Nayaswami Jamuna Snitkin
There is a folktale called “God Is Coming To Dinner?’ One day, a lady receives in the mail a letter that states, “Please prepare a meal for me tonight. I will be coming to your house for dinner. Love, God”
She was poor and lived frugally, so this was a big request. Her heart and soul were thrilled. And so as she hadn’t done the shopping for the week’s groceries yet, she took her basket and walked down the road to the store. After choosing bread, cheese and some eggs she began her journey home. At a dusty alleyway there stood two people looking nearly starved and ragged. They pleaded for food. The woman told them she had an important guest and couldn’t spare any food for them. Turning away, she had gone a few feet when their plight grabbed her heart and returning to them she handed over the basket of food. On the way home she was searching for a solution to fixing a dinner. When she opened her front door there on the table was another letter. It said “Dear Friend –Thank you! That was a delicious dinner we shared, God”.
A heart and mind open to God, free of thoughts of self draws God to our “house” to sup with Him. Communion with God is perfect self-transcendence. Ah, but what a lot of housecleaning we must do! What is the obstruction? It is the ego, our old friend and foe. It is that part of ourselves that wants all the attention!
One day, two friends, Rabbit and Beaver, went for a stroll in the countryside. They came upon a large dam. It was a towering concrete structure unlike anything they had ever seen. Rabbit was quite impressed. He turned to Beaver and said, “Is this your work?” Beaver replied “No, but you could say it was based on an idea of mine.” Ah, you see: the ego! It’s always craving the credit.
If we continue to lead with the ego we will get hit. Life will oppose us in just the way we puff ourselves up.
There is foreign language whose definition of the word “ego” translates into something like this: “Ego: a face looking for a fist”.
Be grateful for the people who are on your case, for those who call you on your wrong attitudes. These experiences are painful (to the ego), and challenge your sense of self. But that’s a good thing, if we understand from a higher level. In the rigorous training Paramhansa Yogananda received from his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, the battlefield was Yogananda’s ego and his soul won. He wrote (in Autobiography of a Yogi), “In time, I demolished every wall of rationalization and subconscious reservation behind which the human personality generally shields itself.”
Until we understand that the spiritual path is rigorous and exacting, and that it takes courage to walk it, we will spend a time living in a walled city of self-defensiveness. The bricks that we erect to protect this city of the ego are self-justification, self-importance, over-sensitivity, and blame. As Swami Kriyananda once put it: “The fruits of ego are green, unripe and therefore sour”.
Be a spiritual warrior. Let God take charge of your life, so you become a living temple open to visits from the King of kings.