What is Ego?
Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, the Enlightened being, defines ego:
“Ego is to claim to be something you are not. One does not know who he really is, and hence claims to be what he is not. That is called ego.
Ego lies in the belief of, ‘I am John.’
‘I’ (the real Self) is not John (please insert your name here). Yet, we believe ‘I am John’. That is called ego!
If one believes, ‘I am a Pure Soul’, then there is no ego.
What is Egoism?
It is that which runs away from God (the Absolute Pure Soul). As egoism goes on increasing, stubbornness, pride, pride of doership, arrogance develops. Egoism arises the moment one moves even slightly away from God.
The One whose Egoism is Gone, He becomes God
One is a mortal self (John) as long as there is egoism.
If the egoism leaves, he becomes a Parmatma (Absolute Supreme Soul).
Where there is ‘egoism’, there is no God. Where there is God, there is no ‘egoism’.
The state after Detachment from Ego!
The One in whom there is no trace of ego is called Gnani Purush!
Sharing his experience of the state where He is totally detached from the ego, Gnani Purush says,
“I am happy all the time 24x7. I can see the speech, the thoughts or the actions of body as separate. It belongs to the relative part (John), and I (the Soul, the Self) am the knower and observer. I can see your ‘Self’ also; you are separate from John (you may insert your name here).
But you have a wrong belief today, that, ‘I am John’; that’s why you get unhappiness.
Really speaking, you (as the Soul) are separate from mind, speech and body all the time. Really!
Sometimes when your leg is paining, you will say, “My right leg is paining too much. But in the left leg, there is no pain.” So you are a knower that the pain is in this leg, and there is no pain in this one. Who knows? (the Soul, the real Self!) So really, ‘you’ do not have pain, but you believe I have pain. That’s why you get suffering.
Instead, if you know, ‘who is getting the pain? And who am I?’, then you can remain separate from the pain.”
Once we realize ‘who am I’, it is called Self-Realization
Gnani, the Enlightened One, explains,
“You say, “I am John (please insert your name here).” That is a wrong belief. After your birth, you were given this name; but before you were given this name, who were you? Once we realize ‘who am I’, it is called Self-Realization.
You are really a Pure Soul.
But how can you know the Pure Soul, what are the properties of the Pure Soul, how is the Soul separate from thoughts, speech and actions? That knowledge you will get over here. That knowledge is the knowledge of Self i.e. of ‘who am I’.
Pure Soul is the right and permanent answer of ‘who am I’. You are John is relatively correct. But the really correct is, ‘I am always permanently a Pure Soul.’
One cannot understand ‘who am I’ on his Own
One cannot understand ‘who am I’ on his own, because until there is ego, ‘who am I’ cannot be Known!
We don’t have to do anything for knowing ‘who am I’. This is an effortless effort!
(In Akram Vignan), you just go through the ceremony of Self-Realization with an open mind, with absolute humbleness and with a craving to achieve this knowledge; and then, firmly determine that, ‘I want to live in Pure Soul.’
Gnani, the Enlightened One, Detaches us from the Ego
When Gnani gives us the experiential knowledge of really, ‘who am I’, the dissociation between the ego and the pure Soul happens with the knowledge that, ‘this is ego, this is not me. I am that, I am a Pure Soul.’
Gnani Removes our Ego
Gnani’s feet are one and the only solvent to dissolve egoism! In order to make the egoism non-existent, Gnani establishes the awareness of the Pure Soul within.
So come, let’s go to Akram Gnani, and very humbly, surrender all our ego in His lotus feet; and with His grace, attain Self-Realization effortlessly, and following His words, get established in the awareness of our real Self permanently!
To know more: https://www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/
Ambalal M. Patel was a civil contractor by profession. In June 1958, spontaneous Self-Realization occurred within Ambalal M. Patel. From this point on, Ambalal became a Gnani Purush, and the Lord that manifest within him became known as Dada Bhagwan. A Gnani Purush is One who has realized the Self and is able help others do the same. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan used to go from town to town and country-to-country to give satsang (spiritual discourse) and impart the knowledge of the Self, as well as knowledge of harmonious worldly interactions to everyone who came to meet him. This spiritual science, known as Akram Vignan, is the step-less path to Self-realization.