Brain can be used as a tool by pride (ego) in most cases though it may offer its services to conscience also. Though some natives may think that brain is the best thing when it comes to tell right from wrong or when it comes to make decisions, it may not be so.
Conscience is far more superior to brain and it can accomplish tasks which can’t be accomplished by brain. Another surprise is that conscience doesn’t believe in doing so many calculations as brain does and instead, conscience can reach a better decision with minimum number of calculations.
The reason conscience is superior to brain is that conscience lies at a level which is higher than the level at which brain lies. Your physical body lies at the first level and brain as well as emotions lie at the second level; though emotions lie higher than brain within the same level. Conscience lies at the third level. Pride (ego) also lies at the second level and hence the second level becomes the most important level as a number of important entities are playing at this level.
Physical level is given to all species whereas the entities in the upper levels need effort to grow. Hence you need effort to grow brain, emotional strength and even some effort in order to grow pride (ego). It is through the journey of a number of lives that you’re able to grow these entities in a gradual way. Since conscience lies at an even higher level, it is even more difficult to grow and hence you may need even more time and effort to grow it.
Another problem on the way is that the entities lying on each level try to bind you to them, thereby making it difficult for you to leave them and pay more attention to the entities on the next level. It means your body makes it difficult for you to grow brain, emotions or even pride (ego) at times; and all these make it difficult for you to grow conscience.
Hence natives who spend most of their time for physical pleasures may have been tightly gripped by the entity on the first level and so they waste their chances of growing the entities on the second as well as on the third level. A significant number of natives belong to this category and that is why you may witness many natives living, primarily in order to fulfil their physical wishes which may be of many types.
Then there are the natives in the second category. These are the natives who are able to rise above the first level and hence they are able to develop entities lying on the second level. Some of them grow more brain compared to emotions. Hence they may use their brain to achieve things which may be more significant and valuable than the things targeted by the natives dealing on the first level.
It means some of these natives may become officers in governments, some of them may become politicians, some of them may become scientists and some others may achieve success through other fields which require the application of brain in order to give results. Since these natives have become able to rise above the first level which is the level of physical body, they may be able to practice control over this level, which means they may be able to control their physical urges.
This is because brain is an entity higher than the physical form and if it grows beyond a point, it starts controlling your body as well as its physical needs. Hence it can control you in a way that you may choose not to consume alcohol or drugs though your body or heart may lure you into them. However, your brain warns you against these patterns and as you value your brain, you listen to it and you stay away from such things or you keep them under control in a way that they don’t cause damage to you.
Then there are natives who rise to the second level and who develop more emotions than brain. These are the natives who use their emotional strength to achieve bigger things in life and they may also be able to control their physical urges. Looking at some examples; poets, singers, actors, painters and all other such creative natives primarily belong to this category, though some of them may grow brain also. It should be noted that it may be relatively difficult for this type of natives to control their physical urges as their emotions may get attached to some of the urges at times and hence they may not be able to get rid of them.
Looking at the third entity existing on the second level, as any one of the first two entities grows, the third one called pride (ego) grows in most cases and this is where the problems starts. It should be noted that as your brain grows, so may your pride (ego) and as your emotional strength grows, so may your pride (ego). Another interesting fact is that pride (ego) can use both brain as well as emotions in order to get what it wants. We’ll discuss the detailed working of pride (ego), later on.
Some natives may think that emotionally dominant natives are not egoistic or they have far less grown egos than the intellectual types. However, it may not be true in many cases and both heart and brain can give rise to pride (ego) as well as to the problems generated by that pride (ego). We’ll discuss this aspect in details, later on.
Moving on, as your brain or emotions grow or so to say, as your mental or emotional level grows, so does your pride (ego) and this is where the problem starts. Pride (ego) can give you surprisingly good material results as the attachment of pride (ego) to your material goals can speed up your chances of achieving success, many times. It is pride (ego) which focuses on the targets and which motivates you to achieve them so that it may feel satisfied and it may grow even more. It is pride (ego) which may tell you to stay away from alcohol and other such vices as they may weaken you and hence you may not achieve the goals set by it.
Doesn’t it sound strange that even such benefic and constructive looking goals are set by pride (ego) and they are even achieved with a big part of the help coming from pride (ego)? However, it is true and let’s consider an example in order to understand it. Suppose you’re a pure scientist, which means you’re an isolate intellectual type. You wish to accomplish a particular invention or discovery and you start working to achieve this goal.
Over the next few years, you make significant progress towards your goal though you feel that much is still needed to be done in order to witness the final result. Hence you start working more and you even start working from home, whenever you’re free. You’re so dedicated and focused in your approach that you may not even attend properly to your family or even to your daily needs.
You spend many more years, you work even harder and in a more dedicated way and finally, you achieve your target. You’ve reached the invention or discovery you wanted and it is a benefic as well as constructive thing for society as your invention may help mankind advance or it may facilitate the world in some other way. You set a benefic target, you worked hard, you were driven by your brain, you even dragged your body to over perform during this conquest and you finally achieved a heroic victory.
However, there may be variables which are hidden and which may skip your attention. Let’s look at these variables and see if this whole story is actually this benefic or not? You set a goal to discover something so that the entire mankind may be facilitated. It is good and benefic till here and it may change from here onwards.
