Ego is not your Self

Please enjoy the following extract of a talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga. This talk took place on the 22nd October 1979 in London.

“Today only, I was discussing about the way people give you C.O.B., I don’t know, V.I.P., and M.A.D., like that, and we carry those banners with us, and we expect everybody to respect those banners which have been given to us, you see, because we have done some work, somebody has recognized us, branded it, stamped it, so we believe “really this must be something great.” So we accept that brand and we want to keep it up. So it’s a doubly fixed thing that you are really rewarded for what work you are doing. That’s why people start, become nuisance also. Supposing in a society some people do not find any significance to their lives, then they will go to Oxford Street, stand there, wear funny dresses, start jumping, and singing something nonsensical, and make a nuisance out of themselves. We have seen people who paint their hair in different colors, put pencils in the noses I think… and do all kinds of mad things, just to attract the attention of others because we want to attract the attention of others, because our ego is not yet satisfied, but this ego is never satisfied. It goes on asking for more food, more food and you enjoy it too. When such a ego is bloated within us we cannot understand what we are doing. People can befool you like that. It’s very easy to befool a person who is ego oriented than to befool a simple person. A simple hearted man cannot be easily befooled, because he is not on a trip you see. But those that are on a ego trip, you tell them that “This is the best way to go to hell,” they will be the first booking their seats. There will be a queue for it and people would be asking for it, “alright if it is so, it’s good.” That is how many gurus in this world have come forward, have befooled you, by telling you that “You will get these powers, those powers, that will happen, this will happen” and they know how to pamper your ego. For example, they might say “This is a world organization of spirituality, and you are the head of the world organization,” and you believe it.

Ego means misappropriation. You believe in it because you think that, “After all I must be something, and I have done this, I have done that “. But actually what happens physically is then, when this balloon spreads on your head all over, the aura of the brain surrounds the heart normally… normally! But when there is ego problem, then ego surrounds the heart, and when ego surrounds the heart, the brain is cut off from the heart. So you are a non-integrated person, or we can say disintegrated. Your heart runs one side, your brain runs another side, your body runs third side, your emotions run fourth side. So four people running four horses and that’s how you are completely torn. I mean it’s impossible to stand on two stools, but if there are four, with two legs… it’s a big feat to exist.

So this kind of ego trip comes in by which you start behaving and living in this world in a very unnatural way, and if somebody says that “No, not your ego, not that, that’s not you, you have to be yourself, ego is not yourself. Do not be satisfied with this ego”, then you don’t like it. Because you are much higher than ego, much greater than ego, much more than what you think your ego can do. With ego, at the most what can you do, say? At the most what can you do with your ego? What people have achieved through ego? Nothing, whatever they have discovered, even in the sciences has come from the unknown, from God’s own treasures. If God has given you some knowledge of the unknown, you should not feel pampered about it and think that “Oh, this is what we have found,” no! He graciously gave you this knowledge, which has come to you so just take it with humility.

And this ego is very, very dangerous for kundalini awakening. Now you look at the diagram, imagine the whole of your head is covered with that yellow stuff, and this blue thing becomes a very small one. So first of all the desire, to seek itself, is diminished. You see you go for seeking as if you are going to a cinema hall. There is no combination of what you are thinking and your heart. You are not seeking from your heart, you are seeking just with your brains, because you have read three-four books, there’s a fashion, everybody is seeking, everybody is looking as if they are seeking something, so let us also seek. It is not coming from your heart because you can see that the activity of heart has become practically zero. You do not desire anything, it is what your ego desires you run after. Anything that doesn’t satisfy your ego you get upset about it. One must go on all the time saying that, “You are the fastest horse, you are the greatest person, you are the most unique personality,” then only you are satisfied.

It cuts you out so much from your heart, that’s why we cannot find joy, because joy you can only get through your heart. But this Mr. Ego gives you some sort of a satisfaction which is very superficial, temporary, leads you nowhere. With this ego orientation only, you get so many diseases, as I have told you before, like diabetes, heart attack, we can say also cancer, could be, one of them, arthritis, you might get. You also get with this too much thinking, paralysis, paralysis is because of that, and kidney failures. The worst is liver, because of over-activity liver is neglected. We are least bothered about the liver. If you tell a child “Don’t eat chocolates in childhood,” I mean, it’s an impossibility, you cannot talk like that. I just once said that “Why not stop giving chocolates to children, who cannot digest it, because their liver is not that [strong], or make something that is digestible to their liver from childhood, till they grow up, and why not dilute the chocolates also a little bit more. So?” The question comes in then, that “How can you do it Mother? It would be chucking out everything and children would protest without chocolates!” Gradually they’ll forget. The liver problem starts within you: you become thin, lean, pale, aggressive, all the time grumbling, grudging, sulking. Never in joy, never in happiness, you call it “tension”, “stress”, all these things. It’s nothing but over-activity of this chakra. Tension is because the whole of it is covered with this balloon and the balloon is still going on and on and on. That has to reduce. Sahaja Yoga is the only way really we can face our ego, because through Sahaja Yoga only, we can see ourselves. But it is an impossibility with human beings to face themselves, even after realization, they find it difficult. For example, all our misidentifications are there, say I’m dealing, say, with English disciples here, before I start saying about the misidentification of the English, I must condemn all the Indians of the world, and all the Japanese, Chinese, Greeks, everybody else, and then I should say “There’s also something wrong with English,” otherwise I’ve had it. Unless and until, at every stage, I condemn all the rest of the world I cannot talk of saying that we also have certain misidentifications which are sitting on our heads, by which we are oppressed, we think that “This is the correct way of life,” by which we have oppressed others.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi