Ego, the borrowed self || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Questioner: Sir, is having an Ego positive or negative?
Shri Prashant: I write a quantity ‘A’ over here (pointing towards the white board ) and I ask you, ‘Is it positive or negative?’ Can you answer me? I just write a unknown quantity and I ask you, ‘Is it positive or negative?’, can you answer me?
Listener 1: No, Sir.
Speaker: To know whether something is ‘this’ or ‘that’, you first have to understand it. Without understanding, you will only impose a belief on it. So I believe that all ‘A’s are positive. Someone will get up and say that all ‘B’s are positive and ‘A’s are negative. All of these would be just worthless statements.
So what is the Ego, before we declare it positive or negative?
Listener 2: Sir, Ego is something that is developed at a very small age. The people around you develop Ego in you by praising you. When other people comment, which is against that praise, then the Ego gets hurt.
SP: This development may start at a very tender age. To that extent you are spot on. But what if the development keeps taking place all your life. What if you are never mature enough to understand what Ego is? See, till the age of twelve-thirteen, the brain is not yet fully ripe, not yet fully developed. Brain is the seat of intelligence. An under-developed brain cannot give you the faculty of discrimination. So, it is understandable that you are fed with Ego, identities and you keep on absorbing them. It is understandable because you are helpless. You cannot do much, you are a kid.
What if the process does not stop even after the age of twelve-thirteen years of age? What if it continues till the age of eighteen-twenty? What if it is still prevalent at the age of sixty?
Then there is a problem.
You are right to the extent when you say that Ego is inevitable. What is inevitable is not called ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. A child will necessarily absorb what is given to him. He cannot do anything else. He cannot avoid it. The sun rises daily. Is it positive or negative? It is inevitable! You are constantly breathing. Is it negative or positive? It is just inevitable. It is . That’s it.
The Ego will be there, and it is alright. Initially, you are dependent on others, you are so small. To give you language, to give you some practical knowledge about the world, to tell you which side of the road to walk, whom to talk to and whom not to talk to, to this extent Ego is understandable. You are so small and defenceless that you need advice of others and you absorb everything that is shown to you.
But it is inexcusable if even after the age of thirteen you do not realize that all this has come from outside, and this is not ‘me’. That this is all alien and foreign.
For a child to believe in fancy stories is alright, for a child to live in Ali Baba tales and Aesop’s fables is alright. For a child to just take whatever the world is telling him, can be pardoned. It has to be pardoned, but not when you are eighteen. If at eighteen you are still living with same notions that were handed over to you by external factors, by the entire process of evolution, called as physical conditioning and by individuals around you, called as social conditioning , if you still do not see that all this as external, alien, and foreign then there arises a problem, and then you can call it ‘negative’.
So, at your age, to not be able to see the falseness of Ego is surely negative. Where you stand, at your position, kindly do pay attention. Look directly, intelligently at your life so that you can be free of what has been handed over to you. Observe all that keeps you in slavery so that you can live freely, fly freely like a young human being.
Listener 2: Sir, often we hear people saying that a particular person has an ‘Ego problem’. What do they mean by this?
SP: The way we usually, colloquially use the term ‘Ego’ is a little misplaced. We confuse pride with Ego. We confuse a particular type of attitude with Ego. No, Ego is very much a technical word in psychology.
Just as an engineer knows that there is a difference between current and voltage, that these two are not similar, related but not similar, similarly a student of psychology or anyone who understands the mind knows that ‘Ego’ is a precise term. It cannot have vague meaning that you start naming everything as ‘Ego’. Someone walks all puffed up and you say that he has an Ego problem. No!
Ego is ‘I am _ _ _ ’. Whatever you believe to be ‘I am’. You are egoistic. ‘I am Great’ is Ego, and ‘I am nobody’ is also Ego. Whenever you use ‘I am’, that becomes a statement of Ego. But we think that when someone talks big about himself or someone holds big notions about himself only then he is displaying Ego. No!
If someone thinks thatI have been a victim all my life, this is great Ego. If someone thinks that I am so humble, this again is Ego. If someone thinks that I am a coward, this again is Ego, because in all these sentences there is something common. What is that?
Listeners(everyone): ‘I am’
Speaker: And all these ‘I am‘ notions constitute Ego because the object attached to them is external. Were you born with cowardice? No! You got it from somewhere, along the way. As if you are on a journey and you keep picking things from somewhere. No, that stuff is not you. You have picked it up. So anything you attach to ‘I am’ would necessarily be the statement of Ego.
We never say a pure ‘I am’, we say ‘I am this’ and ‘I am that’ and hence, our I am is itself the Ego. Whenever I hold a notion about myself, that notion is called Ego. Whenever I hold an idea about myself, that idea is called Ego.
I am a male. I am a Hindu. I am a son. I am a daughter. I am a student. I am an aspiring professional. I am smart, handsome. I am introvert. I am extrovert. I am athletic. I am dumb. I am moron. I am lazy, incompetent.