Over the next few years, you realize that through your natural style of working, you may or may not achieve this goal in your lifetime. It means if you work hard for ten hours a day and you use the rest of the time to fulfil your other duties as well as to meet your daily requirements, you may or may not accomplish this task in your lifetime. The question is, what is wrong if you don’t achieve this goal in your lifetime?
You’re recording as well as saving all your research and it will remain available for the scientists of the coming generations. If you maintain your natural as well as balanced lifestyle, you may or may not see this discovery happening in your lifetime. If it happens in your lifetime, it is good. However, if it doesn’t happen in your lifetime, the coming scientists will resume your research from the point you left and they’ll complete this job. You see, in this case also, the discovery will finally be reached. So what is it which makes you think that you alone should finish this project in your lifetime, even if you have to make so many changes to your lifestyle?
The answer is the attachment of your pride (ego) to this project. Your pride (ego) is now attached to this project and it wants to see the completion of this project by you, so that the credit may be assigned to your name and that too in your presence which means in your lifetime. Since you’re an intellectual type of native, your pride (ego) may use your brain to convince you and hence your brain may give you a number of reasons to complete this project by yourself. Here are some of these reasons for better understanding.
Your brain may tell you that if you die without finishing this project, the scientists of the later generations may not be able to finish it and hence you have to take it to completion by yourself. This may look like a good reason but only to you or so to say, to your pride (ego) as it is only interested in a reason to justify its actions and it is not interested in the fact whether such reason is valid or not. If the reason is actually not a valid reason, your pride (ego) may convince you to believe it is. As you’re convinced, this is all your pride (ego) cares for.
Looking at this reason, throughout the history of mankind, brain has only been rising and it has not fallen. It means that on average, each generation is smarter than the previous generation and that is why we’ve been able to witness so much growth all around us. Hence the chances are fairly high that if you’re not able to complete this project in your lifetime, a scientist from the next generation may complete it. Therefore, this reason doesn’t hold good though it may look good to you, as your pride (ego) may have blurred your vision.
Then there may be another reason given by your pride (ego) that since you’ve started this project, you must see it through. This is the probably the best reason that your pride (ego) may give you. It may also tell you that all great men were great because they finished what they started and they did whatever it took to finish their tasks. It may remind you of many such great men from history who went above and beyond to finish what they started. Though it looks like a solid reason and you may not even find any logic against this reason, it is not so perfect in reality.
If it is the mark of a great man to finish what he started, then this set of beliefs should be applied to all the tasks or affairs undertaken by you and it should not be applied to this task alone. For instance, you married your wife long back with a spoken or unspoken promise that you’ll give her due time and attention that a wife deserves. Due time and attention means fair amount of them and it doesn’t mean anything unfair.
Similarly, when you brought a son to this world, it was once again your unspoken promise that you’d do the best in your power to raise him in the best possible way. Doing so once again demands proper time and attention from your side. Though there may be many other such tasks which you may have undertaken, let’s consider these two tasks for the time being.
When you start working day and night in order to finish this project in time as you want to obey the set of beliefs of ‘great men finish what they start’; do you apply this set of beliefs to these two spheres? The answer is no and this is what makes you a hypocrite. You start spending more and more time on your project and you start ignoring your wife, even against her wishes. Whenever she demands your attention which she duly deserves; you may silence her by giving her a number of reasons generated by your pride (ego).
She may have a number of grudges against you and many of them may be valid ones. You made promises to her and then you broke them. You undertook the job of being a husband and you failed at it or in other words, you left the mission of being a husband unfinished. You do the same to your son and you fail to complete the job of being a father in proper manner. Likewise, you may leave many such important jobs incomplete, in order to complete just one job.
The most interesting thing is that your pride (ego) motivates you that you must finish what you start, when it comes to finish this project. However, the same pride (ego) keeps silence when your wife or son tells you that you must properly finish what you started with them. It should be noted that pride (ego) is a perfect mutant and it can assume the form of your body, brain, heart and even that of your conscience at times. When that happens, though you may think a decision is coming from your brain or from your heart depending on the situation; it may be coming from your pride (ego) in reality as your pride (ego) is completely in charge of your brain or heart at that time.
It means when needed, your pride (ego) may become your physical body, it may become your brain, it may become your heart and it may even pretend to become your conscience. Going one step further, your pride (ego) tells you that their complaints are baseless and they’ll benefit the most when your project is finished. This approach is what makes you a hypocrite. You’re applying a particular set of beliefs to succeed at a particular thing in your life and you’re going against the same set of beliefs when it comes to many other spheres in your life; the perfect mark of a true hypocrite.
The word hypocrisy sets of beliefs over a large empire in today’s world and it is not as small as you may think. Though it may look like a simple word which may set of beliefs some natives or some spheres of their lives, it is not so. In reality, hypocrisy is ruling the maximum number of spheres of a majority of natives living in this day and age. In order to look at some of these examples, let’s first get to know the deeper meaning of the word called hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy in its deepest sense means saying one thing and doing another in order to benefit in all situations. It also means making different sets of beliefs for different natives under similar situations, in order to benefit in all situations. Hypocrisy also means strongly advocating a set of beliefs at a time and going against it at another time, in order to benefit in both situations. Likewise, all practices which lead you to engage in opposite types of actions at different times for your own benefit, when they should ideally have been the same, are called hypocrisy. Let’s take a look at some examples of hypocrisy.
