Coming back to the primary example, the pride (ego) of this scientist may get attached to the project and it can trouble him a lot.
In this case, his pride (ego) is feeding on the brain as it is his brain which can finish this project and bring him recognition, which in fact is the recognition for his pride (ego). Similar to this scientist, most other intellectual natives may also develop egos with the development of intellects as their egos may feed on their intellects.
In the same way, pride (ego) can feed on emotions also. Many natives think that since emotions come from heart and heart is generally related to beautiful feelings, emotions may not be as destructive as brain. However, it may not be true in many cases and emotions can also do equal amount of damage, when they’re being fed on by pride (ego). We’ll discuss this topic in the coming parts of this book.
Such is the power of pride (ego) which can feed on most other entities living inside you and this is what makes it the most difficult to win enemy. If you grow brain to win over pride (ego), it may also grow by feeding on your brain and it may start using your brain against the real ‘You’, which is your spirit/unconscious.
If you grow heart to win over pride (ego), it may also grow by feeding on your heart and it may start using your heart against the real you. As far as physical body is concerned, it can almost never be used to win over pride (ego) and it may almost always become a tool in the hands of your pride (ego).
The only entity in your existence, which can control your pride (ego) and even kill it, is your conscience. When it comes to the spirit, it may not be willing to interfere with the working of any one of these entities. Hence the job of keeping all these entities under control is handed over to the conscience. Conscience may be considered as the first and the purest product of spirit and hence it can be considered just like the spirit, though it is not the spirit.
Let’s try to understand this fact with the help of an example. Sun is considered as the source of various types of life forms on earth and rightly so. However, if you get to the bottom of this fact, you may be able to see that in reality; it is not the Sun but it is the sunlight generated by the Sun; which is responsible for creating so many types of life forms on earth and then maintaining them. Though sunlight is the purest product made by the Sun; sunlight is sunlight and it is not the Sun.
The job of the Sun is to keep burning and producing light and it doesn’t care about anything else. Whether an astral body like earth receives this light or not; whether such astral body benefits from it or not and all other questions of this type are the ones which Sun doesn’t care for and all it cares for is to create light. Any planet that comes in alignment with its light receives its light and the quantum of this light may depend on the distance as well as the angle of Sun with respect to such planet at any point in time.
The quantum of sunlight received by a planet as well as the time period for which it receives such light decides the kind of benefits such planet may receive. If you look at the bottom; the Sun doesn’t invite the planets to receive its light and it also doesn’t stop them from receiving it. The Sun doesn’t prohibit the clouds from getting in the way and it also doesn’t invite them. The sun doesn’t care whether its light is creating life on a planet or not. All it cares for is that its job is to create light and that’s it. Hence all the good things attributed to the Sun are caused by its light and as the Sun is the source of this light; it duly deserves this credit.
In the same way; the domain of Almighty is like the universe, your spirit is like the Sun and it generates conscience; just like the sunlight. Just as the Sun is directly not interested in changing anything and all it cares for is to create light; the spirit too is directly not interested in dealing with your body, brain, heart; and even with your pride (ego). The Sun generates sunlight to deal with things and the spirit generates conscience to deal with things. Hence the Sun as well as the spirit is more like a witness; which watches everything from a distance and which is not attached to anything. We’ll discuss more about this, later on.
Since conscience lives on a higher level, it is difficult to grow as compared to physical form, brain, emotions and pride (ego) which lie on lower levels. As most natives start their journeys of evolution, they start from physical level and then they move ahead. In order to reach the level where conscience lies, they have to cross the level where pride (ego) lies and this is where the problems starts. Pride (ego) may capture you, it may capture you completely and it may not allow you to cross this level. Hence you may get stuck on this level and you may not step into the domain of conscience.
As a result, you may have a beautiful body, a well-developed brain and even a beautiful heart but you may not have a well-developed conscience. This is because with the growth of all these entities, pride (ego) also grows and it starts controlling and using all these entities to its advantage. The only way to control pride (ego) first and then get rid of it altogether is to try and grow more and more conscience. This task is more difficult than it may appear, because there’s a direct clash between pride (ego) and conscience.
To be precise, pride (ego) and conscience hang in such balance inside you that the sum total of their percentages at any time is 100. Hence your conscience and pride (ego) are inversely proportional to each other, which means as one of them grows, the other one drops. Accordingly, if you have 70% pride (ego) at a point in time, the percentage of your conscience is 30. This percentage is different for different natives and it may be different, even in case of the same native at different points during his journey of spiritual growth.
