EGO - Edging God Out
Copyright Suresh Gundappa 2008
Ego-Edging God Out
If you can accept yourself totally without any prejudice , belief or opinion then you have tremendous energy available to you. Most of your energy is consumed in proving yourself right at every opportunity. if you look at yourself, all your relations, your work and your dreams, they are nothing but one way street of what you want.
You are perfect as one can be and that’s because this creation is perfect. And everything created under this universe is perfect. Universe means one song : uni + verse.
The constant urge to prove yourself is ego. The constant need to form opinion on others is ego.
The ego has no interest in you. It is only interested in its existence. Ego’s existence is nothing but absence of awareness. It is not something that the ego can brag of It would like to go to the moon, which is not your birthright. Howsoever silly it will be, it would like to go to Everest. That is not your birthright, but the ego gets interested only in things which make you superior, higher, special, famous, celebrities. The ego is not interested in something which you are carrying with you from your very birth. It is interested in extraordinary things. The more difficult the job, the more the ego becomes interested in it. And enlightenment is the easiest thing in existence, the most natural. Hence, ego has no interest in it. This is how the problem arises. The moment a child is born, nobody is interested in the child’s nature, his potential, his possibilities of growth. Nobody is interested in the child’s birthright. Everybody is interested in making the child something very special — an Alexander the Great, a Beethoven, a Picasso, an Albert Einstein, a Mao Tse-tung — somebody who is going to be in history. Your mother, your father, your teachers, your priests, everybody is helping you to move away from yourself as much as possible. And this distance is the strength of your ego. The farther you are from yourself, the bigger is your ego.
simple way of reducing ego is allowing this universe ( you can call it God if you want) to work on you. only problem is you are so full of Ego that you have no place of Universe to define you and create miracles for you.
slow down little bit Accept yourself in whatever form, shape, behavior you are, You are as perfect as any other creation on this universe. Just allow silence to come in. Just allow universal energy to come inside you.
that’s why EGO is nothing but edging God out. the moment your Ego disappears then God comes in.
Meditation is art of dissolving Ego, Meditation is nothing but science of moving beyond ego.
Love
Suresh
Hi,
First time here..came here from Prashanth’s blog..a very inspiring post …the picture is very beautiful as well
Lakshmi
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[...] Dan Gilgoff wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptCopyright Suresh Gundappa 2008 Ego-Edging God Out If you can accept yourself totally without any prejudice , belief or opinion then you have tremendous energy available to you. Most of your energy is consumed in proving yourself right … [...]
Hi,
Let us Spread the Light by joining the World Movement to Bring GOD IN. . .
http://sudarishi.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/light-channels-join-the-world-movement/
Let us Spread the Light!!! NOW!
Well Suresh,
“The farther you are from yourself, the bigger is your ego.”
Are you advocating people to remain as they are and not evolve? It could also be the case that the ‘yourself’ wants to be become better.
Wow this post really explained a lot of things I’d at times wondered about - mainly why is it so hard for anyone to seriously consider meditation, even my closest friends who’ve known me since childhood and who trust me in everything else except take my word that meditation is of value to them!
This strange (now that you mention it) habit of Edging God Out I seem to have picked up as some kind of a lifetime habit since I dont know when! But my 11 month old son reminds and encourages me to unlearn it and return to innocence.
>> “The farther you are from yourself, the bigger is your ego.”
A popular saying is - “the bigger they are harder they fall…” and usually whenever I feel hurt about anything even the most ‘unjust’ thing I realise (though not always in time
) that its only my ego that has got a pin prick. Maybe that’s why Richard Bach said “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.”
Wrt an individual’s evolution… I wonder what is that has to evolve? Maybe its only the ego that has to un-evolve?
Came across a quote from one of the most recognized to be evolved persons of recent times J Krishnamurthy…
Hmm remembering the lyrics of a song by Enigma called Return To Innocence…
Dear Suresh,
In the wake of my hopelessly indisciplined attempts at meditating (in silence) since 2001 - for around 2 hours a day, sometimes not even a few minutes for a whole month, sometimes around 6 hours on a weekend, I have had several experiences over the years that I would like to share here.
One thing is an analogy that daduji adviced us to avoid being like one of three kinds of pots… One pot that has a hole, no matter how much is filled in everything goes out. [I can read all this writing every day, while abusing my wife not to disturb me :roll:] Another is pot that is already full [even before reading I assume I already know everything]. Another pot that has a crack and eventually everything goes out [Something I try for 3 days then forget about it for 1 week, then again 1 more day, so on].
So over these years I’ve been a bit like the 3rd variety ;)- I have not much regret but am glad that I’ve increasingly realised the importance of sincerity and consistency. This was just to give a background.
So over the years I’ve experienced a huge amount of energy, and to a large extent freedom - from boredom (even if I have to stand in a long queue), anger, frustration, depression, a lot of things that seem to be commonly accepted as ‘inevitable part of life’ even when they don’t really need to be.
And even during the times when these things happen, I do not try to escape them, I end up to a certain extent being aware and detached from them. And I find that they disappear in a much shorter time than earlier. And the main thing is that the tendency of those thoughts or memories to reccur again and again is drastically reduced, almost negligient. Apart from a great deal of calmness and peace I’ve at times even experienced an undescribable joy and immense gratitude for the sheer priviledge of merely being alive. I’ve learnt to value whatever I have.
