Freedom from Ego is Freedom from Fear

Acharya Prashant: What to do when you encounter a person with a lot of ego? He has used two words: High ego and bad ego. Let us understand this. When you use the term ‘bad ego’, you necessarily mean that there is something called ‘good ego’ as well. Correct? Logical?

What is this ego? And can it have these two varieties—good and bad?

What is the ego?

Questioner: Ego is when you put yourself above someone when you think yourself to be superior to others.

Acharya Prashant: Is that the ego—you putting yourself above someone? What if you necessarily put yourself below someone? What if you are habituated to saying that ‘I am the worst of all’? Your conditioning and culture have told you that when someone says ‘I am best of all’, you immediately say that this fellow is egoistic. I am asking you, what if someone says ‘I am the worst of all’? Is this not a statement of ego?

A common misconception that many of us have is that ego is pride. You very frequently equate ego with pride. Let’s be very clear on that. Ego is far more than pride. Ego is far more pervasive than pride. Ego is not merely pride, ego expresses itself in a thousand ways other than pride. The ways of the ego are very subtle and they are to be seen everywhere. You don’t keep expressing your pride every time, your mind is not filled with thoughts of pride every time. But even the other thoughts that you carry, most often are thoughts of ego.

Now, what is this ego?

Whatever you have taken from outside and just internalized is ego. As simple as that.

This is the most direct and simplest definition of ego that can be given. Everything that you have taken from outside and internalized, has attached an ‘I’ with it; everything that you hear from outside; everything on the outside that you get attached to; all your beliefs that come from outside; all your identities that come from outside—ego is the sum total of all of these.

In the world of the mind, in the language of psychology, ‘ego’ is very much a technical word. You see, a person who has not read science would often use terms of science in very inaccurate ways. He may be confused between what is voltage and what is current, and he may just mix up the two expressions. But that is not what a student of science or an engineer would do. He would use the language of science in a very exact way.

Similarly, the word ego has to be used very precisely, very exactly, very accurately. It is a layman’s mind that equates ego with pride. No! Ego is a technical word, and when I say technical, all I mean is that it has a precise meaning. It has to be understood, because unless it is precisely understood it will not be useful to you. And nothing matters if it is not useful. It has to be useful; otherwise, we are wasting our time if there is no utility, no use.

So, ego is this internalization, this sense of ‘I am’. Now, what do we take from outside and just internalize? I have already mentioned some of them. What do we take from outside and attach an ‘I’ to that? Give me a few examples.

Questioner: Compliments.

Acharya Prashant: Compliments coming from outside by themselves are not ego. When will it become a process of ego? When ‘I’ is attached to it. Now tell me, what happens when a compliment comes from outside and you attach an ‘I’ to it? Go into it clearly, and see what happens.

A compliment comes from outside, “You are brilliant”, and you attach ‘I’ to it. Now, what happens? What is the statement then? “I am brilliant.” Now, have you really known yourself to be brilliant? Is it your own discovery? Is it your own knowing? Somebody has just come over and told you that you are brilliant, and you have internalized it. You have attached ‘I’ to it and you’ve said, “I am brilliant”. Now, this is the process of ego: to take it from outside and accept it with your eyes closed, to not apply intelligence to it. This is ego.

Now, do you see how deeply ego permeates our minds? Because most of what we think ourselves to be actually comes from outside. Give me a few more examples. What all comes from outside?

Questioner: Abuses.

Acharya Prashant: Abuses and compliments, are two sides of the same coin. Besides that?

Questioner: Identities.

Acharya Prashant: Wonderful. Identities like?

Questioner: The name.

Acharya Prashant: When you say ‘identities’, it’s such a potent word, go into that. What all constitutes our identities?

Questioner: Name of our father and mother.

Acharya Prashant: So, when you say father’s and mother’s names, can I say your familial identities? Can I say the community to which you belong? All are coming from outside and you start to believe ‘this is what I am’. And this is an utter falsehood because you never chose that identity. You never choose which country or religion to be born in. It is an external thing that has come to you, and instead of realizing it is external, you develop a great identification with it.

What does identification mean? Identification means, ‘I am this, and if this is taken away, I am nothing’. Now, how can you be something that has come from outside? You are yourself. You are not a sum total of external influences. Are you a sum total of all external influences upon you? No! We have an existence of our own. Right? Even if everything external is taken away, the pure existence still remains. That is the only thing, the only entity, which we really are.