It means a native can have 80% pride (ego) and 20% conscience at a time, he may have 75% pride (ego) and 25% conscience twenty years later as he may have grown more conscience during these years; and he may have 80% pride (ego) and 20% conscience as another twenty years pass, because he may have grown more pride (ego) during these twenty years. This equation keeps changing until you reach a point where 100% conscience is achieved.
Let’s try to understand it through the example of sunlight. If 50% of your body is under shade and the remaining 50% is under sunlight; you can change this equation to any possible combination you want. It means you can adjust your body in different ways in order to change the percentage of light as well as that of the shade. However, the sum total of the percentage of your body which is under shade and the percentage of your body which is under light is always 100. It means if are absolutely under shade, the percentage of your body under the sunlight becomes 0 and that under the shade becomes 100; which gives a total of 100. Similarly; if you’re absolutely under sunlight; the percentage of your body under shade is 0 and that under light is 100; which too gives a total of 100.
Coming back to your existence; when you reach the point of 100% conscience, you can’t go back even if you want to. To be precise, you’ll never want to have even 1% of pride (ego) and hence you stay away from it. This is the final stage which is called liberation, because as soon as your pride (ego) leaves you, the whole universe becomes you and you become the whole universe, as the boundaries that separate the two of you dissolve. It should be noted that in order for such things to exist which are not yours, it is essential that those things should exist first, which are yours or which you think are yours.
It means as soon as the words like ‘I, me, my and mine are lost’; the words like ‘his, her, theirs and yours’ are also lost. This is because in order for there to be someone called ‘You’, there must first be someone called ‘Me’. When two natives are talking and they use words like ‘You and me’, these words are used to define boundaries between them. Since most boundaries are defined by pride (ego), they dissolve as soon the pride (ego) leaves you.
When that happens, the words like ‘I, me, my and mine’ get lost and when they get lost, all other such words defining other natives also get lost. This is because you now don’t have ‘Me’ and hence you can’t define other words. For instance, while talking to someone, when you use the word ‘your’ for a cup of coffee, it means this cup of coffee belongs to him and it also means that it doesn’t belong to you. Hence you use this word to draw a comparison and the possession of the other native is relative to your possessions.
Now imagine the words ‘me, my and mine’ are lost. How will you define his cup of coffee now? Physically, there are only two of you present; you’ve already lost sense of the words like ‘me, my and mine’, so what is there to compare with? It means if you now say, ‘this is your cup of coffee’; this sentence also includes the hidden meaning, ‘this is not my cup of coffee’. In fact, you use the first sentence, only in order to make the second sentence clear as otherwise; you don’t need to use the first sentence at all. Hence in reality, you’re telling him ‘this is not my cup of coffee’.
When all the pronouns representing you are lost, how can you use this sentence? As you go beyond the domain of personal pronouns, you can’t engage in relative comparisons because you need at least two natives or things to compare. However, as your pride (ego) leaves you, the concept of two is lost and accordingly, all comparisons are lost. Therefore, you won’t say, ‘this is your cup of coffee’ because there is no ‘me’ and hence there is no ‘you’. As the comparison goes away, you use a sentence like, ‘a cup of coffee’ and you eliminate all personal pronouns.
This happens because this cup of coffee now belongs to everyone in the universe and it is related to no one in particular. It happens in case of your house, your car as well as in case of your other belongings; and you start seeing them simply as things and not as your things. It means that instead of thinking, ‘this is my house’; you start thinking, ‘this is a house’. It may sound strange and you may even think that this type of mindset may not be correct, but it is absolutely correct. As this mindset comes; your house or your car may be lost but then the entire universe is available for you because all the boundaries have been dissolved and everything belongs to everyone.
When you say ‘my house’, it means you possess this house. Since you’re a spirit and not a body in reality, if you actually possess this house, you should be able to take it anywhere your spirit goes or let’s say, this house should be yours in every life, the moment you start possessing it for the first time. This doesn’t happen and this house stops being yours as soon as you leave this body or even before that. So how can you call this house as your house? It is there with you today and it may not be there with you tomorrow. Hence there is no wisdom in calling it your house.
