ANNIHILATING THE EGO
Many people talk of annihilating the ego. What is the necessity of annihilating the ego? What is the necessity of destroying the ego? No, keep the ego by all means—but let the ego be permeated with the higher Self in us so that two things happen: we uplift the ego towards Divinity, and we bring down Divinity to the ego. It’s a two-way process, and that makes it simpler.
So, a self-realised man does not walk around 6 inches above the ground. He is not a self-realised man; he is just a magician. A self-realised man, as he reaches greater and greater levels of his spirituality, the more and more simple he becomes. He becomes so ordinary that if we pass him in the street, without grossness of mind, we might not even recognize him.
If we concentrate on one area of our weakness and strengthen that area, then automatically, all the other negativities—that are blood brothers of that weakness—become totally strengthened. When we have our weaknesses, we do not need to work on them one at a time. It is not necessary. Work on one major weakness, and the rest takes care of itself. So that speeds up the path towards Self-realisation.
When someone says, “Man can achieve self-realisation in one lifetime,” they mean strengthening one weakness. When that one weakness is strengthened, the other strengths automatically appear to eradicate the shortcomings of the other part of our life.
THE PATH TO SELF-REALISATION
If we come face to face with our significant weaknesses, we will only discover the major ones. If I tell you that this is your major weakness, it might have some impact on you. Still, when you find out your major weakness by yourself, it has the most significant impact because it has an inbuilt factor in discovering your major weakness of yourself. It has the inbuilt factor of wanting to eliminate that considerable weakness. So, that does not come as knowledge but as a realisation.
If someone tells me this is my weakness, I will listen to logic and accept it with my mind. But when I discover the weakness myself, then I realise that this is my weakness. So, the difference is between acquired knowledge and realised knowledge.
When we realise a thing to ourselves, which is basically what the teacher has to do, it is to make man realise his weaknesses. The teacher gives practices whereby the person could gain enough strength and courage to look at himself in the mirror, as we always say. He looks at himself in the mirror, not seeing the teacher’s face. It is seeing his face. He is facing up to himself, and effort is required to eradicate that weakness.
So, the path to Self-realisation is a pathless path. Man is already self-realised within him because the Divinity within him is forever there and by removing one weakness, the major one, all else is removed and here the Light shines in its glory.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1977 – 13