My son should respect me though I don’t respect my father; this type of approach makes you a hypocrite. Going deeper, there may broadly be two sets of beliefs for this situation and following anyone of them in sense makes you honest. The first set of beliefs says that a son should respect his father. If you choose to stand by this set of beliefs, you should have respected your father. As you haven’t obeyed this set of beliefs, you’re not entitled to expect the others to obey it. Therefore, if you don’t respect your father but you expect your son to respect you, you’re a hypocrite as you’re not following the set of beliefs in its true sense.
Another set of beliefs may be made for this situation and this set of beliefs says that a son doesn’t need to respect his father. It doesn’t look like a good set of beliefs but let’s discuss it for the sake of clarity. If you choose to stick to this set of beliefs and this is why you don’t respect your father, there is no point in expecting respect from your son as that goes against this set of beliefs.
Hence if you don’t respect your father and you don’t expect your son to respect you either, you’re not a hypocrite. You may not be a very good native for not respecting your father but at least you’re honest and not a hypocrite. You understand that you don’t respect your father and accordingly you should not expect respect from your son. This is what makes you an honest native and not a hypocrite as you’re following the set of beliefs in both the cases. However, if you obey this set of beliefs when it comes to not respect your father and you expect your son to break this set of beliefs and respect you, you’re a hypocrite.
You see, whether you believe in the first set of beliefs or in the second one which is the exact opposite of the first one, you’re hypocrite in both the cases. An honest native is the one who follows a set of beliefs in its true sense and in all situations whereas a hypocrite follows a set of beliefs when doing so benefits him; and he chooses not to follow it when he sees loss in following it.
Taking a look at another example, you expect your wife to be loyal to you and at the same time, you think you may afford the luxury of being disloyal to her. If such is the case, you’re a hypocrite. An honest native follows one of the two sets of beliefs. The first one says that husband and wife should be loyal to each other whereas the second one says husband and wife need not be loyal to each other. If you go by the first set of beliefs, you can’t afford the luxury of being disloyal to your wife.
If you follow the second set of beliefs and you are disloyal to your wife, you can’t expect her to be loyal to you, according to the same set of beliefs. Hence if you’re following anyone of these sets of beliefs in true sense, you’re not a hypocrite and you’re an honest native though choosing to follow the second set of beliefs may question your character in different ways. However, when you follow one set of beliefs and you make another set of beliefs for your wife in a way that both these sets of beliefs end up facilitating you; you’re certainly a hypocrite.
Taking a different example, you go to a religious place and you ask Almighty for his grace. You do so because you believe in the set of beliefs that Almighty is far more resourceful than you and hence he helps the less resourceful ones. This is a good set of beliefs and there’s nothing wrong with it. However, as you step out of this religious place and a bagger asks you for any kind of help at all, you may try to avoid him or you may even treat him bad.
This happens in case of many natives and they don’t even realize that they may become hypocrites by engaging in this practice. This is because if the set of beliefs says that the more resourceful one should help the less resourceful one when the latter asks for such help, you should also help this bagger when he prays for help. However, you may not do so and to justify this situation, your pride (ego) may give you a number of reasons including the overall malefic character of the bagger asking for such help.
Have you ever realized that you too may be nothing more than this bagger when you pray to Almighty for help? You may have even more flaws in your character than this bagger may have. Since you expect Almighty to help you despite all your flaws, isn’t it fair to obey the same set of beliefs and help this bagger despite his flaws, even if such help is a really small one? However, you may not do so and you break this set of beliefs when it comes to help this bagger while expecting Almighty to follow the same set of beliefs when it comes to help you. This is what makes you a hypocrite.
In this case also, there are two sets of beliefs and following anyone of them in proper sense makes you honest. The first set of beliefs says that the more resourceful one should help the less resourceful one when the latter needs such help or prays for such help. If you go by this set of beliefs, you have the right to go to Almighty and ask for his help through your prayers. However, by choosing to go by this set of beliefs, you also become liable to help this bagger as well as all other natives who ask for your help from time to time. It doesn’t matter how much help you may actually be able to offer; and what matters is that you present yourself for such help.
For instance, when a bagger asks you for money and your financial status allows you to donate only one dollar without much trouble, even this much help is sufficient. Similarly, when you see an old man standing at the side of a road, looking for someone to help him cross this road, you are required to help this old man, according to the same set of beliefs that you believe in. It should be noted that this old man may not have asked you in particular for this help and he may be looking here and there in general for anyone to come and help him out of his situation.
This general prayer of this old man for help makes it compulsory for everyone following this set of beliefs to help him. The equation is simple, you believe in this set of beliefs and you want to benefit through this set of beliefs. This is why it becomes your duty to obey this set of beliefs at the other end also. Natives who pray to Almighty for his grace or help will agree that it is not only when they consciously pray to him that they expect him to help them; but they expect Almighty to help them even when they may suddenly fall into troubles and they don’t even have the time or sanity to pray to him for help.
The word ‘sanity’ in this context means that while driving, if you’re about to hit another vehicle head on head, you may completely lose your sanity for the time being due to a panic attack and hence you may not be able to pray to Almighty at this time. All your senses may get lost or distorted for the time being as you see a disaster so close to you. Hence you may not be able to pray to Almighty in this situation but you still expect him to help you, according to the same set of beliefs. If you’re able to avoid this accident by virtue of something uncalculated and miraculous, the first thing you may do after that is to thank Almighty. This is because you may feel that though you were not able to ask for his help at this time, he still came to help you, bound by this set of beliefs.
