Ego is that state of awareness which thinks of you as separate from the other. Ego thinks in terms of guiltiness and shames and glories of the past, and it thinks in terms of fears and hopes about the future. It never thinks about what ‘is’, but always thinks about ‘what was’ and ‘what could be’. Ego thinks in terms of many as opposed to the One, the one pure intelligence.

What is pure intelligence?

It’s commonly called ‘common sense’, or the ‘presence of mind’. At any moment, when you do the most appropriate thing in the most appropriate way without any influence of the stored up memories of your past and without any regards to fears of failure or hopes of future rewards, you let the pure intelligence act through you. This pure intelligence may be called the Soul or super-ego or God or universal consciousness. The term ‘pure intelligence’ is used here in preference for others because ‘intelligence’ is one term you can easily identify with compared to the other terms.

So, how is the ego different from pure intelligence?

Ego is self identity. It’s labeling yourself, painting the ‘pure you’ with distinct qualities. And this ego labels others too. The ego cannot but think in terms of these qualities and it always defines yourself as somebody distinct from others. But these qualities and definitions are not fixed or constant. The paint wears off in time and as it wears off, the ego freshly paints the worn off patches of with new qualities and new definitions, and gives an illusion of continuity. This illusion of continuity of qualities strengthen self identity. Now, completely strip off these qualities and definitions, and you will find that the ‘pure you’ and the ‘pure other’ are one and the same, there has always been only one existence, call it the One, or the Soul, or God. The consciousness of this God is pure intelligence itself.

The foremost quality of ego is self preservation. It always tries to impose it’s definition of yourself onto others around you and into your own future. That’s where the problem comes and conflict comes. You define yourself as somebody now, and you want to preserve this definition of yourself into the future until you get a better definition. You are afraid that if you lose this definition of yourself, you will fall. You will become lesser. This fear is the hallmark of the ego. So, when you actually get to the future, your ‘new’ ego tries to define itself anew and comes into conflict with your older definition of yourself that tries to preserve itself. Similarly, when you try to impose your definition to others, the ‘other’ ego resists it and there comes a conflict. So you see, there is a conflict both in terms time and space. Remove this illusion of time and space and there is no more conflict. But pure intelligence doesn’t need any preservation, because it knows itself to be the only existence.

So, how do I identify whether I’m acting egoistic or with God consciousness?

This ‘attempt’ to identify is itself ego. Don’t ‘try’ to identify, but just be. Pure intelligence doesn’t ‘try’ or ‘attempt’, it just IS.

Pure intelligence works in harmony. In reality, there is is only one, the pure existence, consciousness, bliss absolute. It’s not ‘my’ existence or ‘my’ consciousness or ‘your’ consciousness, but it’s THE consciousness, THE existence and bliss. It’s not that I am intelligent or I was intelligent or you are intelligent, but it’s THE pure intelligence. This intelligence acts harmoniously. That is, the intelligence acts through you now in a certain way and it may act through you in a different way in some point of time in the future, but there is no conflict between both the ways. There is harmony. So, when pure intelligence acts through you now and does something, it’s helpful for you in the future, and you’ll never regret. Similarly, the intelligence may work differently through you and somebody else (a different point in space), but there is no conflict between both of you. There is only harmony. All of us complement and complete each other and don’t conflict each other when there is only intelligence and not egos acting.

But the ego is always intent on conflict. The ego says “I’m right and he is wrong”, or, ” I was wrong”, or “I made a mistake”, or “I’m afraid that I will fail”, or “I should be like this in the future”. Note that pure intelligence at times uses idea of future as a guidance for present action, as in reserving a ticket now for your future travel. But, pure intelligence is all about the present. Ego, on the other hand, lives in the past or in the future. When you imagine unreal things, like a future dialogue between you and somebody else, know that it’s the ego. You may imagine your future now, but you can never live your future, sure it may become real when it happens eventually, but it’s unreal as of now, it’s just imagination. When you feel guilty about your past mistake, or relive your past glory, know that it’s the ego.

