Place of ego- either at the Master's feet or in the Master's embrace || Acharya Prashant (2014)
Question: What should I do if something is clear, but I do not act according to that understanding?
Speaker: We had talked about the limitation of clarity. Clarity alone is not sufficient. You can be very clear that you are diseased, but unless you are also sure that you can be disease-free, that clarity will only give you pain.
You see, if I am told that I am suffering from a disease, and that disease has no treatment, then what is the point in earning this knowledge? Till date I do not know that I have a particular disease, I might be suffering but I have no clarity. I go to a doctor, he tells me, ‘You are carrying this disease’, and he does not tell me that there is this treatment possible. Then what will this information do to me? It will only make me depressed. Will it help me? Will this information help me?
Diagnosis without prognosis is of no help. If someone just keeps telling you, ‘You are an idiot’, and you might also realize, ‘Yes, I am an idiot’, if someone just keeps telling you, ‘You are caught in falseness’ and it might be true that you are caught in falseness, but all this telling does not empower you to get rid of the falseness, then this telling is of no use. This so-called ‘clarity’ is of no use.
One needs that inner firmness that ‘Alright, I might be sick right now, but sickness is not my destiny, sickness is not my nature. I can shake away the sickness. I can regain that health which is anyway always available to me’. That firm faith has to be there that ‘I might be in dumps, but being in dumps is not what I am here for. I can be reborn. There is so much dust over me, but it is alright. One shower, one shower is all that I require’.
Otherwise what will happen? You will know that there is dust all over your body, your mind, but you will still not move. And that is such a troubling situation, that is such a frustrating situation. In fact, better than that is to not to know at all, better than that is the man who does not know.
Listener 1: Ignorance is bliss.
Speaker: Yes, in that sense, ignorance is bliss. So just having clarity and not having that sureness will only lead to self-torture. When you are clear, be a little more clear. Be a little more clear that ‘The same source from where this clarity is coming, the one who is giving me this clarity will help me. I am not an orphan. When I will take that step, I will be helped. I need not feel abandoned. I am not ‘on my own’. There is an entire network of forces ready to help me. I am not ‘on my own’. I will be helped. I am in safe hands’.
And that requires a very pliant ego. That requires an ego that is not sitting on the top of your head and shouting, ‘I am the master, I am the master’. Yesterday when we were out for 10 p.m. walk, we said that the ego must be shown it’s rightful place, which is either at the feet of the master or in his tight embrace.
The ego will have only two places: either at the feet of the Lord, make it sit there, or as a lover to the Lord. A servant-ego is good and a lover-ego is good. Any third variety will be problematic. Either have an ego that has totally surrendered, it has become like a servant…
Listener 2: It is no more an ego then.
Speaker: It is still an ego, in the sense that till the time you are even remotely identified with the body, the sense of ‘I’ is there. Ego as the sense of being, the sense of ‘I’ is there. It is there till the time you exist as a body. But now it’s a servant-ego, or let it be a lover-ego. Only these two types of egos are good, auspicious. Either as a servant or as a lover.
The servant knows, ‘I am not on my own, the master will take care’, and the lover also knows, ‘I am not on my own, the lover will take care’. Both are never frustrated. But when your ego is neither a servant nor a lover, but pretending to be a master, then you are in deep trouble, deep-deep trouble. Because now you are on your own. Now you have to take care of your own business. Now the ego is burdened with ‘doership’.
Listener 1: Sir, can we say an atheist is a third kind of variety?
Speaker: Yes. Atheist in the real sense is the man who thinks he is on his own. Who is an atheist? The one who thinks that he has to manage his own affairs. The so-called ‘individual’ is the biggest atheist- I, me and myself.
‘I have to take care of my own business. If I do not do it, it would not happen.’ He is the one who is really an atheist. The one who refuses to see that there is help all along the way. The one who refuses to see and acknowledge and bow his head in gratitude that ‘Without all the help that I have received, I couldn’t have been here at all’. Such a kind of man is an atheist.
Listener 3: What about ‘the confused’ variety? The one who is neither an atheist nor a theist?
Speaker: He is as good or as bad as an atheist. If I receive something, how can I be confused?
Listener 3: Sir, because that person has not received anything, that is the reason he is confused.
Speaker: Is there anybody, who has never received anything? How will you breathe if you do not receive that grace? How will you breathe? The very fact that you are able to listen to what I am saying, and breathe, isn’t a proof enough that you have already received so much?
Listener 4: Sir, the sense of doership will still remain in the servant ego. Right?
Speaker: ‘I will do what my master commands me to do.’ That is the servant ego. The servant ego says, ‘I will do what my master commands me to do’. Remember what Jesus says, “I am your shepherd”, that is a servant ego. ‘I am a sheep and I will do what my shepherd exhorts me to do. I am my shepherd’s sheep, I will do what he commands me to do.’ That’s a servant ego.
So, it’s still ‘doing’. That ‘I’ is there, but that ‘I’ says, ‘Nothing of my own, I’ll do what he tells me to do’. See, there are two kinds of atheists. Understand this:
The first kind are those who say, ‘There is no God’.The second kind are those who say, ‘There is a God, and I have captured him in my holy book’.
The second kind of atheist is extremely dangerous. The first kind of an atheist is an honest atheist, he says, ‘There is no God’. The second kind says, ‘There is a God, and I know him. He is sitting in my holy book. He has sent his book and he is sitting there.’ This second kind of atheist is a terrible atheist, because he will never know God. Never, never. For the first kind, there is some possibility left. For the second kind, all doors are closed now. Never will he know God. He will only have beliefs about God.
This is the kind of servant who is trying to command the master. He says, ‘I am a servant-ego’. What kind of a servant? The one who tries to usurp the throne of the master. Have you not seen such servants? They say, ‘I will not formally declare myself as the master, but you know informally, unofficially, I am the master. You may call yourself God, but actually I will command things.’
Excerpts from a clarity session. Edited for clarity.