The situation is the same when this old man is looking for help in general. Hence if you believe in this set of beliefs and you ask for Almighty’s help through this set of beliefs, you can’t afford the luxury to ignore this old man in need, under the pretext that he’s not directly asking you to help. Even if this old man or anyone else for that matter looks out for help in general, which means anyone who may help should help, the set of beliefs you believe in binds you to help.
If you help natives in need as and when you can and as much as you can, you have due right to bind Almighty to help you according to the same set of beliefs. Believe it, he’ll always come to help you in this case. If you obey this set of beliefs in its true sense, you may find that whenever a problem falls on you and you feel incapable of dealing with it on your own, help comes in any shape or form and you get out of such problem. The most amazing thing is that most of the time, such help may come even before you pray to Almighty for such help.
You may call him very kind and caring, but in reality, all this is happening because you’ve bound Almighty with this set of beliefs by obeying it from your end, in its true sense. It means Almighty also has to obey it and as you can understand, he is perfectly capable of obeying any set of beliefs to its deepest sense. Hence if you become a native like this, he may not need a call for help and he may come to help you as soon as he feels that you’re in trouble and you may not be able to get out of it on your own. As soon as that happens, he sends help in different forms and shapes.
So if you believe in this set of beliefs; you help the needy ones and you expect Almighty to help you when you pray to him, your demand is fair and you’re an honest native. This is because you’re only expecting the same thing in return that you’re delivering. The equation looks perfectly balanced and this makes you a good, kind as well as an honest native.
However, if you keep praying to Almighty for help and at the same time, you don’t help the needy ones in most cases even when such acts of help may be small ones and you can easily afford them, you are certainly a hypocrite. This is because you want Almighty to follow this set of beliefs when you don’t follow it yourself. This is what makes you a hypocrite as you’re dealing in double standards.
The second and the opposite set of beliefs in this case is that no one should help anyone and everyone should manage his affairs on his own. It sounds like a strange set of beliefs which it may be, but even this one is fine as long as you obey it in its proper sense. If you choose to go by this set of beliefs, you don’t have the need to help anyone at all and hence you’re free from this so called burden. However, the same set of beliefs prohibits you from asking help from Almighty or from anyone, in time of need. Hence if you follow this set of beliefs, you should not ask anyone for help and you should face all your problems alone.
If you can do that, you’re certainly not a hypocrite and you’re an honest native, though you may not be a kind native as you don’t believe in helping anyone. However, being a kind native and being an honest native are different things. Even an unkind native can be honest and even a partly kind native can be dishonest. The phrase ‘partly kind’ has been used because as soon as kindness reaches its peak in your character, dishonesty vanishes. Hence an absolutely kind native can’t afford the luxury of being dishonest though a partly kind native may afford this luxury.
Moving on, the problem occurs when even with this set of beliefs, you choose one end and you ignore the other end. It means you don’t help anyone as you believe in this set of beliefs but at the same time, you ask Almighty or other natives for help or you expect them to help you in time of need. If such is the case, you’re a hypocrite as you want to do one type of thing to the others and you want the opposite type of thing to be done to you.
The word honesty includes this clause that you should expect same or similar things to be done to you, which you do to other natives or universe in general. Hence even a criminal who confesses his crime and who’s willing to serve the sentence may be honest and he may not be a hypocrite. This is because he realizes that if he harms others, he should only expect bad to happen to him. Since he’s following the set of beliefs of ‘spread evil and evil will come to you’ in its true sense, he’s honest, though he may be a criminal.
On the other hand, if a religious head asks you to be polite and to keep your pride (ego) under check, he’s also bound by the same set of beliefs. If you find him taking pride and pleasure in controlling natives under his command; he’s certainly a hypocrite. This is because he’s telling you to be polite and he’s himself being harsh to his subordinates, especially when there is no valid reason for this act of harshness and it is only being practiced in order to satisfy pride (ego). Hence he’s expecting the others to do one thing and he’s himself doing the opposite thing. This is what makes this religious head a hypocrite.
Hence the word hypocrisy sets of beliefs a big empire in today’s world and there’s almost no field where hypocrisy is not being practiced in one form or another. Taking a look at some other common examples of hypocrisy; not doing your job properly and expecting an early promotion is hypocrisy, making excuses instead of offering help when your friends are in need and expecting them to help you at the earliest when you need help is hypocrisy.
Similarly, getting offended when someone parks his car in your parking space and missing no opportunity to park your car in other native’s parking lot is hypocrisy. Listening to relatively loud music till midnight when you feel like doing so and prohibiting other members of your family to do so when they feel the same need but you don’t like it is hypocrisy. Expecting natives to love you truly when all you do is pretend to love them is a common form of hypocrisy. Expecting to be respected on account of your age like being a 70 year old native while behaving like a complete idiot or nonsense is hypocrisy.
Likewise, not giving equal rights to women is hypocrisy; talking ill about most natives when you want them to talk only good about you is hypocrisy; buying an expensive house in order to compete with a relative when you really can’t afford it at all is hypocrisy. Similarly, there are millions of examples from many spheres of life. In the last example, if you choose to buy a house even when you know you won’t be able to pay the installments on time, you’re a hypocrite. This is because you are aware of your incomes and accordingly you know how much extra money you can afford to pay the installments.
