The ordinary human ego gives us a sense of separate identity, separate consciousness. No doubt, a sense of individuality and self-importance are necessary at a certain stage in man’s development. But the ego separates our individual consciousness from the universal Consciousness. The very function of the ego is separation. It cannot feel satisfaction in viewing two things at a time on the same level. It always feels that one must be superior to the other. So the ego makes us feel that we are all separate weaklings, that it will never be possible for us to be or to have the infinite Consciousness. The ego, finally, is limitation. This limitation is ignorance, and ignorance is death. So ego ultimately ends in death.
There are many thieves, but the worst of all these thieves is undoubtedly our ego. This thief can steal away all our divinity. Not only are our experiences afraid of this ego-thief, but even our realisation, our partial realisation, is afraid of it. We have to be very careful of the ego-thief.
Our human ego wants to do something great, grand and magnificent, but this unique thing need not be the thing that God wants us to do. It is always nice to be able to do great things, but perhaps God has not chosen us to do that particular thing. God may have chosen us to do something insignificant in the outer world. In the Eye of God, he is the greatest devotee who performs his God-ordained duty soulfully and devotedly, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Each man is a chosen child of God. Similarly, each man is destined to play a significant part in God’s divine Game. When God sees a particular person performing the role that He chose for him, then only will He be filled with divine Pride. Our ego will try to achieve and perform great things, but in God’s Eye we can never be great unless and until we do what God wants us to do.
The ordinary, common human ego feels that it has achieved everything and that it knows everything. This reminds me of an anecdote which Swami Vivekananda related to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. It is called “The Frog in the Well”. It happened that a frog was born and brought up in a well. One day a frog from the field jumped into the well. The first frog said to the other, “Where do you come from?”
The second frog said, “I come from the field.”
“Field? How big is it?” said the first frog.
“Oh, it is very big,” said the second.
So the frog from the well stretched and stretched its legs and said, “Is it as big as this?”
“No, bigger! Much bigger!” said the frog from the field.
The other frog jumped from one end of the well to the other and said, “This must be as big as the length of the field.”
The second frog said, “No, the field is infinitely vaster.”
“You are a liar!” said the first frog. “I am throwing you out of here.”
This shows the tendency of our human ego. Great spiritual Masters and sages speak of Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. The beginner who is just starting his spiritual life will immediately ask, “Is Infinity a little larger than the sky?” The sage will say, “No, Infinity is infinitely larger than your imagination, larger than your conception.” Immediately the sage will be criticised because ego makes us feel that what we have realised can never be surpassed by the realisation and experience of others. The ego does not like to feel that someone else has more capacity or that someone else can do something which it cannot do.
At one time ego will make us feel that we are nothing and at another time ego will make us feel that we are everything. We have to be very careful of both our feelings of importance and our feelings of unimportance. We have to say that if God wants us to be nothing, then we will gladly be nothing and if God wants us to be everything, we will be everything gladly. We have to surrender unconditionally and cheerfully to the Will of God.
If He wants us to be His peers, we shall be. If He wants us to be His slaves, we shall be. If He wants us to be His true representatives on earth, we shall be. “Let Thy Will be done.” This is the greatest prayer that we can offer to God. In the sincere depths of this prayer is the transformation of ego.From:Sri Chinmoy,Beyond Within — A collection of writings 1964-1974, Agni Press, 1975
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