One of the biggest challenges you will face on your journey is the battle to overcome the self (ego). Ego takes away from your innate gift. It focuses more on the outward and external power instead of the power within.
A person who does not know what the ego is cannot eliminate it.
You need to be present, observe your own thoughts and develop awareness of yourself in order to catch the ego in the act.
When we become sufficiently present, that we are always observing our own ego, the light of that awareness starts to starve the ego. If ego is darkness and awareness is light, the existence of one implies the absence of the other.
If you temporarily eliminate your ego you will eventually find that the “corporate” takes over the “sufi”.
Examples of Lehman Brothers, Enron, Arthur Anderson are examples of corporations that operated without the Sufi component. They paid a heavy price for their actions, which caused immense harm to employees, partners, customers and the general public.
Sufi Inayat Khan states, “All great musicians, Beethoven, Wagner, and many others who have left the world a work that will always be treasured, would not have been able to do so if they had not forgotten themselves in their work.” These people were able to transform themselves, as a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. Self-transformation happens through the annihilation of the ego, from which the magnificent new form emerges.
When you are consumed by the ego, you become defensive and self-centred. You cease to be a team player. You are close-minded and no longer objective. Selflessness is power, selfishness is weakness. However most people don’t see it this way, and even those who claim they see it this way often do not behave in alignment with this message. Self-glorification appears powerful and feeds the ego.
However this is an illusion, a fleeting feeling that does not last but rather keeps needing more and more glorification in order to find peace. In the end, the more you have, the less it appears to be and the more you want to obtain. All the while, peace has been dwelling inside you.
Nature has a lot to teach you. A flower gives fragrance to everyone, unasked. When you have substance from within, you let your good qualities, your radiance, emit from you, do the talking for you.
Similarly positive pride is when you look at your life and gifts as a blessing and utilise them to make a meaningful difference to those who cross your path.
Negative ego includes hiding your authentic self, wearing masks in order to fit in and be accepted by others; showing your brilliance to others and treating others as less superior; being competitive instead of collaborative; and becoming defensive. Negative ego undermines the support you need from others to win.
How about you? What ego masks are you carrying with yourself?