You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself ~ Acharya Prashant
Questioner (Q): Pranam Acharya Ji, you write here “You are scared of yourself.” This quote — “You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.” What does that mean”?
Acharya Prashant (AP): There are two or three “you’s” in that statement. The questioner is quoting me to me. The quote says “You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself.” How many “you’s” do you see in that statement? How many instances of “you”? Three. The first two refer to one thing. And the last one refers to something dimensionally different. The first two refer to?
Q: Ego.
AP: Of course. The first two refer to the small self. The small self or the Ego. And the third one, “yourself”, refers to? “You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself.” In this, “yourself” refers to the best that you can be. The Great Self. The Truth. Classically, the Ātman, and classically the first two “you’s” will refer to Ahaṃ, the Ego. The third one refers to, you could say the dissolved Ego, the ascended Ego, the purified Ego.
So the Ego is afraid of its own betterment. That’s what that statement says. The Ego is so used to its littlenesses, to its familiar excuses of powerlessness and worthlessness, that it just cannot tolerate coming to a point where its usual excuses do not hold anymore. It’s almost like telling a fat guy “You can run 100 meters in 10 seconds” and he can. The fellow might be just 22. He has a lot of time. He can shed weight and he’s well-built. He has all the basic biological ingredients needed to be athletic. But he has a lot of additional stuff. A lot of flab, and a lot of habit.
So you call him and tell him “You know what, you cannot run too fast. I don’t think you can run too fast.” And he is happy. He’s happy even though what you are telling him is a statement of his limitation. What you were saying to him is a declaration of his limitation and powerlessness and incapability. But he’ll be happy with that. “Oh yes, yes. Yeah. You are quite right. I don’t think I can run too fast.”
But call him and tell him “In one year, you can be the next Usain Bolt.” And he’ll be scared. Because this one year will be the one year of paying up. He’ll have to shed a lot. He’ll have to give up a lot. The Ego doesn’t want to give up. That’s what the scare is all about.
Because betterment of the Ego is nothing but the reduction of the Ego.
Who wants to reduce? We all want to accumulate. We all want to be bigger. We don’t want to be smaller. In the case of the Ego, betterment is not getting bigger. Betterment implies getting smaller and the Ego does not want to get smaller. Who wants to get smaller? Nobody. So, therefore, the scare.
You knew that already, right? You just want to, for some unknown reason, hear it in my voice.
