Ego & Reactions - Excerpts from Talks by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Truncated Transcription Below:
1. “Ego is your greatest enemy, I think, and it is the one that really hinders all the wealth and beauty of your life. So if you could just see this ego, how it works, just you’ll be enjoying it. It’s a drama it plays - all right, let’s have it! You can see the drama and then suddenly you will be amazed that you are not in it, you are watching it. When you are detached from your ego, you can see how it tries to entice you.”
[…]
“And if you see around today in these modern times, everybody is quite conscious of their ego, very conscious, and the way they are coming up in the newspapers or the way they are in some magazines, I’m quite amazed. I would feel shy to be there, because it’s so much of expression of your ego, nothing else. All kinds of things they start, they have competition of ego, lots of competition. Like they have a beauty competition, then they have another competition for Mr., you can say India, Mr. this thing, that. All these things actually give the person ego, and others also run after such competitions. They think, “Why am I not?” “I should be like that.” So it’s very deadening and absolutely blinds your mind, that you think this is the way one has to be very successful. This success lasts for how long? It perishes in no time. But success in Sahaja Yoga is what will last forever, and everybody will remember it. The one who has this kind of a humble nature will be remembered for generations. I’ve never seen a statue of a person who has been egoistical. On the contrary, if there was some, they used to criticize, “He was a very egoistical man.” And nowadays it’s impossible, anybody who has ego, I don’t think anybody is going to sing any songs about such a person, or going to raise any statues in their name.” (India - December 25, 2000)
2. “We should not react, we should not react. If you see something wrong, all right, you meditate on that point, you meditate. If you find anything wrong happening, all right, meditate on that. If somebody is unkind to you, at that moment do not react. Afterwards when that person is quietened, you tell him or tell her, because at that time when he’s so volatile or she’s volatile if you tell, nothing will happen. Gradually, I don’t say always you can win over such people, but gradually you may be able to make them understand that it’s wrong, it’s wrong to do things which they have been doing.” (Italy - August 16, 1998)
3. “Today I was thinking of telling you about the ego problem, because I think everybody feels that that’s the biggest problem they all have; and there’s a big ego trip one gets into, and they don’t know what to do with it. So first part I will tell you how the ego rises, and how, what it does to us; the second how to understand it, how to tackle the position of ego and put it in its’ own aspect. As you see in the map here, the yellow stuff that you see on top is the ego. The balloon that is yellow is the ego. You see down below it starts from the Swadisthana. This is the color of the bile within us, and this Swadisthana Chakra, which is for our creativity, is directly connected to that ego there. And when it starts rotating around the Void, and going to the various parts of the Void, it collects all the problems of the Void. Void is that green circle within us where physically we have, in the Void, we have uterus, we have kidney - it’s a complete viscera: all the intestines, ascending, transverse, descending colon, liver (is the upper part of liver more), then also pancreas and the spleen. So all the problems of these organs are collected by this chakra which moves. It comes out of the Nabhi Chakra and moves round and round and round, and collects all the problems. It nourishes, gives power, the vital power to these organs, and also it generates necessary power for our creative action. It also collects the fat cells of the Void, convert it into the proper cells for the brain, for its’ use, for the grey matter. All this work it has to do - one chakra."
(UK - October 22, 1979)