UNRAVELLING HUMAN EGO

UNRAVELLING HUMAN EGO

Before Sachin, there was the Napoleon of Indian cricket – Sunil Gavaskar. In the lexicon of the game, the two Mumbaikars were unanimously hailed as ‘Little Masters’. They dominated the game like colossuses and then, a time came for them to hang up their boots. But as perspicacious individuals they reinvented themselves to don new ‘Avatars’ in their post playing days.

Thus, retirement from any profession is an arduous task as it fraught with several uncertainties and imponderables. This is particularly true of bureaucrats who get encumbered with power and pelf and therefore swallow their pride and ego post retirement, to remain active.

Sunil Gavaskar famously remarked that the admirers and followers of the game ought to say, ‘Why now?’ instead of ‘Why not?’ This tiny difference ensures a safe passage for a distinguished cricketer or any other celebrity figure from the cauldron to the sanctuary of the pavilion, without having to compromise on prestige and self-respect.

Meanwhile, M. S. Dhoni the only captain in cricketing history who has embellished the shelves of the BCCI by scalping all the three International cricketing trophies (World Twenty 20, Champions Trophy and the World Cup) grabbed eyeballs when he quit leadership of the longer version of the game, before taking the tally to a hundred tests. More recently he caught everyone off-guard, quitting the captaincy of the shorter version of the game, when he was virtually on the cusp of creating history in this cricketing-insane nation, being just one shy of sporting the 200^th cap as captain.  

He who masters the concept of the ‘Art of Leaving’ with humility becomes the monarch of his mind and thereby subjugates various cravings and avarices only to sublimate the three-letter word EGO. He is then truly on the path of the ‘Art of Living’ where the mind wades through the swathes of hankering to reside in the present moment. The mind then becomes a Buddha.

Robert M Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ was to sell 5 million copies after the renowned author faced rejection by 121 publishers. Would not have the mind been eclipsed by Cassandras of doubt and Prophets of doom? Further, the ego and self-respect belaboured and pummelled.

Ego needs to be distinguished from self-respect. While former focusses more on self-esteem and self-importance of an individual, the latter human trait primarily deals with honour and respect of an individual.

Every morning upon completion of my Sadhana, which includes practice of the rhythmic breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya and reading a page of ‘Celebrating Silence’ (a compilation of knowledge sheets as uttered by H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar), I browse through the Times of India.

It has become quotidian within my mental frame work to peruse through inspirational quotes. Today’s quotes struck a deep chord.

One, by Mike Tyson – ‘It’s ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm.’ 

And the other, by Guru Gobind Singh, ‘All human beings have the same eyes, the same ears, the same body composed of earth, air, fire and water. The names Allah and Abhekh are for the same God; Recognise the whole human race as one.’

Two warriors and amazingly contrasting personalities. Mike Tyson the brawny and muscular boxer who lorded in the ring after Mohammed Ali became infamous for rape, sexual encounters, drug abuse, alcoholism, a prison term and proselytization (Mallik Abdul Aziz).

Panjab and India celebrate the 350^th anniversary of the 10^th Sikh Guru- Shri Guru Gobind Singh. He was a spiritual master, warrior, poet and philosopher who established the Sikh Panth through the clarion call of ‘Wahe Guru Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ki Fateh’.

Scratch the surface of Tyson the combatant and he appears to be highly egoistical with all his dalliances while Shri Guru Gobind Singh, the intrepid warrior sublimated his ego to soldier on against the Mephistopheles’ within and without.

Psychoanalysts while unravelling the human ego stumble upon it as that feature of the human mind which oscillates between the conscious and the subconscious stages. It is an effective tool to scrutinize or gauge the personal identity of an individual.

Egocentrism is a step further, almost a narcissistic state which is a salient feature of pre-operational thought, which refers to the inability to distinguish between one’s perspective and someone else’s perspective. Individuals who get ensnared with the sheer enormity and magnitude of power, fame or wealth and succumb to its trappings of masculinity end up becoming highly ego-centric.

‘Mirror. Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the fairest of them all?’, lines from a fairy tale that we all heard as children. In the universe of social media few are spared from the addiction known as ‘Selfitis’, posting pictures (some of them!) on Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Instagram among others. In order to fuel our ego and ego-centrism, we have willy-nilly become virtual search engines of our own morphed images which is detached from realism.

But all aspects of ego are not devilish or demonic. Philosophy and philosophers engage the human mind towards the subject of metaphysics. In this realm humans unravel ego as a conscious subject of the thought process.

We cannot quantify the reservoir of energy in the atomic bomb called ego as we are unable to measure the potential of a human being through the prism of the naked eye. The centrifugal part of ego, if viewed philosophically, is a bundle of positive energy. On its circumference are negatively charged particles. However, deep within lies dormant efficacious energy.

This energy can be exploited to scale the summit only through spiritual practices and Sadhana. Thus, we need to disambiguate the word ego and look at it from a more holistic manner so that the concepts get unravelled.  

A discerning observer can kindle the flame of unlearning by conjoining the triad of ego, self-pride and self-respect to separate the chaff from the grain.

‘Letting go of your ego opens the door to taking a new and creative course of action,’ says Suzanne Mayo Frindt.