Apart from all this, there have even been few times during meditation when I’ve also witnessed some spectacular ’special effects’ like lights and what not within me - more undescribably beauitful than a dozen still fireworks lit up all at the same time. With absolutely no imagination or visualisation but merely in silent awareness. Even at these times I’ve had a silent mind, with absolute peace, avoiding making a mountain out of a molehill but merely knowing it was yet another temporary phenomenon and later on getting on with ordinary life.
All my life I’ve had a lot of intimate family members (being part of a large joint family) and many friends most of them I’ve kept in touch with. As we all grow older, I feel most of them seem to be too busy to most mutual communication. Though I acknowledge and respect their lack of interest to meditation (expressed openly, though maybe some of them are already enlightened and laughing at my writing
). I talk only about some of my general experiences though, without directly writing about meditation, hoping that someday they might become interested. But I think without meditation, though I try to write from my actual experience, a lot of what I write seems to be pretty idealistic, unreal and completely useless to most of my family members.
Everyone seems to be doing just fine without needing any meditation at all. Nobody seems to ever likes to acknowledge any shortcomings in their approach to any difficulties they face. Eg I may observe a lot of aggression in the tone of voice in a close friend when he is talking to his wife, but for him, that’s just a normal conversation, and even if his wife gets hurt, its also just routine part of life, as she is going to hurt him back in return. Later on he may have a more intense quarrel with her, but to me he just explains it away.
The whole idea of meditation then sounds so ridiculous because every problem can be ‘explained away’ with some or the other perfectly rational justification.
Ive found the only way I can help (maybe) is to listen and empathise with them whenever they share any grieviences. Maybe offer simple ideas and so on. Some may come close… they agree completely that meditation is very useful and so on … but for whoever wants to meditate! (not them!)
I used to feel bad about this at some point long ago. I used to feel bad that so many people are unnecessarily unknowingly creating so much of trauma for themselves (and others involved) in the name of it “all being part of life”. But eventually I managed to figure out that by feeling bad myself I am going against the whole point
I realised everyone including me has their own time to learn whatever they need to learn, provided atleast a bit of willingness is there. Also at some situations I realised that my attempt that seemed to initially be a pure intention is so easily suceptible to getting carried away into all kinds of very subtle misleading notions that “I am helping them” even when Im really not. Then any such attempts just end up with lots of time and energy wasted for nobody’s benefit, which otherwise could’ve been better used to work on myself which I need to do most. So I finally learnt to mind my own business and just stay limited to the empathising and suggesting ideas (when asked) part. Additionally whether it helps them or not I dont know but it it helps me atleast to just sincerely in my heart silently pray for their welfare.
But once in a way I long for some way to ‘get the point’ - somehow convey atleast a small idea. Your site of course has been a truly wonderful tool and like reusability in open source software, I’ve linked in a lot of excerpts in my own writings
so thank you very much. Here or in some subsequent post, if you could sometime provide an explanation of the term ‘enlightenment’ to an intelligent cynical lay man in terms of what value it would add in an ordinary materialistic life, it might be quite useful.
Thanks Sanjay for your comments.
ALex, When I say yourself -i mean awareness, I believe true progress or evolving happens thru awareness. I also believe ego takes away your true growth. that’s what I mean When I said the farther you go from your awareness you EGO becomes bigger. I am not against growth I am only against any growth which doesn’t take awareness as it’s core.
Thank you. I would name your article the wonderful picture. Each of us rejoice over the artwork on the level of his own possibility to hear and see beyond the veil of his prejudices.
Our growth is measured by the amount we melt into the divine sense of oneness. Everything that remains define what is still in need of improvement. That’s what makes the acceptance of the truth the discussions that are the fortification of our Ego - nothing more than the wall on our road to ourselves- to the acceptance of the universe and the gratitude for divine oneness.
In the light of the above, my satisfaction with having mine http://www.artmajeur.com/colourrain/
http://candleday.wordpress.com/
http://trustlight.blogspot.com/
http://arthiker.wordpress.com/
reflects mine still being on a road to the wonderland without Ego weeds.
a beautiful write up EGO it you who must decide whether you want GOD or EGO (edging out god) it was such engrossing post you have put it in right from the core of your heart.
sanjay,s open comments are like an addendum to the post duo makes a perfect combinatiion and post gets double the thinking.
hats off to both S &S keep going strong and strong meditate and let ego go out and god
come in
“EGO is nothing but edging God out. the moment your Ego disappears then God comes in.”
Beautifully said, and so very true, indeed. Thanks for sharing such an inspirational insight, as well as such a beautiful photograph.
Nice post. The fact that the parents and teachers want to create the Einstens, the Newtons etc. may not always be the result of wanting to be celebrities. But it may also be the result of not being able to become so themselves and the belief that the kid can outshine with proper guidance, and they can provide it. One needs to beleive in something to carry on in life. I would say that believing in something, what ever is is, is better than trying to realize the Un-Realizable. People want to prove themselves not entirely because they are in self doubt. But rather because they believe that they have something worthy to go after, to live for. Otherwise,life would be so uninteresting and without any direction.
Destination Infinity.
How do you capture such brilliant colors!!!!
beautiful and thought provoking ! sends you reeling inside to check how far/close are you to god! every one of us are busy acquiring new identities, mistakenly thinking we are evolving! but seldom we realize that the true evolution takes place with each de-iedntification, reducing the distance between oneself and god. but only the brave has the strength to shed identities and stand bare blissfully………………….
Words of wisdom, my dear friend…. aaaaah how I’ve missed them and you! Please forgive me for not being a good friend…. another chance? Please! Hugs! Gracie