The no-name post

“One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.”

G. K. Chesterton

As you may have already guessed the topic of my new post with the quote from G K Chesterton, one maybe thinking or forced to think how can a person talk about a thing such as ego which can't be either quantified or measured.
How can one discuss ego and make sure that his own personal bias or anything as such come in..??
How can I talk about ego and feeling of someone else..??
How can you differentiate it from self-pride where do you cross the line from being a proud person to an egoistic person..??

These are just some of the questions i was faced while thinking of this post..the incidents of the past few days forced me to delve deeper into this, the so called questions and answers of the soul or of one's inner side.
You must be saying it aloud can this boy really think that deep..one whose a teenager who has just turned 18 and become an adult who hasn't 'seen' life and hasn't 'interacted' with the world, how can he answer that..?

I know i haven't seen the world or its' harsh realities but i can safely say that from a what i have seen, that it is surely longer than a movie trailer and not the whole movie....... but my friends tell me one thing after seeing a movie for a good time you can actually guess to a good extent how the rest of the movie is going to play out..!!


"Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”

Rig Veda


Self-pride vs Ego

How do you know when you have become from being a proud person to being an egoistic ..it's like saying heads or tails how do you which side is going to come up after the flip of the coin..!!
I say self-pride is when you say you are the best and being egoistic is when you say you are the best and demeaning others..!!

I am the best vs No one can be better than me..!!
I had a communication problem with a friend of mine lately , and both of us were sure that the fault lay the the other persons' doorstep none of us refused to budge for 2 days and then finally things were sorted out when my friend called me up to clarify things out.!!
Was it self-pride or ego which prevented us from talking during the two days..no one can answer it because both the sides will say "Not my fault, it's a matter of my pride, I won't say sorry".
Luckily the problem is solved but the question of pride vs ego remains..??


“The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”

Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama (Dalai Lama, b.1935)


It's actually similar to sledging ..you never know when you cross the line because the line may vary from person to person!!Its human to feel and it's human to defend what you feel and think but what matters here is how to keep it in check!!

People generally say

"dekh saale ko kitni akad/chaud me ghoom rahan hain"
or
"What an inflated/bloated ego that guy has..!!"

Ego is like those cancerous cells in ones body which can lie dormant or raise their ugly head(which one raised there's no escaping it) you can't cure it you can just hope to catch it in it's initial stages.
I have seen people suffering because of ego , families in trouble, but then i have also seen people fight it and suppress it if not conquer it.
A very dear friend of mine changed his behaviour from one of " I don't give a damn" to "hey lets try and solve it."

When do you know that the person is a patient of ego
-He refuses to listen to anyone else..he thinks he's always right
-Imposing your will or trying to do so on a group
-Is generally short on 'shoulders to keep a head on'
-That strut with the "i don't give a damn/i know it all" air around it

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO TOUCH UPON IN THIS POST IS ABOUT EGO IN TEENAGERS (as i initially said i have seen more than the trailer so i atleast have the right to comment upon it)
Clash of egos/personality-it is probably the most common reason i have heard in college for a fight.!!The initial months our whole class used to be a single group with everyone doing everything together and then slowly and steadily the class started to fragment and the reason given "yaar uski meri banti nahi hain" or"he's too egoistic and i can't tolerate him"
Where did we the 18 odd year old 'children' understand the concept of ego,arrogance..what is it which makes us sometimes so blinded by it that that we cannot look over our own shoulders??

17-18 -19 at the max is the age when one enters college and before that school.
All children till the age of 5-7 are naive they quickly grasp what they are taught .. so is it fault of the parents (oh come on you got a reason to put the blame on someone else ) or is it the fault of the teachers with whom a child spends more time than he spends with his parents.!!

Whose fault is it to make a child of 7 turn into an egoistic person of 17 and so on ..
is it the peer group , is it the enviroment , is it the morals, is it the _____ (come on gimme a good another reason : this last one is for you to think about)....or a combination of all ...your guess is as good as mine??

“The world is burning in the fire of desire, in greed, arrogance and excessive ego.”

Sri Guru Granth Sahib