Ego means to forget it and to identify with the external. All ego is this forgetfulness. All ego is this lack of intelligence. Put bluntly, I could say that all ego is just stupidity because lack of intelligence is stupidity. Now you tell me, could there be good stupidity and bad stupidity? You said ‘good ego’ and ‘high ego’. Could there be high stupidity and low stupidity? Is there something called a good disease and a bad disease?

There is nothing called a ‘bad ego’. All ego is forgetfulness. That is the first part of the question. Second part, what do we do when we come across an egoistic man? What do you do when you come across a diseased man or a madman? Do you become like him? “He is mad, so will I become equally mad. He is abusing, beating his chest, throwing stones in the air, tearing his clothes; I will also do the same.” Will you do that? How does a healthy man look at a diseased man?

Two things. One: Avoid being diseased yourself. That virus is contagious. Do you understand the meaning of contagious? It means it can easily come from that man to you. Ego provokes ego. Have you not experienced it? Forgetfulness provokes forgetfulness. Stupidity provokes stupidity.

First thing, see that you are not getting affected. Second thing, if possible, if you are really healthy and you have ensured that your own health is not at risk; try to help him. He does not deserve your anger, he actually deserves sympathy, and compassion. Don’t you see he is suffering? Don’t you know that an angry man suffers? Don’t you see that if ego is a disease, it surely leads to a lot of suffering in the egoistic man?

But don’t be too eager to help. Because only a healthy man can help others. Don’t be too eager to help. The first thing is to preserve your own health. Unless you are healthy, how can you help others? Can a madman help another madman? No! Can a sleeping man help another sleeping man? No! You need someone awake to help a sleeping man.

So, first thing, avoid getting provoked. Let him perform a solo, don’t let it become a duet. You just watch it. That is the only thing that will prevent you from being provoked. Just watch what is happening, don’t get involved. Do you understand the difference between watching and getting involved? Watch what is happening. Understand not with hatred, not with fear, not with disgust; but watch just as an intelligent man does. How does he watch? He watches without prejudice, he watches keenly so that he can understand.

This world is full of disease and you will soon move out into this world, and then this question will become more and more significant as you encounter more and more disease. Because disease wants to spread. Disease wants to take you in its fold. You will suddenly find that basic things, basic virtues like innocence, simplicity, and directness are being threatened.

It will be very important for you not to get involved then. It is important even right now not to get involved, to not to get entangled, but to understand like an intelligent being and that does not mean inaction. When I say just watch, don’t get entangled, that does not mean inaction.

From your understanding, from your intelligence will come just the right action, an intelligent response. There will be great energy in that, as much energy as it befits a young man like you. But that will not be the energy of a madman, that will be a well-directed, well-channelized, constructive, creative flow of energy. Whereas if you allow yourself to be provoked, if you allow the disease to come to you, there will only be a dissipation of energy. Do you understand dissipation? A general, random loss, amounting to nothing.

The ego comes from the outside. The more you come in contact with the world, the more susceptible you are to these outside influences, these external influences. That is the reason I said that the more you will move out, the more you will venture out, the more you will be at risk; because ego is nothing but the outside acting upon you.

This surely must be raising questions, and doubts within your mind. Your responsibility is to enquire. I am not sitting here to preach something. I have not come here to convince you of something. This is not a lecture. We are talking, and interacting. So, whatever comes to your mind, please speak.

Questioner: Sir, how is ego a disease? I find it rather a better way of exploring oneself by observing.

Acharya Prashant: Anup (name of the Questioner) says that it is not clear how is ego a disease, or how the ego is harmful. His query is why can’t we say that the ego is actually beneficial?

What happens when an external force acts upon you when an external entity comes to you and you start identifying with that? Let’s take an example. Let there be a compliment as ‘I am brilliant’. To take a compliment from outside and then to internalize it amounts to ego. What is the danger when we say something is a disease? All we say is that it is very harmful. Whatever takes away your ease, comfort, or peace, is a disease.

Now, what is the harm in internalizing this kind of comment that ‘I am brilliant’ when somebody has suggested that I am brilliant? My identity now is that ‘I am brilliant.’ Who has given me that identity? Someone else. If someone else can give me that identity, surely he can also take it back. Now, I have believed myself to be brilliant, but that brilliance is based on a comment by others. So, I will be always afraid, because the same others can now declare to me that I am stupid.

You see, I don’t have any resistance; there are no gates and anybody can enter and declare anything to me. The first one came to me and said, “You are brilliant”, and I started believing that I was brilliant.

Questioner: There should be a fact in it that, that is why somebody has said so.

Acharya Prashant: The fact cannot come from outside. Where does the fact come from?

