Love, Ego, Truth, Knowledge

LOVE

Our desire to love someone here in this earthly planet is a reflection of our original desire to love Krishna. Krishna is so kind; He has no reason to be hungry, He has everything and is everything, but based on our desire to serve Him, He becomes hungry. To awaken this desire we have the opportunity to serve Krishna always by preparing food for Him, dressing Him, offering flowers to Him and chanting His names constantly.

“You are what your deep driving desire is, as your desire is so, so is your will, as your will is so, so is your deed, as your deed is so, so is your destiny.”

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV.4.5:

‘Pure you’ = ‘pure truth’

The body, the mind, the intelligence, the ego: use your mind to control your body, use your intelligence to control your mind, and use “the ego” to control your intelligence. “Ego” is the real you, the eternal living spirit soul. True ego is: “knowing who you are and what your position is in the world around you.” ‘Pure you’ = ‘pure truth’. The false conception of ego is: “I am a man, I control all that I see, I can do this, I can do that” This is a false identification with the ego and this is “not” the true self. When you identify with your true self and you know who you are, then you know the real truth. The true ego is: knowing who you are = “you are Krishna’s eternal servant.” Not everyone is Krishna’s servant, but everyone is Krishna’s “eternal” servant. Those who deny the existence of God are trying to become God by default, but that is the one very constant impossibility.

There is always someone that controls something because that is how things get done. That’s how everything runs. A businessman owns a car factory, he has his general manager serve him to manage his business, supervisors serve the general manager, and workers work on the assembly line to get the job done. Everyone is serving someone: the factory has light bulbs, someone bought them at the store, a store merchant purchased them to sell, a manufacturer had them made, someone came up with the idea of a light bulb and consumers demanded supply, and finally the light bulb was made with supplies like tungsten, medal and glass. Someone used their intelligence to put these materials together in the right way to make the light bulb. The question is who gave the intelligence to this person? Who gave the intelligence to the businessman? The intelligence comes from the life force, the true ego. Where does life come from? Life comes from life. God controls everything by default and by definition that’s what God is. Just as a huge tree comes from a small seed, our small “true self” comes from Krishna’s infinite supreme self. In the Brahma-samhita it is said,

isvarah paramah krsnah sac-cid-ananda vigrahah anadir adir govindah sarva-karana-karanam

Karana means cause, cause of all causes, seed of all seeds. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada says, “This is confirmed in the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gita where para and apara prakrti are discussed (Bg. 7.4-5). The elements of nature–earth, fire, water, air, ether, mind, intelligence and ego–all belong to the inferior or material energy of the Lord, whereas the living being, the organic energy, is the para prakrti (superior energy) of the Lord. Both of the prakrtis, or energies, are emanations from the Lord, and ultimately He is the controller of everything that exists. There is nothing in the universe that does not belong either to the para or the apara prakrti; therefore everything is the property of the Supreme Being.” (Isopanishad, txt 1, purport, page 1)

What is real love? First there must be two egos in the equation to conclude the word love. You can love your self, but that is still two egos because it is the real you in love with your ideal ego: that is, your real ego in love with your conception of your ideal “false” ego. That, of coarse is not real love. You can be in love with another person, or so you think, but that’s not real love either because you are also in love with a false conception of the other’s ego: you think they are a type of person who looks a certain way, acts a certain way, moves a certain way, talks a certain way, and thinks a certain way. You are not in love with them; you are in love with a false notion. They are not their false ego, they “are” their true ego. They are not their body. Real love is love of the ultimate lover: Krishna. He is the ultimate Supreme Being. Everyone in this material world is infatuated with lifeless mater. I love this beautiful girl or this beautiful boy. A natural attraction is there because everything on material planet is a perverted refection of the life we have had in the perfect spiritual sky where Krishna resides in His supreme personal form. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber called it the “I-Thou relation,” where the human being goes into a certain relationship with his innermost ego and whole being, in a encounter, in a real dialogue this is what both of the partners do. For Buber, interhuman encounters are only a reflection of the human meeting with God. But to really understand this is to know that true love is love in the purest form: love of the perfect being, Krishna and anything else is a perverted reflection of this. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada says in the Brahma-samhita, “Krishna is the exalted Supreme entity having His eternal name, eternal form, eternal attribution and eternal pastimes. The very name “Krishna” implies His love-attracting designation, expressing by His eternal nomenclature the acme of entity. His eternal beautiful heavenly blue-tinged body glowing with the intensity of ever-existing knowledge has a flute in both His hands. As His inconceivable spiritual energy is all-extending, still He maintains His all-charming medium size by His qualifying spiritual instrumentals. His all-accommodating supreme subjectivity is nicely manifested in His eternal form. The concentrated all-time presence, uncovered knowledge and inebriating felicity have their beauty in Him. The mundane manifestive portion of His own Self is known as all-pervading Paramatma, Isvara (Superior Lord) or Visnu (All-fostering). Hence it is evident that Krishna is sole Supreme Godhead. His unrivaled or unique spiritual body of superexcellent charm is eternally unveiled with innumerable spiritual instrumentals (senses) and unreckonable attributes keeping their signifying location properly, adjusting at the same time by His inconceivable conciliative powers. This beautiful spiritual figure is identical with Krishna and the spiritual entity of Krishna is identical with His own figure. (Brahma-samhita, txt 1, prt 1, page 1)

