We get to meet different types of people in our life. Some are like cotton. We feel so light after meeting them. There are hardly any traces of ego and they have such a wide vision of life that we feel enlightened after interacting with them even for a few moments. On the other hand, some are like stones, lying in the abyss of ignorance due to their own weight of ego. Not so that cotton has no weight, but density is probably what matters. The "cotton" like people have such vast awareness that the little weight of ego is not felt while the "stone" like people have such a low awareness that the weight of their ego gets condensed and looks like a stone.
God has been kind to make me meet people with extreme density and a very low density of ego. On the one hand, I had few opportunities to meet Mingyur Rinpoche who, after becoming a famous author of many books and after having a fan following of millions decided to disappear leaving his monastery for 3 years just to test his attachments to comforts and pleasures. I asked him the exact question and he replied that we need to constantly test ourselves and the best test is our equanimity in all situations. The degree of equanimity decides our spiritual growth. On the other hand, I get to meet many people who get so obsessed with their designations and positions that these positions become almost synonymous with their lives. Since most of these "achievers" have high IQs, when they start applying their entire IQ in such a limited sphere. they become highly manipulative and develop a highly dense ego that hits others like a sharp stone and any moment spent with them is a real test of equanimity.
People with a low level of competence and unwillingness to work hard, even if they have a low level of awareness are like sand. Even if they hit somebody, they do not hit so hard. The people with high IQs, willing to work hard, and have a low level of awareness grow in weight but since they have very limited space to grow, they become dense. All their efforts are motivated by some agenda. Generally, the agenda is decided by their life experiences. Some are quite full of fear inside and due to that their bodies get addicted to high doses of adrenaline. They become very aggressive some of them with high capacity end up becoming Hitler, Idi Amin, and General Dyer. Their egos weigh quite heavy and their awareness of life so little that these personalities become quite dense and hit at the world around them like a bullet. Some are full of ambitions to "become" something and their bodies get addicted to high doses of dopamine. They want to be "successful" at any cost and do not mind sacrificing the entire organization, community, and their own people to achieve what they want.
We may give the best of education to our kids. Our kids may have the best of the IQ and competence. However, if their awareness of life is at a low level, such IQ and competence will do more damage than good. They will sink due to their own weight. The abyss of ignorance is endless. Fear can make a dictator murder millions of people for no reason. Ambitions can make people unfair to everybody around them. At the end of the day, the winner stands alone. Do we want our kids to grow into such "winners" who are just struggling on a lonely island unable to walk due to the weight of their ego? Do we want them to develop all these psychological disorders? Why would parents want that to happen unless they are themselves not aware of the wider possibilities of life?
I feel quite sad when I see people with high IQs working hard, wasting their lives in such a narrow domain. Fragile egos are shattered every day. People in the highest positions retire quickly. Death completely ignores name, fame, and wealth. All powerful people surrender before death. People with just a dhoti inspire billions. People who do not have anything attract millions. Yet, we want the best packages for our kids. Probably, we can't give somebody what we do not have. Parents will need to work on their own level of awareness to make their kids aware of the widest possibilities of life. Otherwise, they will end up passing on their own fears and unfulfilled ambitions to their kids, both consciously and unconsciously. They will pass on their own sufferings to their kids, and society will continue to be a place full of the "sharp stones of ego" being thrown by people at each other. However, the most obvious things take time to make sense to complicated minds. The human mind could not make sense of the "apple falling down" for centuries. It took centuries to understand electromagnetic force, and gravity still baffles scientists.
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