Petty Ego Trip

People who visit Himalayas for the first time or umpteenth time, claim this ‘I feel my ego is reduced to nothing when I stand in front of the gigantic mountains or when I sit for meditation (!) in front of the Ganges’. This is so hollow as their claim. Why? I ask why, when you visited the nearby ocean or the mountain or river you did not feel anything.

And for me, the annihilation of the ego need not be gained by a trip. When we stand in front of the big mass of people in the city or town, one comes from, do we not feel anything. Everyone in the group wants to make a name for himself / herself. And what greater folly can there be than this.

When people come to me, I ask a simple question – whether they have any idea who Sri Shankaracharya is (though I always refer to him as bhagavan bhashyakara, other cannot remember this great ones name, leave alone the reference to him through His life). If they are in the path of spirituality, they will claim to know about him, claim? Let me explain, now we follow the path of this great one, nut know nothing about him, and again claim to follow him J or L. Ask about His parents, or the place of His birth. Many a time, you will receive a blank stare, displaying the great ignorance of what we ‘believe’ in. (for the ones who want to know His father’s name is Sri Shivaguru (son of Sri Vidhyadhiraja) and mother’s name is Smt Aryambha (daughter of Sri Magapandita).

Now tell me, when we do not know or care to know somebody of such a great stature, is it not utter foolishness to think that people will remember us. All our ego trips, to establish a name of / for oneself, is nothing but making a greater fool of ourselves. This I am not talking about the “naïve” householder but the “learned” Sadhus too. What not they do to establish themselves in a greater pedestal than the other famous swami, of equal or unequal stature. They establish Ashramas and places for living for the disciples, for both one following the sadhu life and the householder life. And run from pillar to post to expand or maintain it, being afraid till the end of their life, about the security of even their stay in the ashram, such a pity. And what happens after, there will be a power-play, to usurp the power, by the trusted trustees or the disciple who has completely surrendered himself to the Guru.

And even after all this, who will remember him. At the most, the one who was able to wrest the power, and mist often than not, scolding the founder of the ashram for every problem, real or imaginary, he faces. And at the most, as the history of the ashram, in the third generation. And after that, no one really cares or bothers about him. At least, for the householder, in a family which performs the shraaddha (ancestoral worship), they do remember till the great-grand father stage.

But, we may argue, we will be remembered by the people of our times, rightly said, but who are they, they too fall in the same circle of people who are not note worthy in the aftermath.

Smart Mauni speaks “The bright side - If people forget great men, and if they forget us too, we are great men”.