Is it difficult to drop the ego? || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner (Q): Why is it difficult to drop the ego?
Acharya Prashant (AP): The Ego can never be dropped. You can only get something that replaces the ego, outsmarts the ego, that out attracts the ego, that outplaces the ego. In the name of ego, all that you stick to, you stick to that because you find it attractive. Now we may keep condemning the ego, but the fact is that if you find something attractive, you will not drop it. You drop it when you get something infinitely more attractive than that. Pay attention to that.
When you get the real, then the false is left far behind. You do not even stop to think about what happened to it. Right now, if you are asking about the ego, it probably only shows that all you still have is only the ego. Once you have something far more beautiful, far more alluring; who has the time, space, energy to talk of ego? One then talks of beauty, of Love, of Truth; one then sings. One then doesn't say, “Oh! How to drop the ego?”
You may keep asking, you will never be able to drop. I have met thousands of people who come with this question. This question can be answered in an infinite number of ways and the ego will co-opt all the answers.
You see these people who are here and who have been with me since the last two weeks or so, since I commenced this tour; I tell them, "Do not listen to me anymore. You need no more answers. Instead, go and participate now. Find something beautiful. What will you do with more words?"
So, I send them to the marketplace. And I am glad when they are so busy with the work that we are doing in the marketplace, that they forget to come to the sessions. Now it is something real for you. Now it is not just an exchange of words, now you are living it.
And there is the other mind that says, “No, no, no! I will not participate; I just want more words. Give me more words, but don't talk of life. Don't push me into execution.” Then you are just creating an inventory of knowledge and all inventories are like a burden, a damp squalid godown—containing a lot, living nothing.
Have you ever seen a godown dance about? A godown is so fat, how can it dance? Those who are obsessed with words are like godowns, fat godowns. They will not have life, dance with them.
