A vain and egotistical Emperor who cared for nothing but his appearance hires two tailors who are con men that promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. The Emperor rewards the duo handsomely for their remarkable 'craftsmanship'. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession, deciding never to be so vain again and to take his position more seriously.
Hmmm....find anything similar between the emperor's pitiful situation and yours...??? So many of us today are trying to keep up with so many pretenses just like the foolish emperor. Some of them we do knowingly and some even unknowingly. The key word here is 'ego'. Today we are all muddled under layers and layers of expressions of our ego that we have forgotten our own self, we have completely lost track of who we are...deep down. Deep down we are the 'Pure Spirit' and as a spirit the first and foremost thing on our minds should be to venerate the Divine. But instead the first and foremost thing on most of the people's mind today is money, lust, revenge, hunger for more. People today identify themselves with something they do or some idea they have in mind. If you are a Doctor then you are just that, you develop an ego based on your profession. If you are an investment banker then you are just that. There is no other identity for you! You start thinking that based on your position you need to get a certain amount of money, certain amount of respect, interact with only such and such type of people, do only such and such chores...today everything going wrong with the world is because of man's ego, is because man is not able to see beyond himself. If you for a moment come out and see all the modern world setups you will realize how people have built establishments based not on just their ego but also on the past ego of so many others.
Today the state is such that only 'Money' gives a man security, only 'Sex' satisfies a man, only 'Scientific Know-How' quenches a man's thirst for knowledge...in the name of progress man has driven himself deeper and deeper into the realms of self-destruction because all his activities today are anti-Divine. if you refer to my previous post about old Doordarshan serials then we see that most of the programs airing on TV those days were 'family oriented' but today there are individual channels even for a toddler...then where is the question of sitting and watching a program together as a family??? When we are unable to get over our egos even at the level of a family setting then how will we get over our regional and national problems without letting go of our ego and thinking of the greater good? Today a wife is too ego-oriented to depend on the husband for money or vice-versa, today everybody wants to be independent in everything and all modern day amenities are directed towards that. What we do not realize is that the burgeoning world population and the gradual failure of all man-made edifices go to prove that only a collective community living in harmony without imposing individual egos on one another is going to succeed. It is only a matter of time when this truth will prevail. Until then, try not to be like the foolish emperor but like the innocent child who sees the world as-is...without the weight of his ego! Oh and I know it is very difficult to get rid of Mr. Ego because that is the bane of human civilization but still there is a very hard-to-believe-it-is-so-simple-and-actually-works technique called Sahaja meditation...try it and see if you can bring your Mr. Ego under control and enjoy the change in your perspective....
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