psychological sense. Die to live. This is the great dictum of the master. If we have to
live in the eternal, we have to die in the temporal. We cannot keep both at the same
time. God and mammon do not sit together in the same seat; and the greatest
mammon is the ego. So, in the hard effort of meditation for achieving success in the
form of communion with the object, this tremendous impediment comes, and that is
the hurdle which is difficult to conceive in the mind.
In all the Puranas and the Epics we are told that the ego comes in the end, as the final
one to be slain is the devil who is the most powerful. He may be a Ravana, or a
Hiranyakasipu, or a Sumbha; whatever he is, he comes in the end. He will not be
there in the beginning. We cannot face him like that, at one stroke, because he always
sends a retinue. We have been facing the army, the regiment or the retinue of this
great power called the ego, and we have been to some extent successful. That is
dharana, that is dhyana—concentration, meditation. But when we meet this
gentleman face to face, it is terrific. It was a terrific thing even for Rama to face
Ravana; it was not an easy thing. It was with great hardship that Ravana could be
slain, and he was the last man to be faced. However much we may try to slay this
force, it will resume its activity. Ravana could not be attacked. There was another
peculiar Ravana called Mahiravana. The more one attacked him, the more powerful
he would be because when his head was severed, another head would come up. Oh,
what is this peculiarity? He is cut and slain, reduced to pieces, and he reassembles
his limbs and resurrects himself once again. How is it possible? In the Devi
Mahatmya there is a peculiar personality called Raktabija, whose very drop of blood,
if it falls on the ground, will generate thousands of similar demons. One cannot kill
him because the moment one attacks him blood falls, and the blood that falls
generates many like him instantaneously. So there is no question of attacking him.
The moment we attack this ego, it has its own ramifications. It will undergo various
shapes and forms like Mahishasura—now it is an elephant, now it is a buffalo, then it
is a third thing, and then a fourth thing. If we attack it in the form of a buffalo, it is an
elephant. If we attack the elephant, it is a lion. If we attack the lion, it is a fish. If we
attack the fish, it is a jackal. How will we attack it?
The ego is a chameleon which takes any colour, any shape, according to the
atmosphere in which it lives. It knows its tricks very well, much more than all the
understanding can work. It is a chameleon in the sense that it can assume the colour
of the atmosphere in which it lives, so that we cannot detect it or discover it. It is one
with the atmosphere, so how will we discover it? It has taken the same shape, colour
and value of the conditions under which it is living, so it cannot be attacked. Even
when we try to resume the practice of meditation for the sake of communion,
samadhi, this ego will subtly work from inside and maintain its distance from the
object. Hence, persistent effort is necessary to be cautious of this subtle activity going
on inside, which obstructs our attempt at communion. We have to psychologically
analyse ourselves. What is the reason behind this distance that we maintain between
ourselves and others? What is the harm if this distance is removed? We will find it
will make a world of difference. If I do not maintain a distance between myself and
you, what difference will it make to me in my life? Well, it will make all the
difference. It will simply make my life impossible; that is what will happen. If there is
no distance between me and others, there will be no life at all. What we call life will
cease to be, if the distance does not exist. The panoramic drama or the colourful
activity and enactment that we call this life—the pageantry of this phenomenal