Spiritual Ego: The Hidden Enemy

Today's unplanned reflection explores spiritual ego—that subtle feeling of superiority that can arise when we believe we're more enlightened or humble than others.

• Spiritual ego manifests when we think we're better than others or have achieved higher realization
• True enlightenment brings certain values that vary between traditions but always include humility
• My guru demonstrated genuine spiritual maturity by eating bitter fruit without complaint in a remote village
• Expectations inevitably lead to disappointment—freedom comes when we release our grip on outcomes
• I once judged people who practiced murti puja (idol worship) but now respect what their practice represents
• When we reach true realization that everything is one, we find centered peace beyond all judgments
• Taking a break from recording from the 17th April to the 4th May while on a family holiday

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Transcript

Unplanned Reflections Begin

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded Mystic podcast , and I'm your host , rahul N Singh . Thank you very much for taking out the time today to either watch or listen to the podcast episode . So today I don't really have an agenda to speak upon . I was going to record an episode about the law of attraction , part two , but I'm busy with work so I haven't had that free time to just look at it and the free mind to just kind of focus on that . But I thought it might be good just to see whatever comes up in this moment . Whatever comes up in this moment .

Speaker 1 0:46

And you know , one of the greatest things I find about YouTube is that we get to see different speakers from different traditions . We even have people in non-duality who have a wide variety of thoughts and feelings and teachings and non-teachings and non-teachings , and all that is very , very important for us to have conversations , for us to understand deeper insights and to gain more from each

The Danger of Spiritual Ego

Speaker 1 1:17

other . The concern that can happen is one that I speak about a lot , and it's the spiritual ego . I have to constantly check with myself that there is no spiritual ego that comes up , and it's easy for the spiritual ego to come up If you think you are better than everyone , if you think you have a higher realization than someone , if you think that you're more enlightened than the next person . All these things are spiritual ego . And the essence of spirituality is very simple , you know . It's just simply . You know , understanding the certain values that an enlightened person should have . Now , these values again are going to differ from tradition to tradition , and that's fine . That was really hard to say tradition to tradition , and that's fine

Lessons from My Guru's Example

Speaker 1 2:30

. Uh , that was really hard to say , um and but like in Advaita Vedanta , I think the Bhagavad Gita really defines it very clearly . And so I've been thinking , you know , we've , we started the Vedanta Saras series and we'll continue with that soon , and that's just to kind of get to know the basics . And I think that once you know the basics , once you know , once you start , you know , observing your mind more , observing your senses more , seeing where your senses go , controlling how your senses go , when you do all that work , the depriving of the spiritual ego seems to be relatively slim , and the reason for that is because the work has been done and spiritual ego only comes up when the ego still has some superiority or inferiority , complex , and to kind of mask that you know it will say I'm humbler than the next person , like that's very , very humble to say that . Or when someone says , oh , I have no ego , I'm just like you sit down , it's okay . Um , let's put extra salt in their meal and see if , uh , it creates a reaction . Um , and , you know , for

Freedom from Expectations

Speaker 1 4:00

a truly enlightened person there will be no reaction .

Speaker 1 4:05

I , I recall a story of when my guru was . My guru would travel to like different . Well , they travel to different , like villages in India , like small villages , really small villages , really remote areas . And once somebody offered some fruit and the fruit was very kind of bitter . My guru ate all of the bitter fruit and everyone was like you know , why is he eating all the fruit ? And that particular one ? And later on it was found there's just a little piece of fruit was left . So the person whose house my guru went to , when they tried that fruit , they realized how bitter it was . Guru went to when they tried that fruit . They realized how bitter it was and they didn't see any . Uh , and , and my guru refused to give that to everyone else . He said you know , let me have it , it's okay .

Speaker 1 5:05

Um , and you know these little things , and and there's countless examples from other gurus too I'm not gonna say , oh , it's only in my tradition , no , in . I'm sure there's examples of this in other traditions too . Uh , but it's just . These are the little things that sometimes we don't kind of , uh , we don't observe . Now , yes , if I go to a michelin star restaurant , I'm going to expect michelin star food . That's an expectation of a service , right so . But should one become a Karen about it ? You know , no ,

Journey Beyond Spiritual Judgment

Speaker 1 5:40

there's no need to become a Karen if .

Speaker 1 5:43

If your expectations aren't met , and if you have expectations and my guru used to say so many times , and it's so true , if you have expectations , you're going to be disappointed . And that's the one thing I've learned is do not have expectations from anyone or anything . Keep yourself free from that . Keeps you undisturbed for a while and whatever doesn't disturb the ego . That's good . But we certainly have expectations , of course , but we don't have to always adhere to those expectations or get worked up .

Speaker 1 6:27

It's one of the things I've been working on a lot . You know , just letting things be . You know just letting things be and just going with the flow and not , you know , not getting worked up , challenging , and especially when you're a young father . Well , I say young , but like a father , and you have to juggle so many things At the same time , understanding that how you are is going to be observed , and so , you know , it's always best to be very mindful of how one conducts oneself . I , uh . So yeah , spiritual ego , man , it , it can be devastating if you , if you ever get , get it and it's so subtle . Um , I remember , uh , I can recall times when I had spiritual ego .

Speaker 1 7:33

For sure , I can recall times , you know , I'll give a classic example . I used to look down on people who used to do murti puja . I actually used to look down on them and I used to think that what they're doing is really silly . And now I have a different opinion . Now I'm just like , like you know , I know what that multi represents , you know it's different .

Speaker 1 8:00

So now there's no anger or agitation about it , or or I'm higher , like there's no spiritual , like ego that comes in , like there's this humility that , okay , you know , I know what they're worshiping and I know what it represents . Maybe they don't , majority of people may not know , maybe they do , but who am I to judge that they don't know . And so these are things we get to learn about ourselves and and we improve , and that's the whole point of spirituality is improving , and when we can get to the height of true realization , we will gain so much . So when we get to that realization that everything is one , there is great , centered peace in that stillness and there's no higher or lower , boring or interesting . Life simply is being life , and that's pretty cool .

Speaker 1 9:04

So anyway , uh , let's see what I'll do tomorrow

Vacation Announcement & Closing

Speaker 1 9:08

. I don't even know , taking each day as it comes , um , but on the I forgot today , I think the 17th onwards , uh , 17th to the 4th there will be no podcast episodes , unless I record some while I'm on holiday , which most likely may not happen . I'm not sure because I'm not taking any of my camera or my mics or anything like that , so it'd be simply just yeah , if it is , it's going to be really bad quality and I don't really want to risk the quality unless I take a different mic with me , which I may do now , thinking about it , smaller one , but um , but yeah , anyway , take care and do look after yourselves and I'll see you tomorrow . Take care , namaste .