Can we beg?

September 7, 1999

G Murthy writes :

>Is there any simple self-test which we can design to test how

>far we have conquered A above ?

Dear Murthy,

Why do you even want to spend unnecessary effort to 'conquer' the Ego? Spend

all your effort in knowing yourself - the eqo will vanish automatically.

When you do atma vichAra and are able to differentiate between yourself and

the breath-body-senses-mind, there'll come a stage when there's still you

looking for yourself - this is the consciousness or the subtle Ego. Still

there'll be agitation because of this consciousness which is looking for

'itself'. Again realize that even this consciousness depends on something

else - the object which its conscious of. And as we know, the minimun

criterion of reality is that it should not be dependent on anything else and

should be valid on its own.

So let go of that too - give up this 'search'. Become absolutely still and

consciousness itself will cease. But that doesn't mean that you don't exist

- that which remains - the residue - which is beyond mind and consciousness

- is the way.

September 9, 1999

On Tue, 7 Sep 1999, nanda chandran wrote:

> "nanda chandran" <vpcnk

>

> G Murthy writes :

> >Is there any simple self-test which we can design to test how

> >far we have conquered A above ?

>

> Dear Murthy,

>

> Why do you even want to spend unnecessary effort to 'conquer' the Ego? Spend

> all your effort in knowing yourself - the eqo will vanish automatically.

>

> When you do atma vichAra and are able to differentiate between yourself and

> the breath-body-senses-mind, there'll come a stage when there's still you

> looking for yourself - this is the consciousness or the subtle Ego. Still

> there'll be agitation because of this consciousness which is looking for

> 'itself'. Again realize that even this consciousness depends on something

> else - the object which its conscious of. And as we know, the minimun

> criterion of reality is that it should not be dependent on anything else and

> should be valid on its own.

>

> So let go of that too - give up this 'search'. Become absolutely still and

> consciousness itself will cease. But that doesn't mean that you don't exist

> - that which remains - the residue - which is beyond mind and consciousness

> - is the way.

>

namaste Nandaji,

You are quite correct in asking why do we want to "conquer" the ego

instead of doing AtmavichAra, and particularly your highlighting the

word "conquer". But, isn't ego-recognition apart from us, part of sAdhana?

I realize and agree that AtmavichAra results in dropping of the ego.

AtmavichAra is contemplative, need to do by oneself through internal

mathanam, or analysis. It is to be conducted by oneself of oneself.

For uninitiated and inexperienced, and particularly nowadays when

gurukulams are absent, there is every danger that it may go in a

wrong direction without sAdhaka knowing it.

How do we know that AtmavichAra is going in the right direction? There

are telltale signs like the person will have equanimity, and as Shri

Sadananda said in his post, even if there is departure from equanimity,

the person quickly returns to the balanced position.

As you say, one of the consequences of AtmavichAra is the dropping of

the ego. And this is where we can design a "term test" (my apologies

to the purists who say that AtmavichAra is not amenable for testing.

I agree with that, but it does not hurt to test oneself once in a

while that we are in the proper direction. Eventually these 'tests'

will fall as well). We can test whether the ego is getting weakened.

Although ego is present most of the time, the ego shows its presence

directly when (i) enjoying the fruit of action, (ii) when claiming

ownership of action, (iii) when suffering humiliation. Intellectually

we can or may disclaim (i) and (ii) by not being honest to ourselves,

and the ego would not make a public outcry. Thus, in (i) and (ii),

we do not really know the hold of the ego. However, when we are

subject to 'humiliation', the ego's resistance will be forceful, and

thus (iii) is a good opportunity to see how strong is the ego.

If we routinely subject ourselves to what the ego considers 'demeaning'

or 'humiliating' activities, how would the ego react? Is its flare-up

declining with progress of our AtmavichAra? That may give us a clue if

the ego is in a melt-down process.

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

------