This topic needs great details and hence we’ll discuss it in one of the coming parts of this book. Back to the topic, if you achieve 100% conscience, there is no turning back and you get rid of pride (ego) forever. However, if on the opposite end of this spectrum, you achieve 100% pride (ego) and 0% conscience at a point in time, the same set of beliefs doesn’t apply. It means you’re not eternally doomed to have 100% pride (ego) till the end of time and you’re fully capable of growing conscience once again.
This is because every game has a starting point as well as finishing point. When you start playing it, you can keep playing it as long as you don’t reach the finishing point. Consider you’re playing the game of snakes and ladders and you’re playing it alone. There’s a snake at 99 and it sends you back to 1. If you’re bitten by this snake and you go back to 1, it doesn’t mean you can’t rise again. You can play and rise as many times as it takes to reach 100.
Hence the snake at 99 as well as other snakes in the game may send you back in your journey; but they can’t stop you from moving ahead once again. However, as your reach 100, you reach the finishing point, the journey ends and no snake can bite you now. It’s like this in case of journey of spirit. You may keep playing this game of pride (ego) versus conscience as long as you don’t reach 100% conscience and in order to do so, you are allowed to rise again and again, even if you touch 100% pride (ego) or 0% conscience again and again.
In reality, the game of the journey of spirit only means growing conscience. Hence pride (ego) is introduced as a hurdle and not as an objective. Conscience is what you wish to achieve and pride (ego) is what stops you along the way. Hence this journey doesn’t end as long as you don’t achieve complete conscience, which means you become completely free of pride (ego).
It should be noted that apart from the percentage of conscience, the amount of conscience also matters a lot. This means that having a higher percentage of conscience is not sufficient on its own and you must possess high amount of conscience at the same time. For instance, a native may not have high pride (ego) but at the same time, he may not have high conscience also. Technically speaking, this native may have 80% conscience and 20% pride (ego) but the amount or net quantity of both these entities may not be sufficient to call him a spiritually grown native. It means he may be at the beginning of his spiritual journey.
Let’s make it easier to understand by taking an example. Suppose a native has savings of Rs. 10,000 and he owes debts of Rs. 2000. When we calculate net savings of this native, we find out that he has Rs. 8000 as savings, after deducting the amount of debt from it, as his net savings are equal to his apparent savings minus his liabilities. Hence this native has an overall amount of Rs. 10,000 and his actual savings are Rs. 8000, which means 80% of his overall savings or let’s say his overall assets. Though he has 80% assets and 20% liabilities and it looks like a healthy ratio, he can’t be called rich, according to the established standards of richness, as of today.
Now consider another native who has Rs. 100 million as assets and Rs. 20 million as debts. After doing the calculations, it can be seen that the percentage assets of this native are also 80% and his percentage debts are also 20%, as in case of the first native. However, there is a big difference between the quantum of assets possessed by these two natives, as there is a big difference between net worth of Rs. 8000 and net worth of Rs. 80 million. Though both of them have the same percentage of assets, the first one is poor and the second one is rich, according to the prevailing standards of today.
Imagine yet another native who has Rs. 100 billion in assets and Rs. 20 billion in debts. This native also has the same percentage of assets but he’s far ahead of the first two natives in reality. This way, though all three of them have the same percentage of net assets, the first one is poor, the second one is rich and the third one is super rich. This is what happens in case of conscience also and the quantum of conscience is an important variable, along with the percentage of conscience.
Hence a native may have 90% conscience but he may still have nothing much to offer whereas another native with 90% conscience may shine like the Sun and he may enlighten a large number of natives with the amount of conscience he has. The quantum of conscience possessed by different spirits can be compared to the quantum of light generated by different stars like our Sun. There are stars which don’t produce so much light as our Sun and there are stars which produce much more light than our Sun.
Once you grow higher amounts of conscience, it starts controlling your body, brain and heart; instead of your pride (ego) doing so. This is when you may witness that you’re reaching the balancing point where you become aware about how to use all these entities at their proper places. Hence you start using your body, brain and heart in harmony with each other as well as in order to maintain collective harmony. As you move closer to this balancing point which means as you grow more conscience, each one of these entities stops interfering with other entities.
For instance, when you engage in a business deal, your conscience may keep your heart out of it. This is because the primary objective of this deal is to make profits, which may be earned better by using brain. Likewise, when you engage in acts of love, your conscience may keep your brain out of it because the last thing you want in the domain of love is to let your brain interfere. The matters of love are best dealt with by heart and hence they should be left to it.
