Question: Is there anything we can do in order to rid ourselves of our ego?

Sri Chinmoy: There are two types of ego. One ego says that you are an individual: you belong to a particular family, to your parents and your brothers. This ego starts in an ordinary human way, with the family. Then it goes to the village, then to the city, then to the province, then to the country. Gradually, gradually it may come to the point where you feel that you belong to the whole world. But it is a very slow, uncertain progress. It may take twenty years for you to feel that your city is your own. This ego usually comes up to the love of country, and then it stops. It has played its role. At the age of seventy or eighty you leave the body, and in your next incarnation again you start with the human ego.

There is another ego which in spiritual terms we shall call the divinised feeling of universal oneness. If you want to use the ordinary term on the physical plane, then you can call it ego, but actually it is the divinised feeling of oneness with the universal Consciousness. That ego will immediately tell you that you are God's child, God's son or God's daughter, so how can you say anything undivine, how can you do anything undivine? At every moment it will tell you: "Do this, don't do that." Always it will make you think and act in a divine way.

We are using the term ego, but the divine ego is totally different from the human ego. It is the feeling of oneness with the universal Consciousness. When the Christ said, "I and my Father are one," this was his divine ego. Now, why can we not also say this? It is just because we know what we are; therefore, we are afraid of saying it. We say, "Oh, Christ was great. We can't deny his greatness. But he was God's son." Now, you have to know that you are also God's son or God's daughter. The Christ felt this truth; he realised it. Then he said it. In your spiritual life you also have to feel, and everybody has to feel, that he is God's chosen instrument. If you feel that you are God's chosen instrument, and try to live up to that honour, then you can have no undivine ego. You have to feel it inwardly, and in your actions you have to convey it.

When your hand does something, your eye appreciates it. Suppose you are an artist and you have painted something most beautiful. Your eye is appreciative at that time. The eye will not say, "I didn't paint it. Let me give credit to the hand, since the hand has done it." No, the eye feels its oneness with the rest of the being, so it will say, "I have done it, so let me appreciate my capacity." The eye feels that the hand is part and parcel of the same body, although it is a totally different organ, so when the hand does something, the eye feels that the hand's achievement is its own achievement. In that way they become totally one. So when somebody else does something, if you feel that that particular person is a part of your own being, then where is the ego? The divine ego will appreciate everyone's achievements and feel that it has achieved those very things, just because of its oneness. While appreciating the beauty that the hand has created, the eye will never feel, "Oh, I couldn't do it; the hand has done it." Again, sometimes the eye does something first. The eye will see something very beautiful, let us say a flower. The eye sees it; the hand does not see it. But the next moment, the hand goes and picks the flower. The hand will not say, "The eye saw it first. I don't want to pluck it because I didn't see it first. It is beneath my dignity to pick that flower, since I did not see it first." No, the hand will just go and pick the flower. In this way, each one will play his part in the game. When the hand has done something, the eye appreciates it. The creation of the hand remains incomplete unless and until it has been appreciated by the eye. Again, when the eye sees the beauty in something, if you want to have that thing on the physical plane as your own possession, then the hand has to get it for the eye and for the entire being.

So, when somebody else does something, please feel that it is you who have done it. This is not wrong at all. You are not fooling yourself. You will think, "Oh, I have not done it. My name is not so-and-so." But in the universal Consciousness, where there is only one existence, and that is the infinite "I", your name is not Rabi and my name is not Chinmoy. There is only one "I", the all-pervading "I". So when I achieve something, you can easily and most legitimately claim that you have done it on the strength of your oneness with me. When you do something, I do claim it. Believe me, my disciples do accomplish many things on the physical plane, and immediately I feel that it is I who have done it. There are so many things that are done at the Centre when the boys and girls work. They do physical labour and they accomplish much. At that time I do give them credit. I appreciate them, I thank them and I offer them my gratitude. But in my inner being I feel immediately that it is I who have done it, an extended part of my consciousness. You are my spiritual children, so naturally, whatever my children have done is my achievement as well.

Again, on the spiritual level, when I bring down Peace, Light and Bliss from above, you have every right to feel that it is with your conscious effort, your conscious aspiration, that I am able to bring it down. It is not true that you have nothing to do with it. If you can feel that when I do something, you have done it, then I will give you all the credit because you have discovered this truth. When you people do something on the physical plane, I appreciate and admire it, but actually I feel that it is an extended part of my consciousness that has done it. It is the expansion of my consciousness, the enlarged part of my being that has done it. You also should have the same feeling.

Always think of your enlarged existence; you are constantly expanding, expanding, expanding yourself. Like a bird, you are spreading your wings. In that way, how can there be any ego? Ego comes from separativity, from the separation of "you" and "I". But when I do something, if you yourself can claim it, this is absolutely the right approach. Feel that you have done it. When you do something and I can claim that I have done it in and through you, then where is the undivine ego?