How was the ego created? || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner (Q): How was the Ego created?
Acharya Prashant (AP):
Ego was not really ‘created.’ Ego is being created all the time.
Would silence ever ask this question? So Ego has been given a fresh breath of life when one professes ‘ignorance’ or ‘knowledge.’ If you ask something about Ego, if you say, "What is Ego?" The answer would be this, “The one who is asking.” The question itself is Ego. How was the question created? By asking. How was the Ego created? You tell me, you asked.
How did you come to believe? How do you continuously keep believing that you do not know and secondly the knowledge is important? In this moment, from where did this thought arise in you that you did not know? And this beautiful moment of Silence, what makes you think that something additional in form of knowledge needs to be added?
If two people are sitting together in intimacy. Is the moment not already complete? Do they further need to beautify the moment by adding questions to it? Ego is this that which feels that knowledge is needed, that which feels that the world is incomplete, that which feels that it needs support. A beefing up, a furtherance, that is Ego. If you are silent, there is no Ego because you will not be asking about the genesis of Ego. And remember that any question you ever ask is ultimately a question about the Self.
You may ask a question about nuclear technology but if you go deeper into it, you will discover that it was the question about the ‘Self.’ Ego is that which feels that the Self is not yet fully revealed. So, knowledge must be further used to know it, explore it, to reveal it.
Ego is a belief in ignorance and hence knowledge.
If it is not there, it is just not there. Then even the question that from where did it come is just not there. The moment this question springs up in the mind, that is the moment the Ego is born. The moment when that question recedes, goes off to sleep, is the moment when the Ego too is put to sleep.
Q: Is it consciously? Can we be regenerating thoughts consciously?
AP: What do you mean by ‘regenerating thoughts consciously’? We are already so identified with the consciousness that we are almost entirely the conscious mind. How can you then generate thoughts in consciousness? For you to be able to do something, to the consciousness, you must be separate from ‘your’ consciousness. But we are very completely identified ‘with’ consciousness. "My thoughts, my beliefs, my opinions."
Q: Acharya Ji, I was just asking that don’t we generate thoughts consciously?
AP: You can generate ‘your’ thoughts consciously also but then you will have to ask, did ‘you’ generate ‘this thought’ consciously? To generate thoughts consciously, is this also not a thought firstly? So, was this done in consciousness?
Q: I really feel that I’m asking you this question consciously. This is what I feel when certain thoughts come into the mind.
AP: See, you must understand the structure of consciousness. Consciousness is a balloon rather, a kite, that thinks it is flying freely.
Consciousness is a ‘kite’ that feels it is flying freely. It does not know that it is being controlled by the Master, sitting deeper than its flight. The controller of all thoughts is the ‘deep mind’, the ‘latent tendencies.’
You may think, you may not think. Have you decided what decides the thoughts that you had? And why do different people have different thoughts upon being subjected to the same stimulus?
It is because their ‘deeper patterns’ are different, it is because their ‘deeper tendencies’ have been differently created.
Now, even the ‘deeper tendencies’ are like the man who is flying the kite and who thinks that flying kite is a matter of ‘his’ Freedom, a matter of ‘his’ choice. He might have chosen to fly the kite but did he choose to, choose to fly kite? Please go into this, he says, “I could have watched the television, or I could have flown the kite." Yes truly, you could have done these two things but did you ‘choose’ to choose? So, just as the kite is being absurd when it thinks that it is flying freely, the man on the ground is also being preposterous when he thinks he flies the kite.
What is it that determines our actions, our thoughts? What is it that determines the whole movement of activity that we see around? Whenever action happens, from where does it arise?
That does not mean that if you answer this question, you will become the incharge of the action. It only means that you will discover a point where an action can be known. Where you will not be unnecessarily holding yourself responsible for that which you are anyway not doing.
