Going Beyond I and My
abracad, · Categories: externally authored, spiritualityBy Lt Col R K Langar
What is I and My
The subject of this write up is in two parts- I and My and Going Beyond. First we shall consider I and My. I mean I am somebody who is different from other people. My conveys a sense of possession. What else is conveyed by I. Repeated use of I in your conversation shows that you consider yourself superior and separate from others. It is your ego, Ahamkar or self pride which makes you think so and which hinders your interconnectedness with others. The other meaning of the word ego is when you consider yourself as body and not the soul or Atma which is the essence of your personality. By considering yourself body and not Atma, you move your self away from the reality of life that your essential component is Atma and not the body. Therefore we have to change our belief about ourselves from body consciousness to soul consciousness. It must be clearly understood that ego or self pride is quite different from self esteem and self respect which one must possess. Self esteem is a feeling of self worth which convinces you that you can give worth while contributions towards the well being of others. Self esteem is your firm belief in possession of human values and divine qualities which you can obtain only when you look inwards into your hidden treasures by virtue of being a soul. When you recognize your inner worth you grow internally which gives newness and interest in life beside making you aware that basically you are truthful, knowledgeful, peaceful and happy being an Atma in essence.
Next we deal with the word My. Frequent use of word My indicates that you have a well built build sense of possessiveness. My means that you are attached to your belongings like your family, house and car. Not only you are attached but you are clinging on to your belongings. My could also convey that you are highly influenced by your thoughts, feelings and your spoken words. Excessive use of word My does not permit you to go beyond your little world. If we look as the world today we find most of us are only interested in I and My whether we are well read or not so well educated. The end result is that ultimate goal of people revolves around only two words I and My which distances us from looking beyond yourself. We have become so self centered that we work, eat and live only for our own self. If you are solely concerned for your own self and your people, then how could you contribute towards the betterment of society  unless you do something for others, you will only take and give nothing. The solution lies in coverting I and My to we and ours.
Going Beyond I
At our average state of existence we are impulsive since we live at mental level. God has given us the ability to think and discriminate between good and bad, between positivity and negativity which is the main task of our intellect or Buddhi. To have the feeling of I means we are egoistic. The word ego when translated means I or Myself. In Indian spiritual thought ego means identification of oneself with body and not the Atma or soul which is the real man. As long as we live in body consciousness, we will think and act in a non-divine way. I am the body is ego and we have to convert our way of thinking from body consciousness to Atma consciousness. In this manner our ego is annihilated and we realize our true identity. All evil activities spring from ignorance and separates consciousness. When the individual realizes his universal consciousness, he does not feel to do anything wrong. Another way of getting rid of ego is to make some lofty aim or purpose of your life. Larger the purpose of your life smaller becomes the ego. To get over ego, call ego as servant of God. A servant does not work for himself but he works for his master. Considering yourself and other as children of God gives you a feeling of brotherhood and uproots separateness which is the main cause of ego. Act on the dictates of your intellect and not mind and you will find that you get yourself freed from the hold of ego on you. As we raise our level of consciousness to the spiritual core of our personality separate tendencies are reduced and ego dissolves.
Going Beyond My
When we have a body, we have to look after it. We also look for body comforts, we need a shelter for us and we also need food and clothes. We also have to earn money to sustain our worldly living. There is no harm  is looking for the means to satisfy such needs as long as we don’t develop greed for them. Once we develop greed for what we possess we also develop a sense of possessiveness for our worldly belongings. Then we identify our belongings as My house, My car and so on, we now develop attachment for our belongings which is not conducive for our spiritual journey. We have to possess certain things for our worldly living but we do not have to love the feeling of possessiveness for them. To go beyond My we would consider our selves as trustees of what we possess. Such a feeling would keep us away from attachment of what we have. The other method of getting rid of the feeling of My is to accept that everything in the world is owned by God. Then we use our belongings thanking God that he has been kind to us and allowed us to use them for our comfort. When you surrender to God and consider yourself as an instrument to God, you, straight away go beyond My.
Our scriptures and saints emphasize on our going beyond I and My. According to them I and My constitute ignorance. Ignorance prompts us to say My house, my wealth, my possessions which gives us a self centered outlook. We have constructed many walls around us made up of gender, language, colour, country and religion. These walls inject into us separatist tendencies and bind our soul to I and my syndrome. Due to these we are driven like slaves. Going beyond I and My entails freeing our selves of self centered outlook. This requires us to undertake a journey from instinct to reason, from animal to human and finally to Divine. As we progress on this journey, the idea of manifoldness starts getting into background. We come out of individuality and move towards the universal. Here the idea of one God, one world family helps us to dismantle the walls which we have created around us. Once the idea of oneness is attained by us, we have no more delusion about our belief system. Then our settled behavior changes from Sva(own) to Serva(all).
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Filed in: externally authored, spirituality
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