Self-forgetfulness

In self-forgetfulness, we do not forget the ego. We know that as long as a person is embodied, there will always remain a trace of ego. But we realize that, “Although I have this ego, I am busy refining it.”

You do not need to recognize the ego to go beyond it. That would be a mental process, and the mind itself is ego; here is the ego trying to find the ego. It is like saying you will see your own eyes. You cannot. You need a mirror.

Through many ways, depending on our own temperaments, we try to subdue the small “I.” With the mind we use devotion and good living, and this will help to a certain extent, but it backed up by spiritual practices and meditation, the thinking will become more powerful and devotion will become more powerful and sincere.

Meditation teaches us to be apart from the ego, and to view the ego objectively. The flux of the world is also something objective. It depends upon us—our perspective and how we view it. When we have the inner strength created by meditational practices, then we see the true value of the ego first. And then we go beyond praise and blame, pleasure and pain.

An individual reflects the entire universe within himself. The individual soul is still part of the universal soul. The individual soul, which is made up of consciousness itself, confuses itself by regarding itself to be the entirety of its own existence. It assumes the “I,” and that is what ego is all about. Ego is the misuse of pure consciousness, and a limiting of it to a small, little consciousness. Yet even that small consciousness, like a hologram, can experience the entire picture.