Spiritual Ego

 

Photo Credit: A-Mused

Spiritual Ego

The spiritual ego is not something that is too different from the ordinary ego. Somebody feels their ego because they have money, somebody feels their ego is strengthened because they have political power. Somebody feels ego because they have great respectability. But the ego is the same. Somebody feels that they are spiritual - a great saint, holier than the other - that is also the same ego. We can call it “spiritual ego” but spiritual ego is a contradiction in terms. Swamiji talks about sadhaks having ego that they are sadhaks without knowing that those who are not sadhaks may have a better spiritual state than their own!

There is a story about three monasteries in the Tibetan mountains. One day, three monks – one from each monastery – met by chance on the path on the way to do their daily chores. One of them said, “You have beautiful monasteries, but in austerity we are unbeatable.”

The second said, “We are aware of the arduous discipline that your monastery maintains – your austerity is truly great. But nobody can compete with us when it comes to learning. We have some truly great scholars.” Both looked at the third monk who said, “You are both correct – one monastery is a perfectionist with respect to its disciplines, austerities, and the second is certainly full of scholars filled with knowledge and wisdom, but we are the tops in humbleness.”

“Tops in humbleness…” Just see the contradiction! There is no such thing as spiritual ego. Yes, there is such a thing that ego can exploit any direction of life: it can be religious, it can be spiritual, it can be financial, it can be political. It can be scholarship, it can be beauty, it can be physical strength. Ego is capable of exploiting anything. But spiritual ego is simply an impossibility because spirituality arises within only when the ego dissolves. Either one is an egoist or one is in the world of the spirit, one can’t be both together. They don’t have any coexistence.

Any greed — material or spiritual — is simply greed. Greed means we want more and more and more; there never comes a time when this continuous hankering for more, stops. So, whether we are in search of more spirituality or more money or more power, it does not matter.

But in fact, about spirituality, one should understand that the same contradiction again arises: we become spiritual only when this desire for more and more disappears, when we are utterly satisfied and contented as we are, when there is no “more” goading us… because the “more” creates the future. “More” means tomorrow is needed.

For the spiritual person, this moment is more than enough. Such a person is utterly grateful for whatever is allowed to him/her. His/her contentment cannot be disturbed by any desire for more. The only cure for ego is a simple surgery.

Should the ego become more healthy? stronger? more powerful? But that will be destructive to our spirituality. That will be against our inner growth. The ego is our enemy, not our friend. The enemy has to be destroyed — completely destroyed. Not cured, but killed!