Fighting your Weakness is more Important than Fighting the Enemy

Acharya Prashant: A fly comes and sits on my arm here (pointing towards the arm), I reject it, I discard it – Is the game over? Is she not ever going to return? Why? Because I discarded the fly and not my arm, so irrespective of how strong your resistance is, Maya is going to return to attack you. Why? Because you exist to be attacked! Because you are yourself the vulnerability she exploits, therefore none of your victories are ever going to be complete, final, and definitive. From your side, it’s going to be an endless war-an endless and defensive war, mind you!

Now she is going to return again and again to attack you, therefore you come to a very sticking conclusion; the war can be won; only when, something is eliminated. What? The enemy? No, the defender! The attacker cannot be eliminated, therefore to win the war you eliminate the defender. In other words, how will she score a goal, if you remove the goalpost? Where is the fly going to come and sit, if nobody exists, she can be used to sit. This is called the dissolution of the ego.

Maya attacks the ego; you cannot defeat Maya, as long as you sustain the ego. Therefore the only way to defeat Maya is to remove the weakness, the vulnerability, called the self the ego. Though Maya might come she will find nobody to exploit. Now fly might come but she will find nobody to sit upon. Now the attacker might strike the ball with great power, great skill, and great speed but the goal will still not be scored, somebody burns down the goalpost. You keep hitting the ball, you won’t score anything, are you getting it?

The way of the worldly man is, to bring a fly sweater or build technology in a way, that catches all the insects and incinerates them that’s the way of the worldly man, we are dealing in symbols. I hope you are getting them. The way of the spiritual man is, after struggling with the fly once, twice, thrice, ten times, he comes to a realization. The realization is, that as long as I exist these flies will keep bugging me, and I will have to go.

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