What is the right time to turn spiritual? || Acharya Prashant (2015)

Question: At some places it is said that the ego must exist, the ego must be sharpened. At other places it is said that the ego is false, the ego simply does not exist. What is this paradox?

Speaker: At several points, by several teachers, it has been said that the ego must be sharpened, that the ego must crystallize, that the ego must reach a climax, and only then the ego can dissolve.

Whatever is ever said, is always said, to a well-meaning mind. Whatever is ever said, is always said, to a mind that is not hell-bent upon its own furtherance, its own reinforcement. Otherwise, anything can be co-opted; anything. Even the most sacred, holiest of words will be co-opted by the ego; consciously, sub-consciously, unconsciously, in all ways possible.

Sometimes you may not even know that you are making a mess of the meaning in your interpretation, in your personal interpretation. You may not have intended, but it is your deepest tendencies at work. You are not deliberately misinterpreting; you are only hearing what your faculties are allowing you to hear.

One has to be very cautious and very alert, that we do misinterpret. Sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, but in the deepest sense, all misinterpretation is deliberate, because all misinterpretation is done by that single agency, whose sole objective is its own protection. So even if you are doing it unknowingly; in the deepest sense it is deliberate. You may not know it by way of thought, but the foundation of your mind knows what it is doing. And if you care enough to probe deep into the foundation of your mind, you will see that all mischief is deliberate. None of it – just happens. None of it is – just random or accidental. It is very-very deliberate.