Eradicate Ego (Everyone is God, but...)
(Excerpts from Satsang of Pujya Sant Shri Asaramji Bapu)
Self-Realization is the ultimate experience. All other experiences are insignificant compared to realizing ones True Self. Dispassion is an essential pre-requisite for the accomplishment of Self-realization. As you see vices in others, strive to find the vices of your own mind. Dont identify yourself with the mind. Dont try to hide your vices rather weed them out. And dont develop the ego of having driven out your vices. When you try to remove your vices with the help of the Lords grace, the task becomes easier. However, if you take it upon yourself to remove them, you may end up making their roots deeper.
Renounce everything and adore the Lord. Dont be extroverted; practise introspection. Abandon all worries of what to do and what not to do. Repose and abide in God. Everything will be alright.
Do seva only for pleasing the Lord. Forget your ego and petty desires while rendering seva. Dont ever resort to deceit or treachery, be truthful. Truth is God. Then why should one tell lies? Why should one take recourse to deception? To be happy is easy; it requires effort to earn misery. A child is guileless and so is naturally happy. But as it grows up, it nurtures the ego. And then it needs to make efforts to attain happiness, which becomes all the more elusive.
A man wanted to make a film on the Srimad Bhagawata. He selected a cute child with curly hair for the role of Sri Krishna. He also selected appropriate artists for the other different roles. But he could not complete the film due to financial problems.
After a few years he got some financial help and started work on the film again. He needed an artist to play the role of Kamsa. After a long search he chanced upon a person who fitted the role. When he came to know the true identity of the person he was stunned and blurted out,
What a surprise! When he was a small child of 2 to 5 years. I had selected him to play the role of Lord Krishna and today I have selected the same individual to play the role of Kamsa! How did such a transformation occur in his countenance?
At birth everyone happens to be a personification of Lord Krishna, but later on desires and vanity transform him into a Kamsa. If he abandons these two, the true form of Lord Sri Krishna again manifests in him.
An Unconditional Surrender is a Must
A merchant had to take some goods into a city. But he saw that there was an octroi-post at the entrance. He did not want to pay the octroi and therefore spent some time wandering here and there and then tried to enter the city again. But the guard at the octroi-post was still on duty. The trader kept making rounds throughout the night but finally had to pay the octroi before entering the city.
Similarly, whatever wealth you may earn, whatever fame, prestige and power you may amass, whatever psychic powers you may attain; if you want to enter the kingdom of Eternal Bliss, of Self-Knowledge, you have got to pay octroi in the form of surrendering your ego to the Lord. You may pay it after procrastinating or straight away, but pay you must. Many lives have already passed and many more may still be spent; but so long as you dont attain Self-Knowledge, you will not be rid of sorrows completely. If you want to be relieved from all troubles forever, you have no choice but to pass through the octroi-post of Sadguru, and pay the octroi of your ego.