you are actually afraid of what they might say about you. You are afraid that your ego might suffer because of something that they might say about you. This is a passive form of guarding your ego. Fear is very much a manifestation of ego. Understand that.
So what if people don’t approve of your talk? You talk with a sense of totality, that is enough. Just enjoy yourself and do it; don’t bother about what others will say about it. The moment you are afraid of what others will say, you are guarding your ego.
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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.
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