Questioner: One must have done something that is why he is saying so.

Acharya Prashant: You have done that thing, then you must know for yourself whether you are brilliant or something else. You will not require someone else to come and say that. What is meant by fact? You used the word ‘observe’. Take the two words together: fact and observe. What do you mean by a fact? The fact is that which is real, which is the truth and you can know it only by yourself; it is not somebody’s opinion.

To know it for yourself—that’s how an intelligent mind works. That’s what all your labs are there for. Have you ever wondered why can’t you just be taught the laws of gravity, or those of electrostatics, or those of optics? Why do you have labs? So that you can observe the facts, and the truth for yourself without an intermediary. Nobody is telling you the value of gravity, you find it out for yourself. So, you take a ball from the height and measure the time it takes to hit the floor, and using these observations you find it out for yourself. You do not depend on Newton—that he said so, so it must be true.

“I will find the fact out for myself.” That is what real observation is, and that is what a young man must especially do—find out the reality for himself using his own eyes, not depending on others, not bothering what the world has told him, what the society has told him. “I will go and find out whether it truly is this way because I am intelligent. I am not just a dustbin where everybody comes and throws his garbage. I will discover, I will explore, I will know.” And only in this knowing is the truth.

Truth is nothing to be borrowed, truth cannot be taken from someone. And if you have taken something from someone and assumed it to be true, that exactly is called ego. No truth is a truth unless it is your truth. When I say ‘your’, that does not mean personal, I mean whether you have discovered it by yourself.

You see, ever since we were this big or this small, we have been told a lot of things. Parents tell us and everybody’s parents do—always speak the truth, respect the elders, and be nonviolent. You all are intelligent people sitting over here. Do you never wonder why the world is like this? Every kid is taught to be truthful, every kid is taught to respect others, and every kid is taught to be nice to the environment, not to hurt others, not to harm others. Especially in India, non-violence is of such big value. Every kid is handed over that value and still, you have a world in which people are raping, stealing, killing, and are totally corrupt and afraid. Don’t you see this?

It is because those truths have been handed over to us by somebody else. We have never discovered them on our own. Whatever will be given to you from outside, will be of very little use unless it comes to you out of your own knowing, own attention.

Mumma says, “Beta, hamesha sach bolo (Kid, always speak the truth).” If the kid is a little vital, a little alive and sharp, the kid will turn and ask, “Mumma, why should I always speak the truth?” And Mumma has no answer, Mumma does not know. Mumma will say, “Because my Mumma also told me to speak the truth, hence I am telling this to you.”

And if the child persists in asking, he will get one tight slap. “Don’t ask me what is the truth why must one always speak the truth and whether it is worth it to speak the truth. Just speak the truth. Why? I don’t know.” Even if I do somehow put together a reason for speaking the truth, even that reason comes from somebody else, not of my own discovery. Do you want to live a life like that, a borrowed life?

There surely are facts, and facts of life cannot be borrowed. They are to be discovered; they are to be found out. Do you see why the ego is a disease? Because it prevents you from finding out. Once you have believed in something, what is the need to find out?

Till a very late stage, just a few centuries back, the entire humanity kept on believing that the Earth is flat and the Sun moves around the Earth. Now, was it such a difficult thing to find out? But how can people find out when they have already believed something? Believing is the enemy of knowing. Hence ego is a disease, because ego makes you believe in things that you have not found out, somebody else has given you. Ego means ignorance; ego means that you keep on believing the Earth is flat.

Questioner: Isn’t this our duty to evaluate it before believing?

Acharya Prashant: Yes, and how can that evaluation happen?

Questioner: By self-reasoning, questioning.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, and that evaluation cannot happen in the presence of belief. You have used the word ‘observation’ before, that’s a better word than ‘evaluation’; though you are trying to mean the same thing. This observation, all this evaluation or assessment that you are talking of is exactly the function of the intelligent mind—to not to take anything at face value, to find out. And once you find out, the whole flavor of living changes. Then your decisions are totally yours.

Then you do not enter into engineering because everyone else has told you to. You do not pick up a particular stream because the society says that it is a good stream, or because someone in your neighborhood got a chance to go to Australia being in a particular stream. You will find out what you really love. Then you will not take up a job just because society considers it prestigious to be in this kind of job. Then only you will understand the real meaning of Love. Because if you are taking it from outside, there can be no love. And that is especially disgraceful for a young person: no love.

Can you be told to love somebody? How many of you want to be told to love somebody? But this society is full of people whose love is dependent on external situations and various external considerations—caste, religion, gotras, preferences of parents, economic status, and whatnot, all external things. Choice of livelihood, passions, hobbies, all being dictated by the external.