This way, you learn to use all these entities in the best possible manner and this is when you have reached the point of high spiritual growth. In its deepest sense, spiritual growth means learning the theme of universe, playing your role in it and acting in a balanced way, according to the demand of the situation. At this stage, your conscience is in charge of all other entities and they can’t mislead you; as and when they may want to do so. We’ll discuss more about this topic in the coming parts of this book.
An interesting point to note is that though pride (ego) may cause so many problems, it can prove helpful; as long as you don’t grow high amount of conscience. This is because majority of the greatest achievements can only be reached either with the help of conscience or with the help of pride (ego). Your body, brain and emotions on their own are not able to work as a team due to diversity in interests; and this job is done by your conscience or by your pride (ego).
For instance, your brain and heart don’t like each other and hence they don’t go well with each other. The only two entities which can make them reach a state of compromise are your conscience and pride (ego). It means a native with high conscience can use both of them to his advantage and a native with high pride (ego) can also do the same, though their goals may be different. In the absence of both these entities, there may be no common platform between your brain, heart and even your physical body.
As conscience lies at the third level and as it is the most difficult thing to grow, pride (ego) comes handy till the time you develop high conscience. In simple words, a big part of the job that your conscience should do is done by your pride (ego) in the absence of the former, though the latter may have a different style of working. For example, a scientist driven by conscience may work on a project with the intention that the entire mankind should benefit whereas a scientist driven by pride (ego) may do the same, primarily in order to satisfy his pride (ego) by receiving recognition; and the benefits of the mankind may become secondary.
However, whether the benefits of mankind become primary or secondary; such benefits may be witnessed in both these cases. Hence the primary objectives of these two scientists may be different but the world may benefit the same; though the results witnessed by these scientists may be different depending on whether pride (ego) or conscience has put them to this work.
Therefore, pride (ego) can be used as a tool to achieve things in the absence of conscience as pride (ego) grows without much effort. This is why it may be useful though it may come at a high price at times. We’ll discuss this topic in details in one of the coming parts of this book. To summarize, pride (ego) can be used as a high cost substitute for conscience, until the latter becomes available. Imagine you’re temporarily crippled in an accident and you need someone’s support, even in order to do your day to day activities. There is only one native who offers this support but he comes with high cost which means he charges significant amount of money for this help.
It is wise for you to bear the costs of this native until you become healthy again and at the same time, you should try to become healthy as soon as you can. When that happens, you become capable of doing things on your own as you’ve achieved your natural state of being healthy and hence you don’t need to pay high costs any longer. The other native in this example is your pride (ego) and your natural state of health is your conscience. As long as you don’t grow conscience, let your pride (ego) do certain things at high cost. It’s like you choose to pay high cost for this native’s help as you understand that you may have to suffer a lot if he doesn’t help or you may not even survive as you may not be able to feed yourself.
However, keep working hard to develop conscience so that you may get rid of pride (ego) at the earliest and the operations may be taken over by conscience, which is your natural way of doing things. Acting upon the advice of your conscience is the natural way of doing things and using pride (ego) in the absence of conscience is the unnatural way of doing things and this way comes at high cost. The reason your conscience is the natural way is that the natural tendency of each spirit is to be joyful and peaceful; and only a native with high conscience can achieve a natural state of joy and peace.
The natural state here means that such native with high conscience continues to be in a state of joy and peace forever, like the ocean continues to have water in it. On the other hand, the peace and happiness achieved through pride (ego) are illusionary as well as temporary and they may go away any time, being substituted by sorrows and disturbances which are the costs you pay for such illusionary and momentary peace and happiness. Hence you should keep working towards achieving this natural state of joy and peace, which means you should keep working to grow more and more conscience.
After looking at the complex pattern of human behavior, let’s go back to the cup of coffee that you and your lover have together. When your girlfriend asks for your opinion about extra sugar in coffee and she at once adds that some natives don’t like this pattern of hers but she doesn’t care; this is what is happening in reality. Her liking for you has reached a point where she may have started considering her future with you. This is why she’s opening up and she’s trying to tell you about some of her patterns which she thinks may cause small or big differences of opinion between the two of you, depending on the patterns in question.
When you really like someone and you want to spend the rest of your life with him or many years of your life with him, you want him to like you too. Hence she may start opening up and she may start discussing those aspects of her character with you one by one and at different times, which have generally not been liked by majority of natives. This is because she may have a character type which encourages her to make sure that you’re fine with such patterns of her so that problems may not rise later on.
