BANGALORE: “I don’t know anything” is negative ego, arrogant attitude of “I know everything’ is also ego. The Guru corrects our attitude and says, instead say with humility. “I would like to learn more.”
We must pray “O Guru! Please remove my ego.” Then, the Guru makes us realise that it is actually we who are not letting go off our ego.
Once a man went to see King Janaka. He found Janaka standing under a tree. He had put his elbow on a branch and he was resting his head on his hand thinking about something.
The man asked, “You are Janaka — the great King who has risen above the body consciousness. O great king, I want your help to discard my ego.”
Janaka continued to stand there with his arm around the branch and said, “Dear brother, just wait. I will answer your question when this branch lets me go.”
The man said, “But the branch is not holding you, you are holding that branch.”
“You are in the same situation,” said Janaka.
“It is you who is holding on to your ego. You have made your ego your friend. Unknowingly you don’t want to let go of it. Now, just let go of it and you will be free from ego.”
Thus when ego walks out of us, the Guru opens the doors of our mind to welcome God inside us. He removes the lock of ignorance from our mind and heart and shifts our thinking to divine thinking.
Today, we don’t know how to think as we have internally decorated ourselves with ignorance. Guru changes our interiors and repaints it. If it has turned dark, he scrapes it completely and paints it pure white. Guru teaches us what type of emotion we need to have in our heart, how to feel and what is the right way of thinking. What should be discarded and what needs to be retained, painted or polished.
Once the painting and polishing of our heart is done and the doors are open for God to enter, he ensures we consecrate Parashakthi - Supreme Primordial Mother — within us. For this, we just have to surrender and hand over the keys of our heart to our Guru with complete confidence and sharanagati or surrender.
‘Om’ is guru dhwani or the eternal sound that emanates from our spiritual heart or atma hrudaya.
When the Guru opens the doors of our heart, then, we are able to listen to this eternal sound of reverberation of OM in our heart. Only when we get knowledge as awareness, Om starts resonating in our ears and will be also heard outside. The Guru applies the ‘kajal’ of knowledge to our eyes through Omkara — the primordial sound — Aum. At this point of time, just contemplation on the Guru, Atma and Paramatma is enough for us.
On our path towards Loka kalyana or wellbeing of the cosmos, knowledge is important. If we have real knowledge nobody can influence our mind. It is the eye of knowledge that will make us unshakable by which we can recognise what is good and what is bad. Today, we don’t feel guru’s vibration because we do not have a soft mind.
If we trust in ourselves we will have firm faith in Guru or else we will become like a stray dog, which goes from one place to another in search of food.
Pressure is a part of pleasure. We must let go of our ego. Then, we can withstand the pressure to finally attain pleasure.