[Advaita-l] Be humble

[sidha at omkarananda-ashram.org]

Victory over our own ego - be humble - this is the best way to save the earth

ShrimadBhagavadGita says,
"Victorious over the entire creation are those whose mind abides in
equality. Flawless indeed is the Supreme and the same in all; hence, they
abide in the Supreme." (Gita 5-19)

Alexander tried his best to achieve victory on whatever was considered
"the world" in his time. Napoleon also tried it. Hitler also tried
something similar. Did anyone of these achieve their goal?
NO.
What did they achieve? Destruction for themselves, and alas, for the
entire humanity.
Can any one achieve victory over the entire creation with force, arms and
military?
NO. When even to achieve victory over the human civilization is
practically impossible, what to say about achieving victory over the
Nature.
But I promise you that still each and every one among us can be victorious
over the entire creation by being victorious over our own selves. Being
victorious over our self means "to gain victory over our own ego". Yoga
helps us in it. It helps us to gain control over our own self.
If a practitioner of Yoga tries to gain control over anybody else, he is
still too far away from the path of Yoga. He is billions and billions and
billions light-years away from the path of Yoga, the true essence of Yoga.
Who cares if he is practicing a few acrobatic exercises?
The only one in this world that we are allowed to control is our own self.
And do you know the hidden mystery? Once we are in total control of our
own self, we gain control over the entire creation. This time the
controlling power is not the arms and the military, but the it is the
power of LOVE.
The power of LOVE is the true power that can gain true control over the
entire creation, not only human creation, but indeed over the entire
animal kingdom as well. This power doesn't govern the nations, it governs
the HEARTS. This is the power by which Buddha, Christ, Krishna and all the
great saints are governing the hearts of the entire humanity. By this
power people like Mother Teresa governed the hearts of millions.
There is a story in the Mahabharata. King Bharata conquered all the
kingdoms in the Indian sub-continent. He became the Supreme Ruler of all.
Then, he approached his Master and asked him to bless him because he had
conquered "the entire earth". His Master said, "You still lie defeated
from 11 Kings, how can I bless you. You haven't conquered all." King
Bharata couldn't understand what he meant. Then his Master replied, "Still
your 10 senses and your egoistic mind are constantly defeating you.
Conquer them and my blessings would be always with you."
How wonderful! Even after conquering all the nations, he was defeated
against his own self, ego. But if we conquer our ego, which leads towards
unconditioned love toward all irrespective of any limitations, we would
have conquered the entire creation without any bloodshed.
But don't think this to be an easy task. The only thing that I can promise
you is that it would be a bit easier then trying to conquer the world
through arms and military. Only in the sense that to conquer the world by
arms and military is totally impossible, but to conquer by LOVE is
possible and very easy. But to obtain that high level of LOVE is very
difficult, since conquering our own self, our ego, is one of the most
difficult tasks on this earth. It seems like death, like total
annihilation of our personality. Even though I tell you that it is a
wonderful metamorphosis of our personality, from our larva-type nature
into a very beautiful butterfly-like nature. It can be painful though, but
it is worth going through it. The larva would stagnate if doesn't go
through that process. The same is happening to all of us, because we fear
this metamorphosis. But any step taken towards that can save us, can save
our community, and eventually can save our world.
So the first thing that we should practice now is "HUMBLENESS"!
Be humble and loving towards all! Be accepting towards other person's view
and try to understand him/her! Be positive! Respect all religions, holy
people, deities, Holy Books, philosophies and nationalities. Eventually
this is the goal of Yoga and Veda.
Love you all,
Siddhartha Krishna

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