However, the number of such patterns shared by her with you versus the actual number of such patterns may vary depending on her overall character. In general, you tend to discuss small malefic patterns in the beginning phase of a relationship, you tend to discuss relatively bigger ones as the relationship progresses and you may not discuss the biggest ones even when the relationship reaches its peak. Such biggest malefic patterns may be found by the other party and you may not speak about them at all. This is because deep down, you also realize that they’re big malefic patterns and hence you may not want to share them at all as you may be afraid that doing so may seriously affect your relationship in a malefic way.
Hence this woman likes you, she’s opening up and at the same time, she wants you to either like her patterns or at least not to dislike them. This is due to the reason that as soon as you say extra sugar is not good, you may hurt her pride (ego) and hence the problem may start. As you hurt her pride (ego) and pride (ego) is much more valuable for her than you are at this time, she may start developing dislike for you, as she developed for other natives. However, as she knows that if you speak against extra sugar, it may go against her perception of you that she has and at the same time, she doesn’t want to add malefic points to this perception because she’s planning a future with you, she gives you hints.
Pay attention that when she says some natives don’t like this pattern of hers and she doesn’t care about them, she gives you two hints. The first hint is that if you also speak against this pattern, she may stop caring for you also and the second hint is that she really doesn’t want you to dislike this pattern as she wants to care for you and in fact, she’s already started caring for you. It should be noted that if you really don’t care for someone in a special way, you don’t try to impress him and hence you don’t add such extra lines.
For instance, you may simply tell one such native that you like extra sugar in your coffee and you may not add the second line. This is because you don’t care for him and hence you don’t bother about his opinion about this pattern of yours. Whether he likes this pattern or he dislikes it, doesn’t matter much to you. On the other hand, when you really care for someone, your behavior changes and hence you may add these extra lines so that the other native may take a hint and speak in favor of your pattern. This is because you don’t want him to hurt your pride (ego) because that may make you add a malefic point to his overall assessment done by you.
You see, how much thinking is happening even behind simple lines like these. This is what makes human behavior so complex as even a simple looking sentence may carry a hidden history of a number of experiences and it may try to convey much more than appears on the surface. Hence this woman wants you to know that she likes extra sugar in her coffee and she wants you to be fine with it. Accordingly, you should ideally tell her that you’re cool with it and it is not a bad pattern. As you do so, she adds a plus point to your overall assessment, she may start liking you more and she may start telling you about some of her bigger malefic patterns with the passage of time.
Hence you should speak in favor of this pattern if this woman is important for you and you’re considering a future with her. However, as you do that, you may go against your brain which may keep repeating that this pattern is malefic for sure and you must tell her this. Since your heart may have deeply attached to this woman by this time, you may ignore the advice of your brain and you may instead listen to your heart. During the course of this relationship, you may come across thousands of incidents when you ignore your brain and all these acts send specific types of signals to your unconscious mind. These signals ask your unconscious mind to stop your brain from growing beyond a point.
Applying this theory to all spheres of life, more you choose not to pay attention to what your brain says, less you start caring for it and accordingly, it may stop growing. In fact, your unconscious mind may even start reducing its already achieved size because even in order to maintain that size, energy is required. When you don’t use your brain beyond a point for a long period of time, your unconscious mind starts reducing the size of your brain to that point. For instance, if you reach an brain score of 300 over the course of a number of lives due to your wish to have more and more brain, where the maximum score is 10,000; this is what may happen in case of present example.
As you start using more heart and less brain in a particular life, your unconscious mind may start reducing the size of your brain from 300 to a level which best fits your needs, by sending less amount of energy to your mental level so that it may send more energy to your emotional level; as you’re putting demand for it. Accordingly, your brain may start reducing and over the next ten years, it may drop to 280. It may then drop to 250 over the next ten years and this process may go on. By the time you reach the end of this life, it may drop to 220 or any other level, depending on how much reduction you have indicated through your acts of using less and less brain.
This process goes on and hence your brain may keep rising and falling throughout the journey of your spirit. This way, you may grow your mental level more and more for a number of lives say ten lives, you may then start paying less attention to it and you may start paying more attention to another level like emotional level for the next seven lives. Accordingly, your brain may start reducing for these seven lives. You may once again start putting demand for more brain in the eighth life and your brain may start rising once again. This happens in case of other entities also. Hence their sizes may keep growing or reducing, depending on the wish element.
Himanshu Shangari