Superiority And Inferiority – In Gita Verse 2.8 I can find no means to drive away this grief which is drying up my senses. I will not be able to dispel it even if I win a prosperous, unrivalled kingdom on earth with sovereignty like the demigods in heaven.
To become aware of our unconsciousness and accept it is the first step towards dropping the ego.
By saying this “I can find no means to drive away this grief which is drying up my senses” man like Arjuna, who was aware of his strength, and accepts that with all my strength I am so much in the grief, by saying this he keeps aside his ego and surrenders to Krishna, is willing to act on assignment of universe.
With our awareness of petty strength how rudely we start behaving. Look at your own behaviour with little ability, more access to people and opportunities than others, how we behave with others. Because we don’t know how to hold our superiority and inferiority. This is the reason why neither we nor people around us can grow. In both the cases either we are superior or inferior we become unconscious towards ourselves.
Let me explain by giving two examples which will give you clarity how to hold our superiority and inferiority:
1. Examples of superiority – TATA – whole Jamshedpur and Mithapur are developed by TATA. In either of the towns the population was adivasis, before they took over. When TATA decided to develop these towns he did not say that I am superior to you in many ways. What he said is how we can work together for the development of the towns. Everyone was having different talents and he created opportunities for them. Today not only the whole town is stable with infrastructure, jobs, education, etc, but also parents who were uneducated their children are studying abroad and also working abroad, lifestyle gave them confidence and dignity as human beings.
TATA could hold his superiority and made the population over there to grow, live the life of self-respect and made them financially independent. Adivasi became emperor from bagger. To make anyone a beggar or a slave is very easy but to give them dignity is very difficult.
Try to give at least one person dignity in your life and see how much joy you will get. By giving dignity to others you will be stacking your ego. A Wonderful journey.
2. Second example is of Sabari – how to hold inferiority. When Rama came to Sabari, who was Princess of Bhil King. With a certain authority of herself. Irrespective of Rama’s superiority Sabri was not afraid to present herself. She did not become prey to her inferiority. She knew very well why Rama came to her. As she was a princess and knew the strategy to fight with demons. Still she gave the eaten fruits to Rama to eat. Till the time she was not sure that Rama would use her strategy or not, she has not disclosed it. If some higher authority comes to us how eager we become, excited to do anything or give our ideas to them before they ask. This is because we become unconscious towards ourselves.
When we become capable of holding our superiority and inferiority, we can come out of our unconsciousness and become conscious towards self. Ego enjoys and is nourished by both, superiority and inferiority.
Ego is comparative – it always compares itself with others – and the self is not comparable. When you know yourself it is neither inferior, nor superior in comparison to anybody, it is simply itself. But the ego is comparative; if you feel superior to somebody, you are bound to feel inferior to somebody else. So the ego is a very tricky phenomenon: on the one hand it makes you feel superior, on the other hand it makes you feel inferior. It keeps you in a double bind, it goes on pulling you apart, it drives you crazy.
On the one hand you know that you are superior to your servant, but what about your boss? You force the servant to surrender to you, and you surrender to your boss. You force your servant or your wife or your children to be slaves to you. And to your boss you wag your tail.
How can you be blissful? Both things are wrong. To make others feel inferior is violent, it is a crime against existence; and to make yourself feel inferior before somebody is again a crime against existence. When you know the real self, both things disappear. Then you are you, and the other is the other, and there is no comparison; nobody is superior and nobody is inferior.
This is what real spiritual communism is, but this is possible only when self-knowledge has happened. The Communists Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, are not true communists. They lived in the ego. The real communists are Gautam Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu; nobody knows them as such, but they are real communists because if you understand their vision, all comparison disappears. And when there is no comparison, there is communism. Equality is possible only when comparison disappears from the world.
Reading Arjuna’s words again, he says that I am so much in grief that “I will not be able to dispel it even if I win a prosperous, unrivalled kingdom on earth with sovereignty like the demigods in heaven.” He, without comparing not only with others but with himself, his own strength, that by this war I will not be able to dispel myself from the grief, even though I may be recognised as demigods in heaven. No comparison even with himself also. Being totally aware of all his physical, mental, emotional strength, he finds himself helpless.
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