26. Life is beyond your logic

Most of us unconsciously believe that life is filled with incidents that are under the control of our logic. But life again and again reminds you of the truth that life is beyond your logic. You are reminded of this fact, especially when some near and dear friend or family member dies or when something unexpected happens. If you lose your job, suddenly you see that life is not under your control. You suddenly wake up to the reality that life is beyond your logic. Then you start seeking the Truth.

Especially if you live in the city, your routine is almost fixed. From morning until night, you know exactly how your day will unfold. You know where you will go, what you will do or not do, and what and when you will eat.

Practically, your ego gives an idea, your logic gives you the feeling that your life is under the control of your logic. That is why whenever some incident happens that is beyond your logic, that is not under your control, you are totally shaken. You are not able to handle it. You don't know what to do. Either you fall into depression or you just suffer.

There is an important truth, an ultimate secret that you must understand. Never think things are going smoothly because of you. In spite of you, things are going smoothly! This is one of the important secrets. As long as you think it is because of you that things are going smoothly, you will be constantly suffering with ego.

What is Ego?

According to the Upanishads* , as long as you think that life has a purpose and you run behind that purpose, you are an egoistic person. When you realize the beauty of the purposelessness of life, you have dropped your ego. The master is the one who makes you understand the purposelessness of life. Whatever you think of as being worthy now is not actually the true and worthy thing. A man with ego searches with purpose and misses reality.

Death clearly shows that whatever mind you lived with has no real existence. When you realize the purposelessness of life, a new consciousness starts blossoming in you. The moment you experience that there is nothing to be achieved, that the diamonds you are protecting are not diamonds but stones, and that all your great things in life are mere toys, you will understand the purposelessness of life.

The real purpose of life cannot be understood by the ego. When the ego is dropped, you will understand the Divine purpose of life, the leelas or the Divine play, you will enjoy the drama. If you keep thinking that life has a purpose and wait to achieve something, you will miss life itself.

Life itself is the path and the goal. Life itself is the path and the goal.

When you have a goal, you will run. Your feet will not touch the ground and you will miss the beauty of Existence or nature. When you drop the goal, the emphasis will be on the path.

When you understand the purposelessness of life, you understand the meaning of living. Until then, you are just a 'living dead' person. A person in a coma lying in the hospital bed and a normal person who has not realized the Truth, both live without proper consciousness. The master is the one who makes you realize this truth. The meaning of living is the meaning of life or Existence.

Drop the goal and enjoy life. Meditate on this teaching again and again. The Truth will dawn on you and the nithya ananda* state will flower in you, the state that is the very meaning of life.

The solid feeling of 'no'

Many times you may have seen, whenever someone says something to you, the first reaction inside you is a certain resistance, a 'no'. When you say 'no', it is ego-

Upanishad - Scriptures that form the essence of the ancient texts of the Vedas. Literally means 'sitting with the master'. There are eleven main Upanishads that have been commented on by enlightened Master Adi Shankara. Nithya ananda - Eternal bliss.

If your enemy is big, you feel big.

fulfilling. You feel solid and firm inside yourself. When you

say 'yes', you feel liquid and vulnerable. Your ego feels submissive, which is uncomfortable, so you say 'no'.

This is also why you feel good when you break rules at home, school, in the workplace, or while driving. You feel boosted in ego when you say 'no' to rules. You can see this with small children. The moment you say they are not meant to have certain things, they will ask only for those things!

Ordinary Vs Extraordinary

Whenever you try to live for your ego, you make your life and others' lives miserable. Most of the time the miseries you face in your life are not created by others. They are unknowingly created by you. You may not even derive any benefits from them. But just to prove your ego, you create them.

A small story:

An enlightened master, Suzuki, lived in Japan. When his master passed away, he started weeping profusely. One person asked him, 'You are an enlightened person. Why are you crying on your master's passing away?' Suzuki replied, 'My master was the most extraordinary man on planet earth.' The person was puzzled and asked him, 'What was so extraordinary about him?'

Suzuki replied, 'I have never seen such an extraordinary person who thought he was the most ordinary man!'

In ordinary life, every average person thinks he is extraordinary. When you feel that you have undergone the maximum suffering, your ego feels good that you have been able to handle a tough life. Only when your enemy is big, you feel big. When your enemy is small, you feel small.

For the same reason, if your suffering is big, you feel good. Your ego feels satisfied. You measure life with the amount of your suffering. Unknowingly, you torture others as well as yourself. Suzuki's master was extraordinary because he thought he was the most ordinary, whereas in this world, every other person thinks he is extraordinary.

A small story:

There was a king in India who was very egoistic. His ego had grown to such a great extent that he started declaring, 'I can do everything god does. I am greater than god.' If someone objected to his view, immediately he would give the order, 'Kill him'.

There was an enlightened master in that kingdom. When he came to the capital, he heard about the egoistic attitude of the king and wanted to show the king the truth. He went to the court and started praising the king, 'O king, you are equal to god. You are god'.