Our desire to love someone here in this earthly planet is a reflection of our original desire to love Krishna. Krishna is so kind; He has no reason to be hungry, He has everything and is everything, but based on our desire to serve Him, He becomes hungry. To awaken this desire, which we have always had but have forgotten because we are infatuated with material life, we have the opportunity to serve Krishna always by preparing food for Him, dressing Him, offering flowers to Him and chanting His names constantly. Just as you may have a burning desire to be the best businessman on earth, if you understand your desire, you will attain that small position of best businessman on earth. If you desire to love Krishna, with a burning desire, so you will attain His love. This is not a false notion. This is a real notion because Krishna is the epitome of Truth. A falsity is putting your faith in something that will change, as if it would last forever. Krishna is the constant. You may say you love all those material possessions, but they will cease to be in the future. That beautiful girl in her next life will look different according to her karma. If she has good karma and a burning desire to love Krishna, she will remember Him in her next life and have the opportunity to be with Him in His abode, maybe even in this life. To love real truth is “true love” and you must have a burning desire for the truth in order to attain it.

Ego=Real Knowledge

The famous philosopher Socrates, when he discusses the different types of love in “Plato’s Symposium,” says that the greatest type of “love” is Philosophy because it concludes an eternal truth. The truth is: “knowing what your constitutional position is: your relationship with the Universe and of coarse God- who is the controller of the Universe.” There are different types of knowledge. One might know, for instance, that he has the body of a man or that she has that body of a woman. That is general knowledge or “Dead Truth:” something that you can see with the material eyes to make a certain judgment and then use that judgment to make a certain truth. For example, I see a tree, a rock, a stream, a woman, a man, a house. This is a type of false knowledge because when the body, which is operated by the soul, dies by disease or old age everything is forgotten, when the entity is under the conception that he or she is part of this material world: that he or she is the body. That type of truth that existed to that person when he or she was alive in that old body is irrelevant. That knowledge doesn’t cease to exist when the person’s body ceases to exist, but it ceases to exist to that person when he or she leaves the body and takes a new body on earth. “Real Knowledge” is: “knowing” what the position of the tree, rock, stream, woman, man, and house is. They are temporary in the big picture. In the “Real Truth” they are what scientist call “matter,” temporary material dead “lifeless” things. The body will get old and wither, the rock will become a mountain or get corroded by rain, and the house will fall apart and become dust. In the future they will become other material things and they never really exist, because to “exist” is to have consciousness, to understand, to know to be able to feel, to love, comprehend, discover, to live. You, the eternal living spirit soul, other eternal living spirit souls, and God will always exist. You are in one body in one lifetime and then another body in the next life. So “Real Truth” is Truth that exists eternally and the real you, the ego, is “understanding who you are.”

You “are” what your deep driving “desire” is. If you really desire Krishna and you “understand” it, then you will go to Him in the spiritual sky. If you desire to be the greatest businessman on earth and you really understand it, then that is who you think you are and that is what you will become. That conception of “businessman” is a false truth because if you attain the position of best businessman on earth, Krishna is the best businessman is the universe (always) and you can not top that. If you understand that these designations: businessman, Man, Woman, Animal, Rich, Poor, they are all false truths because you can never be “businessman, Man, Woman, Animal, Rich, Poor,” forever. Truth is the Truth that is always True, forever. The one constant that is always true: there is only one Supreme Personality of Godhead. If you understand truth, understand YOU, understand who Krishna is and you have understood everything.