Whatsoever I think about myself, good, bad, ugly, all that would be the statement of Ego because I am none of that. I have picked up all that. I am not all that.
Some of that can be obviously seen. You did not choose your religion. Did you? So, some of that is obvious. I have picked it up or someone handed over to me. Some of that is a little difficult to see. For example you can ask me, ‘*Sir, how is this statement, ‘I am a male’, a statement of Ego? I didn’t pick up my gender. I was born with it.*’ Then I will ask you, ‘*Did you choose to be a male? Did you write an application to your parents that please, I want to be born as a boy?*‘
Whatever comes to you from outside is not you. Whatever is accidental in your life, just happened to you, you have no role in it, you did not choose your country, you did not choose the color of your skin, you haven’t chosen to be eighteen or twenty at this point of time. If you are identified with any of that, this is Ego. The problem that you will now face is that if you remove all these accidental things and pretty much everything vanishes. Nothing remains. Right?
Listeners: Yes, Sir.
SP: And this vacuum terrifying, because you have identified yourself with such accidental things that if they are taken away you feel scared. You will at least feel uncomfortable. That if everything goes, what will remain? What will remain is YOU. And, what is that YOU? It is not that easy to understand, but if you will remain with me, may be, we will take a step or two.
You were once a kid. Today you call yourself a young man, a young, healthy, educated man. That is what you call yourself today. So, childhood came and went. Look into this statement. Childhood came and went, but you are still there. Hence you are not the child. Now youth has come. Youth will also go away, you will still be there. That’s what you are. The one who watches these things come and go. Did you go away with your childhood? You are there. That’s what you are. The observer . The witness .
Everything else can be taken away but this knowing cannot be taken away. This capacity to know. That is what you are. This intelligence, that is what you are; which neither comes nor goes. This observation is what you are. The Ego doesn’t like to hear this because the Ego believes that my possessions are what I am, all that I have accumulated. All that I have picked up is what I am.
Listener 3: Intelligence is also given by the society.
SP: No, intelligence can neither be given to anybody, nor can be taken away from anybody. Information can be given and information can be taken away as well. You collect information from outside but intelligence, you don’t. I am going somewhere, I may ask the route and get the relevant information from somebody but that somebody is not telling me where to go. That is my own knowing. It is a crude example, just to differentiate between information and another thing.
You have gathered knowledge from outside but knowing, you haven’t gathered. See, if you do not have the power of knowing, can you even get the knowledge? I am trying to say something to you. Are these chairs gaining anything from this knowledge? Forget about the chairs. Is this camera gaining anything? It is hearing just like you hear, it is looking at me just as you look at me. In fact, it has better memory than you have. But is this camera gaining anything? No, because it can gather all the information that is coming to it, all the sound waves and light waves that are falling on it but it does not have the capacity to know. It will have a lot of knowledge but ‘knowing’ is impossible for it. You have the power of knowing. That’s what you are. A camera doesn’t have that.
Listener 4: How can we live in the society without Ego?
Speaker: If I do not know who I am, then do I know who is living? You say, ‘Is it possible for me to live in the society without Ego?’ I ask you, ‘Who is living in the society?’ If you are just a collection of external influences then you are nowhere. You have taken something from somewhere, a few pebbles from here, some glue from there, little bit of cardboard from there, a little bit of skin from somewhere and you wear a shirt, trousers and sweaters and you name it ‘X’. Now, who is living?
Listener 4: Sir, you just said that we are always there.
SP: Yes, but that is true only for someone who does not identify with childhood or youth. What I have said is true only for a fellow who will not claim that ‘I am Young.’ He will say, ‘Youth has come and go, I am the Watcher. I am not the young man. Just as childhood came and went, youth will also come and go. I remain.’
So this statement is true for someone who realizes it. We have not realized it. We identify with our young body. Do you ever say, ‘My body is young’? Do you every say, ‘The leg is paining’? What do you say?
Listener 4: ‘My’ leg is paining.
SP: Things like relationships, nationality, religion, beliefs, your view about the world, goals in life, they have all come from outside and that is what is the Ego. Accumulation of foreign influences.
Listener 4: So, after removing the external things what is left is ‘me’.
SP: Not by removing them, just by understanding that they are external. You see, I am standing in front of you. There is the arm and there is this *Kurta*that I am wearing. I surely understand that this Kurta is not the arm, this is external. I have put it on. I can take it off. I understand. Does that mean I will necessarily take it off? But I must understand that this is not the arm.
Understanding does not mean ‘removal‘ . Understanding means knowing the thing for what it actually IS. Not being confused, not becoming a fool. What would you call a man who would say, ‘If this Kurta gets stained, I am stained’? What kind of man would that be? But you do find people who feel very good when they put on nice clothes, and if they do not put on nice clothes then they start feeling low. That is what stupidity is. That is what Ego does to you. What have you done? You have identified with a foreign thing. You have identified with an external thing. So when the external thing gets stained you feel that you have lost something.
Listener 4: But the person is still living in a society.
