Mindfulness in Rajavidya

Everyone has the capacity for ego. Even my guru Mahavatar Babaji has the capacity for ego, but he doesn’t have an ego, because, for thousands of years, he hasn’t used that capacity. This is because he is mindful to never use it.

It is essential to be mindful, to be aware that nothing is automated, and that ego can jump up at you at any time.

There are basically three kinds of ego.

The Ego of Comparison

The first one is the ego of comparing, in which you create an ideal version of yourself, and then feel you don’t match up to that ideal. Alternatively, you compare yourself with someone else, feeling you don’t match up to them and are just “not good enough”. This is called Avishesha, according to Patanjala Yoga Sutra.

Vishesha is another kind of comparison, when you compare yourself with someone else saying, “I am better than this.”

Alternatively, you compare yourself with a previous version of yourself. And then you feel, “Yeah, I’m so good. I’m so amazing.” This self-validation can be detrimental.

In your interactions with people, you are usually not mindful of what it is that makes them like, respect or love you.

When somebody says, “I love you, I respect you, I trust you” — you need to deeply comprehend the intention behind those words. Some might say that just to manipulate you. You, however, must know — are you truly making an impact in their life? What is that impact? How exactly are they perceiving it? When they perceive your impact on their life, is when they’ll tell you that you’re amazing. This is when you become aware of their intention.

Making this your gold standard for how you interact with them in the future ensures a smooth, mutually respectful and loving relationship with them. It develops trust and faith, and this comes only from mindfulness.

Mindfulness in Rajavidya is not about your breathing, or how you are feeling. We practice ego mindfulness, and you have to be continuously aware of whether you’re falling into those ego traps.

Whenever you’re praised by someone, understand the mechanism that created that praise. So that you can recognize whether they got real value, or not. If not, it’s empty praise. Once you understand the value, continue giving that value to them. Otherwise, you will be labelled as inconsistent and unreliable.

Bear in mind that every relationship is under constant evaluation every moment of every day, by you and by others — we are all constantly trying to comprehend where we stand with each other. To create security in your relationships — you must know where you stand, what are the dynamics of this connection.

If you’re a Guru, like I am, you have to stand in a very high position, or else, they won’t learn from you. So when I stand over there, people have to accept me in that high position. Never be a self-appointed guru. People will accept you as a teacher and give you dakshina only when you’re a real guru.

Consistency

Consistency is the strength on which we stand. If we are unaware of the strength that sustains us, then we cannot be consistent.

You do something remarkable, but you don’t really take the time to examine it and decipher — what is it that I did well here? What worked for me? It is essential to realize this. You could also go back to a memory of when you did well in the past, and try to figure out, “What did I do well there?”

It’s like balancing a bicycle. Every position you hold in your life — whether it is a teacher or a student, a spouse, a child or a parent -absolutely any relationship that you have with another human being, is standing on certain things, and you need to be acutely aware of those things and recreate them again — it’s like a recipe.

If I want to know how to make good dosas, then I have to know how long to ferment it, how much urad dal to put in, how much rice to put in, how much salt to put in, and when to grind it into a batter — all these things have to be consistently repeated the next day, otherwise, I’ll get a different taste.

If you want the same taste every day, then you have to do the same things every day. If you want the same joy every day in your relationships, you have to do the same things which gave you joy. But if you keep forgetting what brought you this joy, if you are not clear about that, then you cannot repeat it.

It is essential to be mindful of what you are doing right, if you want consistent joy from your relationships.

The same applies to people who are inconsistent with exercise. One day, they come to class successfully, but they forget the recipe, and other days, they fail to show up. This could be because you may be in a peak performance state, say by 11:00 a.m., so your performance ability at 11:00 a.m. will not be the same as it might be at 11:00 p.m. This is because the energy shifts and your body has changed from morning to evening, it cannot perform the same all the time. So, you have to mindfully observe this about your body.

One element of peak performance is time. Being mindful helps us not compare our performance from one time to another. Self-improvement comes from improving on your previous self — by being mindful of the conditions your body performs best under.

Let’s say you’re a musician, and you gave a fantastic music concert. And that concert was at 8:00 p.m., when you were in your peak performance state. You know, that you have another performance, one week later. But this week, you realise your wife has cheated on you, and you’re probably going to get divorced. Even though it’s the same time and you ate the same food and you wore the same clothes, your mind is different now — so your performance will suffer.

It is important to notice the state of mind you were in during your peak performance. How was your mind? How was the body? What was the time of day? Who was with you? What did you eat? What were you wearing? Where were you? Take note of these things.

Let’s get back to discussing ego. Recipes matter, it’s a kind of mindfulness, don’t fall into this trap called ego. Never compare and judge yourself.