By: Gadadhara das

Battle of the Ego: Goddess Durga and Mahishasura

 Goddess Durga and Mahishasura

The following is a brief adaptation of the story as appears in the Devi-Mahatyma. It is adapted in a way so as to lift the veil of the spiritual symbolism employed in the story:

The Devas, such as Self-discipline, Universal Love, Selfless Service and Courage were being routed by the most fearsome demon they had ever beheld, Mahishasura (Egotism). Ego disregards the promptings of the Devas and claims all he sees for his own, living only for sensual pleasure and self-glorification, aided by lesser demons like Greed, Lust, and Anger.


The divine beings ran to the greatest of all the gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, to plead for help. But when the Big Three realize whom they are up against, they exchanged worried glances. “This job is too much for the Three of us,” they agree. “In a case like this, there is only one recourse.” And sitting down for meditation, the gods concentrate their mental energy on her, the Supreme Goddess. Her response is instantaneous.

At that very moment as Greed and Lust are trampling the world, an extraordinarily beautiful woman rivets their attention seated quietly near a mountaintop.
“She’s incredible!” they pant. “Ego must possess her!”

And indeed, when Ego hears about her ravishing beauty, he sends his henchmen to her with a proposal.

“Submit to Ego and all the wealth of the world will be yours!” the demons announce to the mysterious woman. “Become his slave and we will serve you forever!”
Smiling ..shyly, she responds,“Oh my, that’s a very attractive offer. But – silly me – I took a foolish vow when I was a little girl that I would only marry the man who defeats me in battle. I’m afraid I cannot accept your master unless he conquers me.”

Mahishasura is enraged at this reply and sends his generals with their heavily armed divisions to take the mysterious beauty by force. As the demons reach out to grasp her, however, the delicate maiden begins to grow.


An extra eye swells from her forehead, numerous arms sprout from her trunk, and fangs erupt from her howling mouth. Swords, spears, cudgels, and whirling discuses with very sharp edges-every conceivable weapon appears in each of her numberless fists. The tawny rock on which she has been sitting unfurls into an enormous, razor-clawed, ravenous lion.

“I think we bit off more than we can chew,” Fear mutters under his breath as he leads the suicide charge against Durga, the Mother of the Universe.

The enemy the Ego has unwittingly engaged is the Chit Shakti herself-the purifying power of Supreme Consciousness. The Ego has finally confronted the Higher Self-and it is mighty!

The Divine Warrioress thwarts her foes with powerful mantras, the sword of discrimination, the bow of determination, and the bludgeon of persistent yogic practice.

A fierce and grisly battle ensues in which Egotism expends every means at its disposal to overcome the spiritual force within as it reasserts its innate sovereignty.

The fighting is portrayed in detail, including Mother Durga’s famous battle with Rakta Bija (“Red Drop”): each time a drop of his blood, spilled in battle, touches the earth, it leaps up as a new warrior. The Divine Mother transforms herself into the gruesome Goddess Kali, who swallows every drop of blood before it reaches the ground. To the casual reader this is a grotesque episode, but meditators will instantly recognize the analogy: in the struggle to control one’s thoughts and desires, they seem to replicate magically and maniacally. Only by catching them before they have the opportunity to take root can this endless cycle be stopped.


Eventually, the all-powerful demon Mahishasura(Self-Delusion) lurches into battle, transforming himself from one shape into another as he attempts to elude the Universal Mother.


Indeed many of us have experienced this shape shifting .as, for example, brash egotism sublimates itself into spiritual pride. He is in the form of a half-man/half water buffalo when the Divine Force finally overcomes him. Indian religious art is replete with paintings and sculptures of the calm, benign Mother Durga slaying the buffalo demon Mahishasura.

At one point the Universal Mother projects millions of goddesses from herself, including Brahmani, the Goddess of Prudently Applied Intelligence, Vaishnavi, Goddess of Wisely Used Material Resources, and Varahi, the Goddess of Desire for Spiritual Perfection. Ego cries out,
“This is not fair!” and the Goddess reabsorbs her emanations, leading to the climatic scene in which Ego and Pure Spiritual Awareness stride forth to battle each other-alone.
In this final confrontation the great demon Mahishasura is slain.


When the Ego perishes, order is restored to the universe and harmony returns to nature. Indra and the other Gods regain their place in heaven (i.e., the mind and senses, in service of the Divine, resume their functions).

 Goddess Durga