Pure intelligence is about reality. Ego is about imagination. Note that pure intelligence visualises, but never imagines. Visualisation is creativity, imagination is speculation. Through visualisation, you create your own world for yourself. Through imagination, you lose yourselves in the mires of time.

Ego always needs and craves for something. But pure intelligence is rich by itself and doesn’t need anything from outside, because, it knows that there is no outside.

Pure intelligence fulfills. Ego imitates. When you are in the state of ego, you try to imitate your own past success or you imitate somebody else. Pure intelligence is ever original, ever creative.

Ego always looks up to others for help. It looks for an authority, It wants a rulebook so that it can imitate. Pure intelligence is intelligence itself, so it doesn’t need somebody external to lay down rules for itself. But beware, pure intelligence doesn’t even lay down it’s own rules for itself. When you say you are sufficient by yourself and you will never accept others opinions, it’s still your ego. Pure intelligence, though it doesn’t need external rules, does appreciate the wisdom behind rules laid down by wise men, which is nothing but an expression of the same pure intelligence, though at different time through a different person. Pure intelligence is always intent on finding harmony.

But acting without rules doesn’t mean chaos. Pure intelligence not needing rules don’t mean it acts haphazardly, but it helps you do take the most appropriate action now in the most appropriate way.

This pure intelligence is God, it’s You, it’s Now. It’s the only reality. All else is stored up memory and imagination. All else is unreal.

(On June 20, 2008, I asked these questions to myself and got these answers popped up in the awareness. I posted this earlier in my old blog. Nevertheless, it’s worth reading again.)

Man, made in the divine image, has come on earth to play his role intelligently in the cosmic drama of destiny designed by God. This life is not man’s own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine “plot.”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda in “God Talks with Arjuna”.

We don’t know what caused us to come here on earth, we don’t know where we go in the end, we don’t know how the universe has come into existence. We may or may not believe in God. Yet, somehow all things have perfectly come together to bring us into existence, the chemical reactions, water, the perfect temperature, the perfect gravitational force… somehow, organisms started evolving on this beautiful earth, the sunlight providing life to everything, and the perfect system to assimilate the energies and sustain life, then came the fish and the frog and the monkey and the man.

The System takes care of everything. Our existence as human beings in the universe is tiny. Yet we think that we are the doers of everything. We are anxious to take good care of ourselves (often, at the cost of others). We fight with each other for survival forgetting that in order to survive, the first thing we have to do is to stop fighting with each other. We are just a tiny part of the big plan, our life in the System is for a very very short period, we come and go in a flash. But we entertain our own selfish agendas, petty desires, and behave as if we, with this little bodies, will live forever and even outlive the System! Invariably, the result of such arrogant attitude is suffering and misery for ourselves.

Then what is the way? How to live? The way is to stop identifying ourselves exclusively with this tiny body-mind complex and recognize that we are part of the System. This tiny body-mind will perish, but the System will survive. When we learn to recognize how beautifully the System has brought us into existence and sustains us, how lovingly the System takes care of us like a mother taking care of her baby, when we recognize how harmoniously our lives are interwoven with the life of the System and dissolve our narrow, selfish plans into the big plan and correctly recognize our part in the big plan, life becomes ever so graceful, ever so harmonious, ever so beautiful! Then we are no more separate from the System, we are no more part of the system, we become the System. In fact, we are the System.

The entire universe is one whole; and, when someone drops their holding onto limited boundaries, then what they gain is the entire universe.

~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

“We want to lead mankind in the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this is to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran. Mankind ought to be taught that religions are but the varied expressions of The Religion, which is Oneness, so that each may choose that path that suits him best.” ~ Swami Vivekananda

“The candles are many, but the light is one.” ~ Rumi

“Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindus take water in jars and call it ‘jal’. From another ghat the Mussalmāns take water in leather bags and call it ‘pāni’. From a third the Christians take the same thing and call it ‘water’. Suppose someone says that the thing is not ‘jal’ but ‘pāni’, or that it is not ‘pāni’ but ‘water’, or that it is not ‘water’ but ‘jal’, It would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood, in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him if they have sincerity and longing of heart.” ~ Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

“I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.” ~ M. K. Gandhi

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” ~ Albert Einstein