When you accept the spiritual life, your own inner light should separate you from that person’s longing for false wisdom. You know that what that person is doing is wrong, but at the same time, if you mix with him too much, you will also want to do the same. If you are given the opportunity, you will also try to impose your supremacy on others. If you follow the spiritual path, once you know that what he is doing is wrong, you must say, “I know he is doing something wrong. I will not do the same wrong thing. I know I won’t be satisfied by doing what he is doing, so let me take a different path.” The different path is the path of oneness.
Where does this oneness come from? From aspiration. Aspiration means the inner cry that goes up high, higher, highest. When we don’t consciously aspire to go high, higher, highest, what happens? Automatically the law of gravity pulls us down. We see that those who are not aspiring are constantly staying at one level. Every day they are caught by endless desires. They are at the mercy of desire. But if you aspire, it is just the opposite. Today you have a little feeling of aspiration, a little feeling of a good quality inside you. Tomorrow when you meditate this good quality will increase. The day after tomorrow it will become very vast. The following day it will become infinite. When you start with one desire, the next day you have a stronger desire and the following day the strongest desire. Each day desire is binding you, grabbing you, strangling you. But when you start with aspiration, each day aspiration frees you, liberates you, immortalises you.
Ego can be conquered only through conscious aspiration. And this aspiration comes only when you have a path, a Master and spiritual company. You need spiritual people around you to inspire you continuously. Unspiritual people will ruin your aspiration if you stay with them too much. You have to follow a path so that you will travel steadily in the direction of the goal. A path without a goal is impossible. A path will always take you to some destination, although that destination need not be your goal. You can take any road, but if you want to go to a particular place, you have to take the proper road. If you don’t take the proper road, you will not reach your goal. Any road you choose will take you somewhere. There is always an end to the road, but that end need not be your destination. That is why a specific path is necessary: the path that will lead you to your goal, which is God-realisation.
If you aim for the Highest, you must pay attention to transcending the ego. Otherwise, if one person exercises his ego on you, you will exercise your ego on someone else and he will do the same on somebody else. This is a contagious disease. One has to be cured. Two sick persons remaining together cannot cure each other. No matter how many sick persons stay together they are not going to strengthen themselves. On the contrary, each may catch the other’s disease since they are already weak, and then there is every possibility that both of them will die. One strong person has to be there to cure the weak ones. In the spiritual life, if you mix with weak people you are weakening yourself. Only if you mix with spiritual people are you strengthening yourself. Then your own power of inner light will be able to stand against someone with a strong ego. Once you can conquer his ego’s strength with your inner light, then his strength will be divinised strength, and he will fight on your side against ignorance.From:Sri Chinmoy,Two devouring brothers: doubt and ego, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/tdb