SP: What do you mean by ‘living in the society‘ ? You see society is not one thing. Right now we are together, we are society. What would be a terrorist’s society?
Listener 5: Group of terrorists.
SP: Your society is what you are . There are a million societies parallely existing. You will be found in the one which matches to your level of ignorance or intelligence. Sheep are found with sheep, wolves are found with wolves.
Listener 4: Yes, Sir.
SP: So what do you mean by the society? You change, immediately the society will change. Today, you are like this, hence you are found in a particular type of society. Do not think that there is one unit called as ‘the society’. There are millions of societies. One creates his own society. See, you have not been exposed so you think that this tiny circle of people is your society. You think that family, relatives, friends and some hundred people is what the society is. No, that is not the society.
Listener 5: How will the society, which has given Ego, will let someone live without Ego?
SP: I am wearing this. This is still external but I am free from it.
Listener 5: Does that mean we should earn that much which serves us the food and clothes only?
SP: If you are earning for food only because you have been told by me or the society then it still is…
Listener 5: Ego.
SP: Foreign influence. And if you are earning a lot because your parents have told you that money is good, then it is still…
Listener 5: Ego.
SP: Because there is none of your understanding involved in this. The question is not about earning this much or that much, the question is about living in your intelligence. It is about not being a slave to others.
Listener 5: ‘We must eat 3 times a day.’ Even this is coming from the society.
SP: What would you say of a man who is so deeply conditioned that he eats three times a day even when his stomach is upset? He does not know who he is. He has been deeply tutored. ‘You know it is very, very important to have three meals a day’ and he will keep eating three times a day even when he has diarrhea, what will become of him. A kid must be told what to eat and when to eat. But if at your age you are still dependent on others, their opinions and you are afraid that someone tells you that you are not doing the right thing, you have no eye of your own to look at yourself, then, there is a problem.
Listener 6: Sir, it is the society which tells us that if you earn you are good, if you don’t you are bad. So what should we do?
SP: No! Society tells you both ways. Both the elements are present in the society. There are people who say that if you earn a lot, then you are surely an evil man. Haven’t you seen such people? And there are many people who say that if you do not earn, then you are a loser. If either of these dominates you then of course you are asleep. You are allowing them to become your master.
Listener 6: Whatever we do, we do it because of Ego.
SP: Not necessarily. You do something out of Ego only till the time you do not understand Ego. Not everyone.
Listener 6: Sir, can you give some examples?
SP: There are many examples but they do not exist in your circle. You see I said that sheep are found with sheep, wolves are to be found with wolves. So in your circle, in your knowledge, there would be only individuals who are like you. Even if I give you an example of a Buddha, will you be able to understand a Buddha? Being what you are, can you understand the Buddha? To understand a Buddha you have to become somewhat like the Buddha.
What do you mean by Buddha?
A Buddha is someone who understands things. A Buddha can be talked of only in a negativa . A Buddha is a nobody. He is the absence of all rubbish, the absence of Ego. Hence, he is nobody. So when someone says that I am a Buddha, he is actually saying, ‘I am not this, not this, not this and not this.’ I have seen that all this is Ego and I am none of that.
Listener 6: Isn’t that Ego?
SP: Do you exist?
Listener 6: Yes, Sir.
SP: ‘I am’. This pure ‘I am’is what a Buddha is. ‘I am’ without being anything. You are always something, this and that. A Buddha is someone who is just ‘I am’. Even if you say, ‘I am not’, I have to be. If there is one truth that cannot be doubted, it is ‘I am’. A Buddha is that truth.
See, again don’t too far or too fast on this. Just stay with this much that: Your mind is a sum total of external influences, and as far as these external influences exist, the mind remains confused. All its decisions, whether about studies or career or about anything, they will remain confusing.
Listener 7: Sir, let us suppose an incident. There is a society and there are people. People discriminate between men and women. There is a woman who goes against this discrimination. As a result of this, she is sent to a solitary place. Does this mean that if we go against the society, we have to live alone?
SP: First of all, appreciate this. Going against the society does not mean that you understand the Ego. You see, you can belong to one group within the society and believe the other group to be wrong. But that does not mean that you are not the slave of the Ego. Hindus believe Muslims to be wrong, Muslims believe Hindus to be wrong. So what? They have been taught that this is wrong and vice-versa. Just going against a predominant belief of one group of people or society as a whole does not mean that you have understood the Ego.
Listener 7: Sir, it is the inner-conscience which is telling this.
Speaker: There is nothing called as ‘conscience’. What you call as ‘conscience’ is again an instrument of the Ego instilled within you. Your conscience talks to you. Right? There is a voice of conscience. Does it talk in Spanish? Don’t you see that it is all that you have learnt so far? Whatever you have learnt, that becomes your conscience. It is an instrument of the society. An internal watchman.
There is no other criteria of looking at the Ego, except that I pay attention and understand. That’s it. And what do I pay attention to?My daily routine, what do I do day-in and day-out, all of that.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
