experience—will cease in an instant, the moment we commune ourselves with
things.
There is a fear that joy will vanish and sorrow will come. The ego tells us, “Why are
you attempting this?” Buddha was told: “My dear friend, what are you trying for?
You are digging your own grave. You are a great man. You are a great hero,”—and
likewise his ego was pampered by Mara. The thing that Buddha was trying for was
the abolition of the ego, the nirvana of experience where he would cease to be and
would become the All. And Mara came and said, “Why are you trying for this? This is
something very undesirable. You have achieved great success. You are the lord of all
the worlds. You have the greatest power conceivable. Get up and go!” This is what
Mara was saying in the ear of Buddha: “You are a very great man.”
The idea that you are a very great man and a highly powerful meditator will come.
“That is sufficient. I have meditated for years. Who can be equal to me?” This idea
that you are a yogi is what prevents you from achieving success. The idea that you are
a good person, a virtuous person, and better than others, will not allow you to
achieve success. The idea that you are a child of God or you are a divine being and a
spark of eternity—that itself is the ego. You always speak of being a spark of God, and
all that. Do not speak like that—that is the ego again. Another form of ego is making
you think that you are a spark of God: “How great I am!” Whatever thought that
arises in the mind is the ego, whatever the thought. It may be a good thought or it
may be a bad thought. It may be even a divine thought, from your point of view. That
will subtly work a peculiar lever inside you, and then you will be propped up into a
level which is exactly the thing which you wanted to avoid.
The lives of saints are our teachers. Theoretical discussions will not do here. We may
think that we have understood the subject very clearly, but practice is quite different
from understanding theoretically. When we actually face the devil, we cannot really
face it. We will find that we have to turn back because we have not seen it. Now we
are going to face something which we have never seen in our life. If we have seen it
once and we are used to it, that is a different matter. We are going to face something
which we have never thought of, which we have never heard about, and which we
cannot think about. Therefore, the caution should be very great. The lives of saints
who have lived this life of yoga through these hurdles we are speaking of in the
systems of yoga, they are the great teachers. What happened to others can happen to
us also, and perhaps it will happen to everyone. No one can be exempted from this
law of the universe. It is better to learn a lesson before it is taught to us with the rod
of punishment. Honourable teaching, honourable learning is much better than
harassment in jails and reformatories. The learning, the viveka, the company of
saints, the satsanga that we do, and the investigation, self-analysis, etc. are only a
way of avoiding the unnecessary pain that may come upon us by the lifted rod of
nature if we will not follow her rules honourably.
Thus, we have now come to a very strange conclusion: of all the obstacles that yoga
has spoken of, the ego is the most prominent, and it is the principal obstacle. Finally,
there is no obstacle at all except the ego. All those other things—impediments,
kleshas and whatnot—that the sutras have described up to this time are only rays
emanating from this central phenomenal sun, which makes the whole world shine
beautifully. That is the ego. There is no other impediment; this is the only
impediment. Finally, this is what we have to face. If something is stolen from our