The king was very happy and said, 'Yes, you seem to be an intelligent person. Tell us what more you have realized.' The master said, 'O king, I have to tell you an important thing. There are some things you can do that even god can't do!' Now the king was floating with pride. He said, 'Please tell us what it is that I can do that even god cannot!'

The master replied calmly, 'O king, if you are angry with somebody you can send him out of your kingdom, but god cannot!'

God cannot send us out of His kingdom. The kingdom of god, enlightenment, the vibrant silence, is our birthright!

If you want to check whether you are average or not, do this experiment. If you feel extraordinary, be very clear: you are average. If you feel ordinary, you are extraordinary!

Using the right mask

You all play different roles, use different masks in your day-to-day lives. You use one mask with your mother, a different mask with your father, a different one with your boss and so on. As long as you use the right masks with the right people, it is If you feel ordinary, you are extraordinary!

use the wrong mask with a person, be aware that your ego has stepped in.

alright. The moment you

All you have to do is switch masks efficiently and enjoy the show. Then you are a watcher. You can do this only when you know that you are something beyond the mask. Otherwise, you will get carried away by the mask and lose the whole charm of life. When you know that you are only using masks, your desires drop.

Just like when you grow up, you automatically drop your toys, in the same way, when you look at these masks intelligently, you don't have any desire for them and simply use them as needed.

Ego is born from discontentment

If you are a strong egoistic person, you don't need a separate hell because the mind can exist only in conflict and discontentment. With contentment, with satisfaction, you will lose your boundary. That is why you don't want joy or bliss. Please never think you want bliss. No! Actually you are afraid of joy and bliss. Whenever you go through a peaceful, noworry feeling, just watch yourself. You feel you are missing something when there is nothing to think about! Unless you have something strong to brood over, you don't have a clear-cut boundary in your inner space.

Your mind exists when it hits the corners of your suffering. You don't feel your boundary or your identity unless you have enough suffering. If you look a little deeper, you will understand that many times you feel lonely if you don't have anything to worry or suffer about. That is the way you believe yourselves to be, because by its nature, the mind can record only negative things. The mind can flourish, it can create more thoughts, it can more clearly identify with suffering, dissatisfaction and discontentment. The quality of joy is boundarylessness. When you are in joy, you won't feel your boundary. Whenever you don't feel your boundary, you are in a state of joy, in a satisfied and contented mood.

Suffering leads to Ego

Your ego cannot exist without your suffering. Suffering is the root of your ego. This is an important thing you need to understand. We always think that the ego is disturbed by suffering. No! Ego is enriched by suffering. One more important thing is that if your suffering is less, your ego is less. You feel you are too small, so you increase your suffering so that you can feel you are somebody.

The less the suffering, the lesser is the ego. The more you suffer, the stronger your ego becomes. So you always exaggerate your suffering. The problem is that after some time you forget that you exaggerated. Then you are also caught in the same net. You might disagree and say, 'No, you don't know my life. You don't know my suffering.' But be very clear, after some time you are caught in the same net that you yourself created!

You can only enjoy yourself without Ego

Only when you don't have ego can you really enjoy yourself. If you have ego, you can't enjoy. Standing in front of the mirror, you may apply makeup so that others will enjoy you, but you can't enjoy yourself. Only a person who does not have ego, who does not identify with the body and mind, can enjoy himself. If you think something is yours, you can't enjoy. For anything that you think of as yours, you have lost the freedom to enjoy that thing or relationship!

Ego and the connection with Nature

This is an incident from the days right after my enlightenment when I was in Tamil Nadu in South India.

One evening, I was sitting in a very relaxed mood in a forest. My eyes were open, but I was not seeing anything, as there was no information going inside and getting processed. There was a huge snake lying about three feet in front of me. Because the eyes were not processing any information, there was no fear inside. I was sitting and the snake was also so relaxed and comfortable.

Then slowly, my mind came down to the normal plane and I had a thought, 'Oh, there is a snake.' Then the next thought came, 'I should move away.' The moment the thought 'snake' came in my inner space, I saw very clearly that the snake also felt disturbed that there was a man in its presence.

Until I felt 'There is a snake,' the snake never felt that I am a man. Until I felt the fear, the snake never felt threatened by me. Neither did I have fear nor did the snake have fear. But the moment I had fear, the snake also got fear. It was

	When your ego
	becomes strong,
not that the physical	your ability to
distance	connect with
between us	Nature is
reduced.	disturbed.
Just the

thought 'snake' came in me and I was clearly able to feel there was a disturbance, a restlessness, in the snake's inner space. The moment I had the thought 'I should move', the moment I had the fear, immediately the snake also felt the same insecurity, the same threat. Immediately, the snake started moving, even before I started moving.

When your ego becomes strong, your ability to connect with Nature is disturbed.