Your financial status doesn’t allow you to engage in this purchase but you still trouble yourself in order to appear richer than you are. Since you’re taking all this trouble to look what you are not and you duly know this fact, this is what makes you a hypocrite. If you’re an honest native, you’ll purchase a house which you can comfortably afford and you won’t land yourself as well as your family members into financial problems, only in order to look richer than you are.
Going back to you being a scientist, you’re obeying a set of beliefs to finish your project and you’re breaking the same set of beliefs in many other spheres of life. This is what makes you a hypocrite because if you believe in the set of beliefs of finish what you start, you should properly finish all other duties started by you. Hence the excuse given by your pride (ego) through your brain is once again not a valid one. Though there may be a number of other such excuses, we’ll skip them and we’ll now discuss the real reason.
The true reason behind this act is that with the development of brain, your pride (ego) has also developed. Pride (ego) also lies on the same level which is the second level and it has a strong ability to feed on all the entities lying on all the levels. It means pride (ego) can feed on physical form, it can feed on brain, it can feed on emotions and surprisingly, it can even feed on conscience at times or so it may seem to do. This is why pride (ego) is considered as the most difficult hurdle on your path to liberation because it keeps bothering you even till the very end.
If the journey of spiritual growth starts from 0 and liberation lies at 100; pride (ego) accompanies you till 99.9999999999~. It means pride (ego) accompanies you almost till the end. In fact, as soon as pride (ego) leaves you or you are able to leave it, you see the end of your journey at the very same moment. It is only because of pride (ego) that you’re not able to reach the end of your journey of liberation.
This is because one of the most important conditions to achieve liberation is that you can go there alone and no one can accompany you, which means nothing should be attached to your spirit except your unconscious. Hence as long as your pride (ego) is attached to your spirit, you’re not free and you simply can’t reach the destination called liberation. As soon as your spirit detaches itself from your pride (ego), the journey ends and your get a pass to the land of the liberal or so to say, the land of the free spirits.
As already mentioned, pride (ego) feeds on all other entities in your body and hence you don’t need hard effort to grow it as it keeps increasing its size by feeding on these entities. On the other hand, hard and dedicated effort is needed when you want to stop pride (ego) from feeding on the other important entities. Starting from your body, if there’s anything worthy of attention in your body, your pride (ego) may feed on it. This means if your face is beautiful and natives keep telling you this, your pride (ego) may get attached to your facial beauty and it may start feeding on it.
As a result, you may be able to notice that out of all your body parts, you tend to pay special attention to your face. Most natives in general may pay more attention to their faces as the attachment of pride (ego) in general is the maximum with face, when it comes to body parts. This is because among all body parts, majority of natives consider facial beauty as the most important type of physical beauty. Hence everyone may feel cautious about how his or her face looks because he or she knows that most natives may be judging his or her beauty from his or her face.
When it comes to pride (ego), it gets satisfied the most when it gets to know that it has something which others don’t have or it is far ahead of other natives in a race or it has some other unique advantage over the others. Hence it always encourages you to be someone special, do something special or have something special. The best way your pride (ego) may become certain that you have that extra edge in any field is through the recognition of natives.
This is the primary reason for most natives to run in one type of race or another and almost all these races end at the points where natives acknowledge that you have something special in you, whether that something special is your face, your house, your car, your job, your money, your achievements, rewards, prizes, your father, your wife, your husband or anything else for that matter. All your pride (ego) wants in order to feel satisfied as well as to grow is for natives to recognize that you have something special.
This is why when a number of natives tell you that you’re beautiful and they mean facial beauty, you become more aware about your face. This is because as more and more natives tell you that your face is special, your pride (ego) gets attached to it and it feels satisfied each time one such complement is given to you. As it wants to feel satisfied every now and then; it tends to pay extra attention to anything which brings it such satisfaction.
In the present case, your pride (ego) is attached to your face as it knows your face is one of those possessions of yours, which can bring complements and satisfy it through those complements. Hence it gets attached to your face and as a result, it starts controlling the degree of attention you pay to your face, through your unconscious mind. It means that even if you don’t notice it consciously, you start paying more attention to your face and you start taking much more care of your face, compared to your other body parts.
This is why you may find that natives who have more facial beauty than average tend to be more cautious about their faces compared to other natives. On the other hand, natives who may have ugly faces according to the standards of beauty set by society (though nothing or no one is ugly in reality) may be less or much less cautious about their faces. The former type of natives know that their faces may bring them something to feel good whereas the latter type of natives know that their faces are not going to bring them anything to feel good.
Therefore the faces of the former type are the winning horses and hence they take care of their faces, a lot more than average natives do. The latter type of natives know that their faces are the losing horses and hence they may not want to pay much attention to them. Since a native of the latter type may also have reasonably developed pride (ego), his pride (ego) may find something else which is special about him, it may get attached to such things and it may make him pay more attention to those things or aspects of his character.
Similar to the face, your pride (ego) gets attached to anyone of your body parts which may bring attention as well as appreciation and accordingly; which may satisfy it as well as give it the chances to grow bigger. This is why natives with fit and curvy bodies may tend to wear tight fits so that they may flaunt their curves, natives may notice those curves and they may appreciate them. Through such appreciation whether it comes through words or looks, pride (ego) gets its diet and it feels satisfied.
