Ego makes us forget the significance of God

One of the most important rules of devotion is to consider oneself to be more insignificant than a blade of grass.   When we consider ourselves to be important, we forget the significance of God.
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Date: 10th June 2015

One of the most important rules of devotion is to consider oneself to be more insignificant than a blade of grass.   When we consider ourselves to be important, we forget the significance of God.  But when we remember how significant God is, then we realize our own insignificance.  We are just one soul out of billions of souls on planet earth. The earth is just one planet out of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy is just one out of billions of other galaxies in our universe.

According to the Vedas, like our universe there are innumerable universes of differing sizes and features.  Every time, Maha Vishnu breathes in, unlimited universes manifest from the pores of his body, and when he breathes out, all the universes dissolve back.  Each universe has one Brahma, one Vishnu and one Shankar. So there are innumerable Brahamas, Vishnus and Shankars in innumerable universes.   Still the magnitude of God’s glory cannot be judged because the material universes only comprise a fraction of his being. The material creation consisting of unlimited universes is only one-fourth of God’s entire manifestation; the remaining three-fourth is the spiritual creation.  What is our significance compared with the Lord of the unlimited universes?

The significance is only of our ego.  Egotism is the conscious awareness of “I”, “me”, and “mine”.  Because of the ego the soul identifies with the bodily identifications and becomes proud of things like wealth, status, beauty, and learning.  It creates the biggest untruth in our lives, and makes us believe what we are not.  It is ego that blocks the glory of God from shining through us as it makes us forget the significance of God. 

Saint Kabir puts it very beautifully in his doha:

jaba main tha taba hari nahin, aba hari hai main naahin                                                  
prem gali ati saankari, yaa mein dwai na samahin

Here ‘main’ refers to the ego. Therefore all the Saints have emphatically declared that if we wish to invite God into our hearts, we must get rid of the pride of the self.  To give up the ego we must remember God as the source of all our actions and our abilities.  If God did not supply our body-mind-mechanism with the power to perform actions, we could have done nothing.  Hence every time debilitating thoughts of ego swell in our hearts we should remind ourselves of the significance of God – He is the source and we are only his instruments.

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Dipak mohapatra
Dipak mohapatra
10/06/2015 3:57 pm

Write your comment here…absolute.radheradhe

Sarada
Sarada
11/06/2015 3:26 am

Swami Mukundananda ji very nicely explained how significant the Lord is.Even though God is a source of infinite bliss and virtues, it is good to know that how selflessly He does everything for insignificant souls of the material world in order to help them reach their ultimate goal of attaining divine bliss.

Vishal Khokha
Vishal Khokha
14/06/2015 4:39 pm

EGO means Edging God Out..both EGO and GOD cannot reside together in the heart. We should give up the ego to bring God in our hearts and attract his grace. And the way to do it is by realizing God as the source of power behind our actions and abilities and remembering the significance of God in our lives.

Preeti Malhotra
Preeti Malhotra
18/06/2015 5:16 pm

Very true. Ego and pride make us forget the infinite graces of God. Our very existence is His divine Grace. The body, mind, intellect, and soul are all His, as we are His tiny parts. Nothing ever belonged to us, except for God himself. Once we realize this, the ego has no place left to reside, as we see ourselves as the eternal servants of our beloved Lord. Radhey Radhey.

Manjushree Rath
22/08/2015 4:05 pm

जब मैं था तब हरि नहिं, अब हरि है मैं नाहीं | प्रेम गलि अति सांकरी जामे द्वे न समाहीं ||

Raj Singh
Raj Singh
23/08/2015 10:09 pm

In this article, Swami Mukundanandaji explains that ego arises when we consider ourselves distinct from others and God due to identification with the physical body. Ego is the biggest hindrance in blocking the Divine Grace. Swamiji suggest that we must consider ourselves more insignificant than a blade of Grass. And to reduce our subtle pride, we must think that God is the doer of our actions and abilities and we are simply only his instrument to facilitate the material energy. This feeling will kill our false pride and will help us to recognize the true state of our being.

Dale Rafferty
Dale Rafferty
28/12/2015 10:28 pm

Radhey Radhey. Such beautiful illustrations along with the commentary on ego. Remembering how vast God is and how we are all tiny parts of God.

Karuna sharma
30/12/2015 11:44 pm

Great article to realize true nature of ego. Excellent illustrations to understand the depth of subject. Perfect example to explore complex stuff in asimpler way
Thank you Swamiji

Karuna sharma
30/12/2015 11:56 pm

Great article to understand true nature of ego . Perfect examples to make complex to simple.
Thank you Swamiji to help us to unfold the truth.

Renjini Jyothishmathy
Renjini Jyothishmathy
08/03/2017 12:16 pm

Very powerful instruction in the path of God-Realisation. Our ego is a hidden villain in the path of God. Only by the Grace of a true Guru we will be able to identify this defect inside us and we will be able to start the journey in real.

Levan
Levan
08/08/2019 10:57 pm

Thank you Swami ji for your enlightening knowledge

Shristy Bose
Shristy Bose
22/04/2022 2:09 pm

Thanks to swami ji for enlightening us!

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