Sahaja Yoga Meditation - Audio Talks

You have to laugh at your ego not fight it

Posted: 03 Dec 2018 03:45 AM PST

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

“And this ego business is so much prevalent in our society now, with all due apologies I am talking about the Western society, when it comes to India I talk to them, but now I’m talking to you, and think that I am also a Western person, so I can say certain things as a Western personality, and don’t feel bad about it. For in the so-called, certain traditions that we have, today only I was discussing you see; like on the table we have to sit for dinner, alright? Simple thing it is, to sit on the table for dinner, now dinner is there because God has been gracious to us; for our well-being, for our friendship, we are all going to sit down. But go to any formal dinner, or you arrange a formal dinner, people would sit down ten times discussing “where is the seat of 'X’ and the seat of 'Y’, and the seat of 'Z’.” But if there is a slightest mistake, in placing the people according to their date of birth, their face color, their head color, their height, their noses, their length, their upper lips, any difference is there found in the “Who’s who” book, you see, that somebody was placed little higher in M.A.D. degree, then you’ve had it. All the good wishes of entertaining people, of doing, some good friendship of having, creating something very, very great, is all lost. All the effort is lost and you are left wondering, “Now what have I done? I did consult all the dictionaries and the 'Who’s who’, I mean this 'Who’s who’ is another ego pampering you know. But despite that there was a mistake somehow and the person has taken a very big objection that Mr. X who is one day junior to him has been made to sit ahead of him, is the greatest calamity to his ego. The poor chairs do not know what happens for their different shapes, you see. How much we fight over all such things, pampering our ego.

So on and so forth we have so many things, but if I say “scrap all this nonsense” why don’t you scrap it? Why to have all this, protocols, this, that? What is the need to have this seat for this gentleman, that seat, after all if there are ten people for dinner they can find their seats, there won’t be a chaos for ten people. Even for twenty, even for three hundred. Why should there be seat allotted if you have invited three hundred people, alright, they’ll all sit down. If they are remaining they’ll sit down for the second one or for the third one. What is the… such a hurry of having that program? All together, or in such a systematic way that everybody feels unsystematic after that. Everybody feels disturbed and upset after the program is over? With all the system, with all the corrections and with all the great planning we do, ultimately we find all have become nitwits, there must be something wrong about it. And it becomes a frenzy with mob-like behavior people have, you see, everybody will come out with very big faces, “Oh, what a mismanagement you know, they did this!” What was it? One cannot even understand what is the value of all these things. That’s why we have to be like small children, to them it does not matter where they sit. And so we are grown up and matured, supposed to be mature people also. While children are still innocent and still ignorant and still they have to grow. We are supposed to be up-grown, what has grown within us is nothing but this Mr. Ego, not you.

When this happens, when this happens in the worst possible way, you know, in today’s paper I was reading about this ripper [Yorkshire ripper]. Now the conclusion is reached that he’s not a psychopath… but he is on a ego trip. He’s doing all this for his ego satisfaction, because he telephones to the police, he sends a, what you call… a tape to the police, that he should be caught. He tells them “you’ll meet me here”, and still they cannot catch him so he thinks oh he’s such a great person, that nobody can catch him. The greatest thief ever born who could not be caught. So that is… what you call, is not a psychopath, but I don’t know what name will you give to such a man? I mean to an egoist like this, the one who lives by ego tries to satisfy his ego, and if his ego is not satisfied by something he doesn’t feel satisfied, I don’t know what should you call him?

Now how to overcome this ego, because people start seeing, gradually this, it happens. They start seeing Mr. Ego, “oh very great, you see it’s coming up, giving me ideas, alright”. You feel sometimes very depressed with the idea that this is Mr. Ego I was identified with. Alright? You see your ego. Then when you see your ego, then what do you do with it? Or if somebody says “Better watch your ego” then what happens? You start fighting it. You say “No… I will not say anything, I will just keep quiet! Let them say anything whatever they like”. Then you become another type. You become a person who is suffering from super-ego. So you are left with desires but do not act, and you’d say that “let others aggress me, I’m not going to aggress anyone, I’ll be very careful about not-aggression.” But by this kind of a thing, what happens that when you raise the left side, I mean left side which goes up on the right hand side – super-ego, it presses the ego down but again is bounced back and there’s a kind of a bouncing going on. By this behavior when you fight your ego the ego sits on your head much more. The more you try to fight ego it sits on your head. You are not to fight it. Supposing you take a balloon and start hitting it, it will hit you back further. Go on hitting it, it will go on hitting. Now which is the way to deflate this ego? How do we deflate a balloon? In the same manner, take a pin and give it a prick. You just look at yourself, say “Alright Mr. 'So and So’, now, how do you do?” and you laugh at yourself, you say “Oh you were very unhappy you see when you saw that you were not placed very much, alright, now have a pin from me!” And that’s how you deflate it, by seeing it by all the time making fun of it, yourself, and piercing a pin into it. Not by deflating, in the way people say that you deflate the whole thing by pushing it down, or by killing it, but actually just, making a hole in it, in the same way if you start looking at yourself… and make fun.

Human beings only know very well how to make fun of themselves, no animals know that. If you learn how to make fun of yourself your ego will go down, otherwise this ego will suggest “Whatever you are doing is the best, this has to be done, that has to be done, I am the best, I am doing everything good”, and you might be torturing someone, aggressing someone, you might be just playing into the hands of ego like a madcap, and you might be a real madcap but you don’t know that you are. Because with ego a person becomes successful so-called, he becomes very brilliant, shines out, in competition he comes up, and nobody dare say a word to him otherwise he’ll have punch on the nose, you see. So also he becomes very mighty and powerful, and everybody hankers after such a behavior and such a thing. But, a time comes when he realizes that “I was hanging in the air. I forgot my basis, and now I have to come down”, like Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and they had a great fall. Such a beautiful ryhme this thing is, written long time back. And all the Kings horses and all the men, could not put Humpty Dumpty back again, into it’s own shape you see? So don’t be Humpty Dumpties, and don’t live with that idea of being a Humpty Dumpty, is a simple thing to fight your ego and that happens very often in Sahaja Yoga, is a very common happening in Sahaja Yoga, where your Kundalini itself, you see, creates such situations, that you are flabbergasted at your ego.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

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Ego is not your Self

Posted: 03 Dec 2018 03:45 AM PST

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