Have you ever noticed that a number of men with well-built arms tend to wear dresses which put their arms on display? Have you noticed that a number of females who have well shaped bottoms tend to wear dresses which project their hips in a way that they draw attention more than any other body part of theirs? Have you ever noticed that a number of natives having athletic bodies keep flexing their bodies in public places in a way that lets other natives know and appreciate the fact that they have flexible and athletic bodies?
There are many other such acts of physical display that all of us may engage in, from time to time. The primary reason behind all these acts is the feel good variable that comes through the appreciation of other natives. Some of you may even feel that the appreciation of other natives increases your confidence and you tend to do better in your life. This feel good variable generated due to the attention and appreciation of other natives is nothing but a shade of pride (ego). It means the entity in your body, which feels good through all such appreciation; is your pride (ego) and no other entity.
The confidence that you gain when other natives appreciate you is not the true type of confidence which is an attribute of your conscience; and it is instead an illusionary confidence which is the ornament of your pride (ego). You may wonder how confidence can be true or false and you may think that confidence is confidence. However, it is not so and even confidence can be illusionary like many other qualities.
The word confidence in its deepest sense means your ability to be aware that you can do a particular thing or you’re good enough to handle particular situations. Confidence is your ability to be aware about a quality of yours or even about your overall benefic or malefic character and it has got nothing to do with other natives. In order to develop any ability in its truest sense, you and only you are involved and no one else is there in the picture.
If you’re a good artist, you can be confident about your acting abilities in two ways. The first ways is that you let other natives decide whether your acting is good or not and based on their feedback, your confidence in your acting abilities may rise and fall. It means when a number of natives tell you that a piece of acting or your acting performance in a particular movie which may have just released is good or very good; you may start feeling more confident about your acting. Hence you may deliver an even better performance in your next movie.
However, if majority of natives tell you that your acting performance in this movie is very bad or they don’t appreciate your acting performance and your confidence starts going down, even when there may be no good reason for it, this confidence is illusionary and it is not the real thing. This is because appreciation from other natives may build it and criticism from other natives may destroy it. Hence this confidence is not coming from inside you and it is rather coming from the natives around you. In reality, natives can make you feel confident at any time and they can also make you lose this confidence at any time, through the type of feedback they give you.
Hence if natives appreciate your performance in a particular movie, your confidence rises. If your performance is criticized in the next movie, your confidence falls. The performance in the movie after that is once again appreciated and your confidence rises once again. You face criticism for the very next movie and your confidence is lost once again. After looking at all these incidents, do you really think you have confidence in your acting abilities?
The answer as you know by now is no. There is not much contribution from your part as far as building confidence is concerned and it is only the natives around you who are making and destroying your confidence at their discretions. Since the amount of confidence you have at any time is being controlled by other natives, you actually don’t have true confidence to start with and you’re only living in the illusion of rising and falling confidence.
Let’s look at another probability in the same case. You deliver an acting performance in a movie and natives appreciate it a lot. However, you already know the quality of your performance in advance as you are very much aware of the quality of acting produced by you. Hence you don’t feel your confidence is boosted a lot by their appreciation as all these natives are only telling you something that you already know. Though you may still humbly acknowledge their appreciations, it may not make much difference inside you.
Suppose your next movie fails and most natives criticize your performance. If your confidence is true, you have two options from here. If the criticism generated by these natives is valid, which means you also know that this acting performance was below your standard, you may acknowledge it but you don’t witness even the smallest decline in your confidence. In fact, you may already know before the release of this movie that your performance may be criticized as you feel that it is not up to the mark, due to various reasons.
Hence all these natives may not be telling you anything new and they may only be telling you something that you already know. Accordingly, this criticism doesn’t do much to damage your confidence as you already know the reasons for your not so good performance in this movie and you may even have starting working on them, by the time this movie is released. In this case, the chances are high that you may come back with a very good performance in your next movie, even if no one tells you how good or bad your performance in this movie is.
The second option is that though the movie has failed, you are duly aware that you’ve done justice to your performance and there’s nothing wrong with your performance. You also understand that when a movie fails, different natives blame different team members of such movie. Accordingly, some of them are blaming you for the failure of this movie as you may be the lead star of this movie. In this case, you’re once again not bothered by this criticism because you know that natives criticizing you are mistaken and you know for sure that your performance is good.
Hence your confidence is once again not altered by their opinions. It can be seen that if you’re truly confident, your confidence is neither built by natives around you nor it is destroyed by them. Your confidence is coming from your faith in your acting abilities as well as from your awareness about how good or bad you perform in a particular movie. If you feel your performance has dropped in any particular movie or in any particular scene of a movie, you may notice it before other natives do, you may find out the reason for this and you may hit back after taking care of that reason.
As long as the reactions of natives around you control a quality of yours, you don’t have it in true sense as such natives can build or destroy this quality at any time. If a quality truly belongs to you, you and only you can control it and no one else can. Hence if you’re truly confident about a thing, you’ll remain confident even if the entire world stands in opposition. Even if the opinion of the entire world against you can destroy your confidence in a thing, such confidence is illusionary and it is not true confidence.
Imagine what may happen if all seven hundred billion natives on this earth start telling the Sun that they don’t like it for being a burning sphere and they want it to look cool? Do you think influenced by their opinions, Sun will stop burning and it will start being cool like the Moon? You already know the answer. Sun has true confidence that being a burning sphere is the best thing it does and hence it keeps doing so, whether natives appreciate it or criticize it for doing that. This is what true confidence means. If you have it, only you can control it and no one else can.