How many of you want to live a life like that? And how many of you want to live freely in your own intelligence, how many of you think you are capable of that?

(Some Listeners raise their hands)

Good. And what are the others afraid of? Don’t you see that even this fear is coming from outside? You are not born afraid. Even this fear is coming from outside. Even the fear is ego. You are being told that if you try to fly too high, you will be shot down. So, you are afraid. This fear is not real, get rid of it. It is an unreal fear put into your mind by those who themselves are afraid. Only a fearful man tries to scare others. He himself is afraid.

Questioner: Fear is helpful.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, fear is very helpful. True, but in what sense? You discover that there is a snake close to you and you jump up, that much is alright. But what if the snake becomes a permanent stain on your mind, a permanent mark? And whenever, wherever in your life, you are about to sit on a chair, you are always looking around for snakes. You go to a Chinese food shop and you are wondering whether these are snakes—what if that happens?

Fear is wonderful but only in the moment of danger, like a mirror. What is the difference between a mirror and a photographic plate? A snake comes in front of a mirror and the same snake comes in front of the photographic plate, and then the snake goes away. Will anything remain in the mirror? No! But what will happen to the photographic plate? A permanent image will be marked there.

Fear is all right if your mind is like a mirror. Respond to the danger when it actually is there. When you are actually experiencing a physical danger, respond to it, it is all right. But most of us do not respond to real, actual dangers. Our mind is carrying images of imaginary dangers, like a photographic plate that once saw a snake and is permanently afraid of snakes; imagining snakes when there are none. That’s how our minds become. That kind of fear is not useful, that fear is very harmful. Others will use this fear to enslave you. In fact, you cannot be enslaved if you are not afraid. A free mind cannot become a slave to anybody.

Questioner: There is also a kind of ego that motivates us.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, most of our motivations come from ego.

What is a motivation? A drive to do something, a motive, a desire, an end; something to be obtained.

I am saying that most of our motivations come from ego. Now, the ego is external. Right? If the motivation is coming from the ego, it means that motivation too is external. There is something outside that is motivating us, asking us to do something. That motivation is not mine, somebody else has shown me something and told me to do it. That motivation is totally an external motivation, there is nothing internal about it. Like a slave, he has been told to do something and he does it. What fun is there in that?

There is a particular motivation that takes place not out of somebody’s command or dictate, but out of my own understanding and that motivation is totally rare; find that out.

Have you ever wondered why you feel motivated towards doing one thing at one point, and suddenly after a few days or few weeks, you feel motivated towards something else? The first thing holds no more attraction, you are no more motivated. You make a new hobby, you pick it up, and then leave it. A new semester starts, you make a resolution to study for these many hours and suddenly the motivation is gone.

Have you never wondered why there is no perennial source of motivation in your life? The reason is simple. All your motivation comes from outside and hence goes back to the outside. Someone comes, gives a very motivating talk to you and you get motivated. He will go away and your motivation will also go. A new year comes and you make a grand resolution, and you are very motivated: “Tomorrow morning, I will go jogging.” But the new year will go away and the jogging will also go away.

All your actions are nothing but reactions to external situations; and hence, your actions which are actually reactions, have very little energy behind them. Hence there is very little achievement in your life. Your movements are random. You move in one direction and then you move in another direction and then another direction. Have you seen that happening or am I just imagining? Does that happen that you move in one direction for a while and then suddenly change course, something or the other happens and you are confused, you don’t know?

Don’t you see all this confusion because all your motivation comes from the outside? Somebody is motivating you to become a software professional, somebody else is telling you to get into civil services, and someone else is motivating you to get into an MBA. And you do not know what to do, because you do not have any intelligence of your own.

Can there be a life that knows on its own? It will take information from outside, true. But if it is known on its own, it will not require any external motivation. We haven’t lived a life like that, but it is possible. And only that life is worthwhile, only that life is beautiful.

Right now, when the examination date sheet comes, it motivates you. Now, this motivation is external; and hence you do not approach your books with love, because an external event has motivated you to go to your book. And you go to the book only when you are scared of failing, or only when you are desirous of getting marks. You do not go to them out of real love.

All motivation is external, and external motivation is useless. There can be something called an internal movement, action coming out of your understanding. Not dictated action, not motivated action; direct, energetic, forceful action coming out of your own understanding. And there is such great joy in it that you will know only when you tasted it. This makes life worth living. You will not be confused for sure. When you taste it, you will know this is it. You will no more be confused.

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