Ego is a Latin word meaning "I", cognate with the Greek "Εγώ (Ego)" meaning "I", often used in English to mean the "self", "identity" or other related concepts.
Ego in Philosophy is used to describe the ‘self’. I wanted to write this blog for a long time now, and my hectic schedule has not given me a chance. A few days back I read Paulo Cohelo’s ‘one minute reading’ and set up a reminder for today. In Hinduism, the greatest goal in every individual’s life is to attain Moksha or a state of Ego-less-ness. And by ergo, the biggest sin is being egoist.
All of us have an EGO. Our Ego is expressed in our thoughts and actions. For ex: One who is serving the needy and hoping or actively seeking acknowledgement is guilty of ego. ‘Do not work for glory’, warns Quran. We are all time and again, guilty of being egoistic; needless to say, I feel, it is always punished. My biggest egoist act was in wanting a child and wanting it to fit in my schedule. I had three miscarriages, before I came to a state of realization that a child is a blessing to have any day of the year. That I need to work around it, rather than the other way round; that having a child did not mean end to my professional career. The principle applies to everything in life – read because you enjoy it, not for others to think how well read you are; work because it gives you joy, not because you or others would benefit from it. Love because it is true bliss, not with an expectation that it be rewarded. Time and again, the scriptures tell us, the day you stop expecting people to recognize you is the day you get your acknowledgment. The day we stop needing acknowledgment is the day, we are ego-less.
The ego-less state of mind can happen many a times, and we slip back to old ways. The moment we come to a state of no-going back is the moment one becomes a saint; he then has achieved his goal in life. However the ultimate goal in Hinduism is different from our purpose in life. Ego is what helps us in defining and working towards our purpose in life – to some extent at least. Our ego is what drives us to look within to concentrate on ‘our own purpose’ as against being a sheep in the herd. It lets us question why we were put on this earth, what God wants us to be. With ‘joy’ as our radar, we seek our ways to exercise our potential. Ego is therefore an essential part of every human being's composition. However, we need to be conscious of keeping it in check; of not letting it interfere to the extent that we lose sight of what matters. With our ego in balance, we thrive; out of balance, we fade. In the Ashram system of Hindu philosophy, one is expected to have fulfilled their purpose in life by the time they are 50. After that one was expected to start working towards the state of ego-less-ness in the vanprastha ashram, and the sanyasa ashram when they work towards the ultimate goal of moksha.
This balance is akin to the idea of ‘samarasa’. Too much or too little of any attribute is considered to be a vice. For ex: being too ambitious is a vice as it makes one ruthless; as is being too less ambitious which calls for the fear of aimlessness and sloth. Sloth is one of the seven sins in Christianity. Similarly while being too harsh is to be refrained from, so does one need to avoid being too kind. The concept of gurukal was encouraged to mould young minds in an environment that is not too kind. Samarasa is about choosing the median; where the two extremes represent the vices, the median is the virtue. Rasa is emotion, and Samarasa is always keeping your emotions in check and not letting it get the best of you.
It is certainly not always possible, but as my mother would say – everyone can be nice and kind when things are going well, what defines you is how you behave when the going gets tough. In theory all of it is easy and logical, however the acid test of our character lies in the practice. It might be a small consolation to know that the wise are those who realize that they are not perfect and know that everything that happened to them is a reaction to their conscious or unconscious deeds. While they have no control over what happens to them, they do constantly strive to alter their reactions and thus build their character. Fools consider themselves to be unappreciated diamonds forever stuck with all the bad luck.