Yesterday, I had a very profound discussion with a few close friends. My friend, who is a practising doctor and spiritual practitioner, told me something that made me think. She said that a person does not die till she surrenders to death. The body will keep fighting till that time. That made me think a lot. When we encounter new unforeseen situations in our lives, why do we become so sad? Because the ego wants to maintain the status quo at any cost.
When we get cheated in a relationship, our plot of land is captured by somebody, a close relative suffers some diseases, we get a tough boss who fails to recognise the hard work put in by us, there is a road rage and somebody unreasonably argues with us, somebody takes away credit for the hard work done by us, our children do not listen to our advice, we are not able to buy the flat we have aimed for many years, and there are many more instances that make us sad. We do not want to face these situations and try our level best to maintain the status quo. Sometimes we suceed to maintain the status quo by working on our relationships, by throwing tantrums, by getting the medical treatment of the sick person, by changing the job, by giving our mind back to the boss, by reclaiming our credit, by yelling at the children, or by making them understand, or by making better financial planning. On the other hand, sometimes we fail despite our best efforts.
Either way, we mostly miss the crucial lesson life wants to teach us. Everything is temporary. All the possibilities are just like the clouds in the sky. Clouds keep changing, and the permanent thing is the sky, the space. The ego strongly identifies with certain clouds. The ego identifies with either what it already has or what it wants. Ego-driven persons make efforts throughout their lives to get what they want and to preserve and protect what they already have. The problem with all ego-driven persons is that they identify very strongly with one of the possibilities and then close their eyes and ears. So much so that they even forget the context in which that possibility was relevant. The ego often falls in love with, or becomes afraid of, its own creation. Slowly and gradually, it gets cut-off from reality and turns into a black hole. It gulps any ray of awareness that tries to make it aware of the falsity that is trapped in.
The universe is constantly expanding, and black holes are shrinking at the same rate. Both possibilities coexist. The more we feed the ego, the stronger its pull becomes. The more we keep exploring the possibilities, the freer we will become to explore more possibilities. There is no magic. We become what we practice. We have to consciously choose which possibilities we want to create in our lives. The same India pre-independence created freedom fighters like Gandhi and Bhagat Singh, and there were millions of people in the same India who could not rise above their selfish interests. The more heed we pay to the ego, the greater will be its pull of gravity. So, what's the solution? It's very simple. Whenever a thought comes to our mind, we just need to ask about the origin. Is that thought coming from the land of fear, jealousy, ambition, greed, comparison, or anxiety, or is it coming from the space of freedom, love, compassion, and exploration? The ego will always try to hold on to the known. The self would always like to explore its true nature, love every life form, show compassion, and be free.
The more we listen to the tantrums of the ego, the more limited our lives will be. The more we explore, the more possibilities we create in our lives. All great people in this world have experimented with their lives and constantly explored. Mahatma Gandhi's life was a living experiment, as he wrote in his book My Experiments with Truth. All great scientists in the world are constantly unsatisfied with what they already know and keep exploring new things. All great sailors constantly seek to explore unknown islands. All great cosmologists are constantly exploring the mysteries of the universe. All great artists constantly seek to connect with the forces of nature and express them through their music, songs, poems, writings, and paintings. Life is all about exploration with freedom, love, and compassion, and when we explore, we create so many new possibilities. Not so that creative people do not have an ego, but they focus on exploration, and the ego loses its force. The ego can't withstand the force of creation.
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