World Meditation Day Special- Meditation, the antidote to ego: Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

On World Meditation Day today, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar explains how to understand ego and how meditation serves as an antidote

On World Meditation Day, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shares how meditation is the antidote to ego:

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The 'I' or ego is like a tiny atom. When the ego identifies with the body, it becomes miserable. But when it is associated with the spirit, it becomes divine. In a huge atomic reactor, it is just one atom that explodes. In the same way, in our whole body, there is just one atom of ‘I.’ When this ‘I’ explodes, it becomes the light of the Self.

Understanding Ego

Ego is identifying: 'I am this or I am that,' and ego is also 'I am not this and I am not that.' Ego is a sense of separation from others, it is the belief that you are different or exclusive from this universal creation. Thinking you are very good, better than all others, or that you are the worst of all, both are ego. It is simply being unnatural, a pretence, or showing something that you are not. It always needs someone else to appreciate, and recognize you. Lack of simplicity, lack of belongingness is ego. It is just a feeling of having a wall between you and others.

When there is no wall, you belong to me, and I belong to you.

The Trap of Limited Identity

Suppose you are a general in the military, now what happens when you behave in the same way with your family too? Realise that you are stuck in your ego of being a military officer. The truth is, being a general is only one of your identities. You are also a father or mother, a husband or wife, sister or brother, a son or daughter, and so on. You dissolve your ego when you balance all these identities and give them equal importance. The ego is getting stuck with any one identity.

Getting rid of ego

Why do you fight with your ego? Because it makes you stiff, incommunicable, and because you have been told your ego is bad. So, you want to kill your ego. But I tell you, if you find you have a big ego, don't try to destroy it because that will only make it stronger, and make you more unnatural. Simply embrace it. So what if you have an ego? Just keep it in your pocket. That’s the first step.

When you are with people, and you feel there is a wall, the moment you realize, ‘Oh, I'm putting up a wall!’, the iron curtain of ego has already started to fall away.

When people laugh at you, can you relax? When people point at you, can you smile along? Smile and accept it. A mother has no ego. Whatever the children say, she accepts. If you are unperturbed, you have conquered the ego.

Being Natural: The Only Antidote

Being natural is the only antidote to ego. Be spontaneous! Ego cannot stand spontaneity. The antidote for ego is just being natural like a child. Agreeing to be a fool for a while is the way to overcome the fear of rejection from others.

Meditation: Returning to Your Original Nature

The natural tendency to recycle all that we have collected in day-to-day life as impressions, letting go of them, and returning to our source or the state we were in when we arrived on this planet, becoming fresh and alive again, is what meditation is. Returning to that serenity, which is your original nature, is meditation. Being totally natural and one with your environment is meditation. Absolute joy and happiness are meditation. Pleasure minus excitement is meditation. A thrill without anxiety is meditation. A love without hatred or any of its opposite values is meditation. Meditation is the art of letting go of your desires. When you wake up and see, there is nothing to be proved and nothing to possess, your ego dissolves.

Ego is separateness; non-belongingness. Ego can be transcended by knowing the Truth; by enquiring "Who am I?" In meditation, when the ego gives up its limited identity, when the intellect can open itself to more possibilities, when the mind loses its hardness and becomes subtle, in meditation, then the true light that you are reflects through it all. Gift yourself the most powerful rest there is by taking some time our for meditation every day.