Similarly, if all natives on earth start appreciating the Sun for being a burning sphere, Sun won’t start burning more fuel and being hotter. This is because neither the appreciation nor the criticism of others affects its confidence and hence it keeps doing what it believes in. This is what true confidence means, it rises from inside you and it remains unaffected by others. How can you call it your confidence if natives outside or the circumstance outside can control it?
Suppose you’re a billionaire at a time when even being a millionaire is considered rich. Do you need to ask other natives in this case whether or not you’re financially rich? No, you don’t need to ask anyone as you already know very well that you’re a very rich native according to the prevailing standards of measuring financial richness. This richness is true as it comes because of enough money and wealth possessed by you and not because of other native’s certificates. Taking a look at another probability in the same case, do you think if a number of natives start telling you that you’re a financially poor native; you’ll forget that you have billions and you’ll start feeling that you’re poor?
You know that it may not make much difference to you whether these natives consider you rich or not; as you already know you’re rich. Hence you don’t need to learn this fact from other natives and the money as well as wealth you have is sufficient to let you know that you’re rich. The same holds for a poor native also. It means if you have no job, not much money and no assets at all, you know that you’re financially poor according to the prevailing measures. Hence even if everyone keeps telling you that you’re a financially rich native when you don’t even have enough to eat; you won’t believe them and you’ll know for sure that you’re financially poor.
In the first case, the presence of money tells you that you’re rich and in the second case, the absence of money tells you that you’re poor. It means the presence of a quality within you should tell you that it is there and not the natives outside. Just as the opinions of natives can’t control the amount of money you have, their opinions should not control the amount of a quality that you have. You’re the best judge when it comes to assess how much money or wealth you have at a time since other natives may not know the exact equation of money in your case. Likewise, you’re the best judge of all other things you have, like a quality; and not other natives.
As these natives are judging this quality from outside which means through your expressions; they can’t assess it properly because this quality actually lies inside and not outside. Since you alone have the access to look inside where this quality actually lies; only you can judge it in the best possible way. If you have diamonds worth billions inside a locker that you only can open; no one but you knows how many diamonds are there at any point in time.
Accordingly; when someone tells you that you have 100 diamonds at this time inside your locker; you may not bother much as you know that he’s making a random guess and the number of diamonds you have is 500. Hence his opinion doesn’t matter and only your awareness about the number of diamonds you have; is the true measure of knowledge in this case. Similarly, if this native tells you that you have 700 diamonds inside your locker; even that may not make much difference to you as you know that the actual number of diamonds is 500.
Taking one more example, a baby remains truly confident of whatever he does, as long as he doesn’t develop or become aware of his intellectual abilities. For instance, a baby knows that he has the right to jump onto his mother as and when he is in need of milk. He has this confidence and hence he doesn’t ask anyone whether this act is good or bad. All he cares for is that he wants milk and he knows how he can get it.
Try doing a thing. Don’t try to physically force this baby away from his mother but whenever he tries to feed on his mother, start criticizing him for this act and start telling him that he should not do it. Also start telling him that he should instead feed on bottled milk and feeding on his mother is essentially a bad thing. You’ll find that as long as this baby doesn’t develop brain, all your criticism won’t affect him even in the least and this baby will keep feeding on his mother with the same confidence. Even if the whole world tells this baby that feeding on his mother is bad, he won’t stop. This is what true confidence is, unaffected by the natives or circumstances outside.
However, as and when this baby develops significant amount of brain, try doing the same thing to him and you’ll feel that it starts affecting him. If more and more natives start criticizing this baby for feeding on his mother and they start telling him that he should feed on bottled milk, the baby may start losing confidence and he may start hesitating to approach his mother, whenever he feels like having milk. Through a series of criticism, you can actually convince this baby to feed on bottled milk instead of feeding on his mother’s milk.
On the other hand, if you start appreciating this baby a lot, for feeding on his mother’s milk and you keep telling him that it is the best thing to do in the world, the results may change. This baby may keep feeding on his mother’s milk much longer than he may have, if outside intervention was not there to affect him. Another interesting thing is that even if this baby starts feeding on bottled milk, affected by your criticism, your appreciation or criticism for this act can once again increase or decrease his level of confidence. It means your continuous criticism can make him quit the bottle also and use something else that you may suggest.
Looking at this experiment, you’ll find that as long as the baby doesn’t develop or become aware of brain, he remains truly confident about whatever he wants to do and feeding on mother’s milk is just one of those acts. However, as this baby develops brain and as he starts discriminating between good and bad, his confidence may start getting affected by the circumstances or natives outside. It should be noted that in most cases, the criteria for discrimination between right and wrong is supplied by natives and it may not come from inside the baby.
For example, if you keep telling this baby that it is bad for a kid above one year to feed on his mother’s milk and he should start feeding on bottled milk instead, this is what the definition of right and wrong about milk-feed may become for him. It means this baby may not only stop feeding on his mother’s milk but he may also register this statement in his mind as a set of beliefs that a baby older than one year should not feed on his mother’s milk. Hence he may reflect the same opinion when he gets old and he has his own babies.
