Words from the Master

Yes…?

Swamiji, why is it that we know, but we still take on these things upon ourselves?

Yes…this is a nice question! When we have the choice to live happily, why do we choose suffering…?!

You see, you don’t know your Self, your Being which is actually your real identity. Over time, you start relating with the outer world and create a pseudo identity for yourself. With this pseudo identity, you can relate with the outer world. This pseudo identity is your ego. It is purely made up of the labels that others paste on you. You don’t know who you really are.

Suppose I ask you who you are, what will you say? You will say, “I am the father of so and so” or “I am the sister of so and so” or “I am a doctor” etc. But what are all these? These are all only your relationships and professions. You are daughter to your father, wife to your husband, mother to your children and so on. You are all these to the people around you. Then what are you to yourself?

You currently exist only in relationships and profession. Your ego is built up on this. Your identity is only through this. That is why there is always a danger of losing your identity. It is a man-made fragile thing and so it may break at any time. That is why you need to work so hard in maintaining it.

Your inherent nature is actually ‘being alone’. When you were in your mother’s womb, you were alone. You are actually enough unto yourself. This is your individuality. Over time, this individuality is taken over by what you call personality. Individuality is natural; Personality is societal.

It is like this: A parcel moves from one place to another and at every place, it starts getting stamped with various details. The parcel is actually not these stamps but the stuff inside it, is it not? In the same way, you are not the stamps that people put on you; you are the stuff inside yourself.

Anyhow, with time, your ego is built on these stamps and you need more and more people to feed it. That is why you will observe that you are totally unable to be alone, to be with yourself. When you are with yourself, you don’t hear the voices of the others feeding your ego. Your ego feels unfed. What do you do? You at least turn on the television and watch!

A small story:

A man belonging to a long-standing political party was dying.
His friends came to know that he had switched his loyalties to the opposition party at the time of his impending death.
They were astonished and asked him why he did that.
The man replied, “Oh! I’d rather one of them die!”

(Laughter!)

So strong is our pseudo-identification! It has become such a solid reality to us and it blinds us from seeing anything else. Even at the time of death, we find it difficult to drop our prestige! We live and die unconsciously.

The fear of losing your personality, which is your only anchor point, causes you to behave in the ways that you behave. That is why we say your ego is playing up. The whole of spirituality is all about losing this personality, this pseudo identification.

This can happen when you start watching instead of being involved and believing. When you start watching, you will understand that you are the stuff inside the parcel and not the names and labels given to the parcel. When this awareness comes into you, you need no lecture, no sermon, no teaching or preaching.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.