The Hidden Enemy Part VI: Ego & Meditation

Continued from Part V 
The Sages of Ancient India, after years and years of meditation found out that Ego is nothing but one’s image on oneself or in simple words what one thinks one is. They established that the birth of Ego was the result of living in society. It is the by product of interaction with people. It is born when people around us start telling us what they think we are, directly through words and indirectly through their behaviour towards us, i.e. how they treat us. It may however be noted that we too are doing the same thing to others through our speech and behaviour. We too are contributing in creation of Ego in others.

The Ego comes into force only when you see a person and then as you grow up, even when you might be alone with no one around, Ego still remains there because now people have entered your thoughts. Every thought passing or hovering in your mind is always with respect to someone or the other. Ego has now become a permanent force within you. You have now reached a state where a people less universe seems meaningless to you, where you think that everything is only about people, everything is people centric and thus you lose all the connection you had initially with reality. People mean the world to you and it is only about people or with respect to people that you can think.

The individual as a consequence is launched into a spiralling trap in which the Ego grows within and soon usurps the self and assumes full command. We no longer behave rationally and are always doing our level best to be as irrational and stupid as we can be and as a consequence, we are constantly hurting ourselves and placing ourselves in a state of quandary ending up feeling miserable. The most surprising thing is that we never realise that we are putting ourselves in the hands of misfortune and are always looking out into the world to blame something or the other for our state of misery. But blaming has never yielded results. It has only been substantial in strengthening Ego.

The life becomes full of sorrow, misery, grief compelling the individual to be restless, impatient and attracted towards the useless things in the world, running about arbitrarily and randomly and always driven by mood swings. They concluded that this is what the Ego does once it has assumed full command over the individual.

They likened Ego to the mythical ghost that enters inside one’s body and possesses the individual taking full command and control of the individual. It is no doubt that Ego is in itself a false apparition just like a ghost and controls the brain.

The Sages of Ancient India asserted that unless and until one rids oneself of this deep malaise one has got oneself into, one cannot live life the way nature had intended one to live it and the purpose of life will never be known to the individual who dies struggling.

They insisted that it is the prime responsibility of every individual to first rid oneself of the Ego before all else for without getting rid of the false apparition which has taken over, the life will be full of troubles and tragedies.                                                             

The first step in this direction starts with realisation that all our sufferings are coming from the Ego that is well entrenched within us. We should see that it is the centre that commands us and that we are now ruled by the Ego and not by our self. We should realise that the source of all our miseries is the Ego within us. The image of ourselves on us is the real trouble maker.

The process of realisation starts with meditation. To meditate simply means to think. You just have to sit in a peaceful place in a posture in which you feel comfortable and close your eyes. Once you start meditating, various thoughts will cross your mind. All you have to do is just ignore those thoughts and try to look within for the source of your sufferings, your miseries and your misfortunes. You will see how your self-image has made a simple life so complicated for you.

It is advisable that you should meditate for an hour each in the morning and in the evening and also when you are not meditating, you should retain this thought throughout the day about the hidden enemy within. Every time you will feel bad or miserable in the day, you should close your eyes for a few moments and again try to locate the source of misery within you.
It will help if you start your meditation with a silent prayer that the source of all your miseries is your Ego and that you want to get rid of it.

After being continuously vigilant of your sufferings and miseries and carefully locating the sources tracing them to the Ego, you will eventually internalise this realisation that your self-image is the culprit and by and by you will see your true self emerge and take over.

                                        ......  To be concluded