In a family life, we learn to sacrifice our own desires
and we learn to swallow our own pride and ego.
That is why it is a training ground where we can learn to love each other.
And then we become eligible to love god.
Ego is not a real thing.
You know, many people, they blame darkness and praise light.
But you cannot admire darkness without light.
Will there be darkness ever and ever?
But that is the true nature of existence.
Imagine what was there when there was no universe.
There was no creation, that means no sun, no stars that would emit light.
So, the original nature of this universe, before its manifestation, is darkness.
Light came much later.
Now, when we talk of ego, is there anything like ego at all?
No.
It is the absence of awareness.
Just like darkness is absence of light,
ego is the absence of your true awareness.
And when you are not aware you do all kinds of wrong things.
If anything good happens in unawareness it is only accidental.
But we should not get so disappointed.
Many yogis blame the mind, they say the mind is your biggest enemy.
It can become your biggest enemy if your mind is not in your control.
If you don’t know how to regulate your mind then it can become a problem.
But as far as ego concerned, you can tame the ego.
And take advantage of the same tool for your own benefit.
Giving the example of sports or music or things like that.
When you are performing your sport, let us say, yesterday you did so well.
Would you be happy with yesterday’s performance?
You would like to surpass yourself.
Having surpassed yourself, later on you are playing with a champion and
you start declaring, “I am better than her.”
And later you start declaring, “There is nobody better than myself.”
So now you see the ego manifesting in a different way.
“I can do better than yesterday, that is swabhimaon.
That is a pride of my profession, that is self pride, sawabhiman.
“But nobody is better than me”, when you declare such a thing,
that is ghamand, arrogance.
It is another phase of ego.
One person is taking advantage of the same ego saying, “I can become a better player”,
“I can become a better musician”, “I can become better in my profession”.
But to declare with arrogance that no one is better than me,
that is a problem. So, ego,
we should not worry about it too much.
Just take advantage of it and move on.
Love also, if you associate love and ego - “I love so and so, so much”.
Why don’t we do this?
“There is no one better than me in loving my darling”, for example.
Or “I love my mother so much.
No one loves their mother as much.” So you could utilize your ego in a positive way.
But when we start blowing our own trumpets in a very negative way,
“my way or otherwise…” then that ego will clash with your loved ones
and you will become their enemy.
So, it is upto us how we utilize these sentiments.
Either you can build with it or you can destroy it.
It is like a knife.
With a knife you can cut vegetables and cook nice dishes.
With the same knife you can kill someone too.
So ego is like that.
And that is why we have these spiritual practices.
It is very easy to renounce the world.
You can become a renunciate, you can become a sanyasi, it is just very easy.
But to renounce one’s ego is not everybody’s job.
In a family life, we learn to sacrifice our own desires
and we learn to swallow our own pride and ego.
That is why it is a training ground where we can learn to love each other.
And then we become eligible to love god.
First you master.
The family is the playground where we practice.