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Religious talks: Enslaved by ego
We are all slaves to ego. We take
pride even in worship. However much we try not to be proud, our ego wins at the
end.
A story is told of a king, who was
dishonest and wicked. He was deposed by his own people and he wandered from one
country to another. He could not settle down in any place for long.
The dethroned king visited five
countries and did not like to live in any of them. He was not known to anyone in
these countries, and that hurt him. But he liked the sixth country he visited
because here people recognised him as the wicked king who was chased out by his
own people.
Craving for attention
Though he was recognised only for
his wickedness, he was happy. Any recognition was better than no recognition! So
he decided to settle down in this country.
Such is the nature of ego that one
always craves for attention and recognition, said Suki Sivam.
‘Ego' the cat
One day, a disciple went to his
guru and told him that he wanted to have a cat as a pet. He requested the guru
to give a name to it, and the latter suggested that it be called ‘Ego.'
Accordingly, the man named the cat
as ‘Ego.'
As a kitten, ‘Ego' was cute and not
very troublesome. But when it grew up, it began giving the man a lot of trouble.
It drank all the milk in the house and cried throughout the night.
Guru's advice
So the man went to the guru and
asked him what he should do with it. The guru told him to get rid of it by
taking it to the forest and leaving it there.
The man did so as per the guru's
advice. But the cat reached the disciple's house before the disciple himself!
The guru then told him that he
should put the cat in a sack and take it deeper into the forest and leave the
sack there.
The man did so, but was unable to
find his way back. So he was forced to let the cat out and follow it home.
The moral of the story is that if
we do not curb our ego, we are enslaved by it.
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