Feeding the Ego

 

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Feeding the Ego

The most obvious and simple thing in existence is the Truth. This has created great difficulty as the mind is simply not interested in the obvious. The mind does not get excited by the simple, because deep within the mind there is nothing, but the ego and the ego gets its food, its nourishment from the most difficult of challenges. The more arduous, the more torturous, the more difficult an achievement is, the more the mind becomes fascinated. It is ready to go to the farthest star, not even bothering what it is going to get there; that is irrelevant.

There is a remark by Edmund Hillary – the first man to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. After he had descended, the whole world’s media was there to ask him about his experience, and what he had gained from the climb. For a long time, people had been trying their utmost to conquer this mountain and they had been consistently failing, so many people had lost their lives in the attempt; so, at that time this was an achievement worth mentioning – conquering the tallest mountain in the world; this had a nice ring to it.

When Hillary was asked what he had gained, and why did he climb the mountain – he was at a loss for words. He said, “Just because it was there as a challenge to humanity – that was enough for me to risk my life. I have not gained anything; I have not experienced anything.”

If one thinks about it, what was the objective of climbing the mountain, it was nothing but an ego booster – I went where no one had gone before. He did not stay on top for more than two minutes – for which several days of preparation was spent in the ascent and the descent. He risked his life for those two minutes.

This gives an insight into the working of the human mind. It just goes to show that something which is easily doable cannot be considered as an achievement. That which is not easily available, the farther it is, the more the nourishment to the ego, greater the food for the ego. The ego has absolutely no interest in the obvious, that which is easily achievable!

That’s why for thousands of years, millions of people have lived on earth and moved on without knowing their own being. Lots of people have travelled far and wide on voyages of discovery and of conquest, but in the end they forgot one thing – when they could not conquer their own self; how could they conquer the world?