Question: What is the fastest way we can get rid of the ego?

Sri Chinmoy: First you have to know what you are proud of. If you feel that you are great in a particular field, then you have to look around sincerely. Your pride will be smashed sooner than at once. If you are sincere, then you can break the ego. If you are not sincere, then the ego will last and last. Let us say that I am proud of my strength. I think I am a very strong person. But if I look around sincerely, it will not take ten seconds to find somebody who can defeat me easily. In anything, if somebody can defeat us, our ego is destroyed.

There is one type of ego which gets malicious pleasure from others’ weaknesses. This ego brings in the feeling of superiority: I am superior, better than someone else. Another type of ego is always dividing us from somebody else: it is beneath our dignity to be with this person or that person. We have to ask ourselves if we are happy by cherishing the idea that we are far better than so-and-so, or if we become a better person by separating ourselves from the rest of the world. If we are sincere, we know that we are not happy by having the feeling of superiority or by separating ourselves from the rest of the world.

Anything that gives us abiding joy and satisfaction we shall try to achieve in our life. How shall we achieve it? Through prayer and meditation. While we are praying, we have to feel that our eyes are streaming with tears, and while we are meditating, we have to feel that inside our heart the soul-child is in ecstasy or is extremely happy. These are the two ways we can make the fastest progress. One way is to identify ourselves with the soul’s joy and delight in our meditation, and the other way is, when we pray, to shed tears and to feel that those tears are coming from the very depths of our heart. Either way will give us the necessary result.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy answers, part 20, Agni Press, 1999
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sca_20