You see, you’ve conditioned this baby and you have even controlled the roots of his brain. It should be noted that brain works on the basis of calculation and analysis of facts and logics gathered by it over time and hence its correct or incorrect working depends on whether such facts and logics are correct or not. Therefore, if you can control the basic facts and logics which are supplied to a kid during early ages, you can control the type of brain he may develop.
Coming back to the example, as long as your opinions don’t affect the actions of this baby, he remains truly confident about almost whatever it does. This is why you may find that until the kids start developing brain, they’re the happiest. This is because their confidence remains unadulterated as other natives can’t affect it positively or negatively. However, as soon as they start developing brain, the appreciation or criticism of other natives may start controlling the kind of confidence they have in an activity or in their overall characters.
Hence true confidence rises from inside you and it remains unaffected by the appreciation as well as criticism offered by other natives. True confidence is the ornament of conscience whereas illusionary confidence is the ornament of pride (ego). Since the attributes of the spirit/unconscious rise from it, they remain unaffected by the opinions of other natives. On the other hand, the favourite diet of pride (ego) is the attention and appreciation of other natives.
This is why it feels good when other natives appreciate you or they pay attention to you and this is why your pride (ego) feels bad when other natives criticize or ignore you. Hence if other natives can control your confidence, it is a sign that such confidence is coming from your pride (ego) and not from your conscience. As and when you feel that your confidence in something remains unaffected by the opinions of other natives, you’ve become truly confident.
This is one aspect of liberation, having true confidence which rises from within you instead of depending on other natives. Liberation means freedom and accordingly, a liberated spirit is free and it doesn’t depend on outside natives or circumstances for anything it wants to practice or feel. If you’re dependent on other natives to feel confident, you’re not liberated as you’re not free and you’re bound to these natives. This is because the happiness of a liberated native depends only on himself and on nothing else. It means whenever a liberated native wants to feel happy, he can feel happy no matter what is going outside.
On the other hand, a non-liberated native may not feel happy even if he wants to, if the outside circumstances want to make him sad. It should be noted that liberation is complete freedom from each and every condition. On the opposite end of this spectrum; lies the state called complete dependence which means that other natives and outside circumstances control almost each and everything that a native in such state may want to do or feel.
The ultimate task of each spirit is to start from the point of absolute dependence and reach the point of absolute freedom. On the way to this journey, there are many milestones as well as points and this is why various natives on this journey may be at different points or milestones. It means a native may entirely depend on the feedback of the others in order to feel confident or happy. This native is at the beginning of this journey as the dependence variable is high.
Another native may depend on the opinions of other natives for certain things and he may not want their opinions for some other things or he may partly depend on other natives for his happiness or confidence and he may partly rely on himself also. This native is a mixture of true confidence and illusionary confidence and he may be somewhere around the middle of his journey. Yes, natives can be mixtures of true and illusionary confidence or happiness and this is what majority of us are.
Only a rare few natives lie at the extreme ends of this journey, which means only a few natives may be found absolutely dependent or absolutely free. It is the natives in between, who are found in majority. For instance, if the state of absolute dependence is zero and the state of absolute freedom is hundred on a scale, natives having zero or hundred are rare to find. Most natives will have scores between 1 and 99 as they’re on their journeys from 0 to 100.
If a native is at 50, it means half of his confidence or happiness may depend on other natives and half of it may come from inside. In practical terms, the criticism of other natives can damage the confidence of this native up to a point and not beyond that. The 50% of his illusionary confidence may be destroyed whereas the remaining 50% which is his true confidence can’t be altered. For instance, if most natives around him tell him that on a scale of 1 to 10 for physical beauty, he’s a 3, this is what may happen.
His true confidence may tell him that he’s certainly a 5 at the least and his illusionary confidence may keep adding or not adding a score of 1 to 5. It means when appreciated the most by other natives, his illusionary confidence or his pride (ego) may add a score of 5 to the score assigned by his true confidence. Hence he may think that he’s 10 out of 10, at one such time. When this appreciation becomes less but it is still there, his pride (ego) may add a score of 2 and he may think that he’s 7 at that time. Likewise, if all natives around him don’t appreciate his physical beauty, the score added by the pride (ego) may drop to zero and he may start feeling like being a 5.
Moving ahead, if a number of natives around him start telling him that he’s a 2 or 3, he may not believe it. This is because a score of 5 is coming from his true confidence and hence it can’t be altered by other native’s opinions. Therefore, if natives around him keep telling him that he’s a 5 or anything above a 5, he may believe them because the score above five is dealt with by his pride (ego) and hence it is variable.
However, when such natives try to make him believe that he’s a 2 or a 3, he may not believe. This is because these natives can only control his illusionary confidence and not his true confidence. Accordingly; they can alter the score above 5 but they can’t alter the score up to 5. Hence when such natives tell him that he’s a 2, he won’t bother much and he may think such natives don’t know how to assign scores. He’s confident that he’s at least a 5 and no one can convince him against it. This is how we work, as most of us are mixtures of different percentages of dependence and freedom.
More this percentage shifts towards dependence, more we’re affected by other natives whereas more this percentage moves towards freedom, freer we are from other native’s opinions. This is why you may see various natives having different levels of confidence or happiness and you may also see the same native possessing different levels of confidence at different times.
If that happens, it means this native is a mixture of true and illusionary confidence. Hence his confidence is varying between the point of true confidence and the scores added by the illusionary confidence, based on the benefic or malefic feedback of natives.
Himanshu Shangari