Ego is like a drug. It’s like being inebriated and not making sense. The moment you compare, it gives you a high. Feeling superior to someone else gives us a high. What is amazing is that when you compare yourself and you come up short, and you feel ‘I’m not good enough’ — that also makes you high!

We are so caught up in this strange high, this self-pleasuring mechanism, which we discover when we are young. When we feel we’re not good enough, and everybody is not fair to us. When we get into that kind of pattern, we are actually creating Vishesha, because it makes us feel special and superior.

“I would never do that to anybody, I am an innocent lamb, and he is an exploitative wolf. And even if I were a wolf, I wouldn’t exploit like this.”

People constantly fall into this trap as well, comparing themselves with everybody else around them. And they feel superior, they feel, “my parents are unfair, I would never do this if I had a child.” The funny thing is, that they do have children, and perpetuate the same loop with them! Because they do not know any different, it’s like their default programming, which is a result of family, society, and the mainstream media.

If we are not careful, we too will get programmed — since the human brain is a highly programmable organ.

It’s like although we may have been walking for years — we can still slip and fall if we don’t pay attention to where we step. Say you’re running mindlessly down the stairs, scolding someone on the phone, while somebody rings the bell — it’s like an already mad monkey, to whom you gave alcohol and then it got bitten by a scorpion.

THIS essentially, is the ego.

The Ego of Controlling

It takes all kinds of people to make up the world. And this is earth, not heaven. You cannot possibly agree with everyone. However, if you start sorting them out, or judging them, or try to control them — you have created the second ego, the ego of controlling.

The only two things we have absolute sovereignty over are our own body and mind. Yet people don’t claim their sovereignty. They want others to fix their body and mind, while they are busy trying to fix others!

If you’re an employer and your employees do not perform well, you might lose your temper and start yelling at them but then that won’t help. You need to understand what exactly it is that is causing their inefficiency. What is happening inside of them?

Folders

Once you understand more of their inner world, you will notice that people have folders in their minds. They file things away into these folders, purely by default, which helps them know how they need to react to certain situations. When somebody is disrespectful towards you, they put you in a folder where they put other people who deserve to be disrespected.

They’ve categorised you into a negative folder. That’s what we mean by good books and bad books! I prefer to call them folders because they actually look like that. When you look within and around you, you will notice these folders, Scientologists noticed this, and call it Enneagrams.

There are different screens that you see all around you. How you treat or respond to someone depends on the location of the screen.

For example, say you have a colleague whom you work very well with. You’ve kept them on a positive screen, and they’ll remain on that screen. Until the day, they make a mistake or don’t behave consistently, and you’ll shift them from that screen and maybe react to them like how you treated another person who disrespected you. And you forget that it’s your colleague, literally removing them from their previous good status.

Essentially, the status we accord people are the different folders we have. And we must be very careful not to lightly place people into negative folders. This is something we must never do — neither should we have these negative folders in the first place, because this is a result of our ego.

If you practice this mindfully, then you’ll have the authority to correct people because you have not removed them from the good folder. You’re only correcting their behaviour (not their entire personality), and they can tell the difference, even when you’re upset with them.

If we talk about what happened to us, how we felt as a result of their words or actions, instead of accusing them for what they did — they will realise their mistake. Everyone has an inherent sense of fairness, a conscience. Once you appeal to it, they will realise and correct themselves.

For example, somebody told you that your package will be delivered in five minutes, and it hasn’t come. And then it’s 15 minutes, then half an hour, and then it’s one hour. You ask them. “Hey, did you know that by this being delayed, these are the problems that I’m going through? But it’s alright, let’s solve the problem. Why is it getting delayed? Can we find out what exactly is going on?”

And they’ll tell you their vulnerability, what happened to them to cause the delay. So that is one way to deal with a situation, without putting people into negative folders. Do not judge them and think that this is all they’re capable of. Do not ever mark people as lazy, stupid, egoistic, that creep, this narcissist, and so many other things that you learn from the internet. Stop that, this is the second ego called Lingamatra.

The Ego of Giving Up

The third ego to watch out for is called Alinga. it’s called nihilism, saying that nothing really matters. This also gives you a nice high, right? It gives you a sense of great superiority — to realise that nothing really matters — comparing yourself to others who live like things do matter!

That’s another kind of ego, which actually leads to a terrible experience for everybody involved. People steeped in this ego enjoy invalidating everything that you stand for. They take pleasure in this and ridicule others for finding meaning. So don’t be that person and avoid such people as well. Just stay away, you cannot correct them just yet (because they don’t have the capacity to listen).

Agree with them, say “you’re absolutely right” — and walk away. Let them do whatever they want to do. You do not need to explain your meaning to anyone. It is the meaning that makes your biology work. Without meaning why should your biology work? You will be sick and you will get tired and you will die soon!

Read this a couple of times!

~ Rajaguru Pashupati