Social ego
There is another, one more play of ego which we all nurture well – what is called social ego.
What is this social ego?
You feel that your life is highly private to yourself and that no one should be exposed to it. Also, there is a social image that you have created for yourself which you safeguard.
For example, people come to me to discuss their child's erratic ways. But they are not comfortable when there are others around. You don't want others to know about these things because you have this built up 'image' in the eyes of society for yourself and your family members. If you let people in on your family matters, you feel like you are exposing your whole self to them. You are afraid that your image might come crashing down and there will be nothing to prop you up in society. This is social ego.
The image that you have so painstakingly built, the image which has become the identity with which you identify yourself in society, is at stake. It is more of an identity for yourself than for others! If you can show yourself and your family just as you are, you will be more relaxed because then there will be no pressure to cover up anything.
Of course, you might say, 'Swamiji, the only reason we want to keep these things a secret is, we don't want people to start gossiping about it.' Let me tell you: No one is qualified to talk about another. If they talk, they are fools. Remember this and automatically the power you give to them and their talk will simply disappear. It is you who have given them the power to affect you, is it not? Now, that power will disappear.
Just decide and live like an open book, that's all. By seeing your courage and body language, people will automatically understand that it is not going to help gossiping about you! Drop your social ego and live without any privacy. It is a great liberation.
Because of our social ego, we are all the time so self-conscious also. We are self-conscious because we think that people are looking and talking about us all the time. Be very clear: When you are self-conscious, you are very egoistic. You think that you are a big entity and that everyone's eyes are on you all the time. People actually have better things to do!
If you thought that you were a 'nobody', would you be self-conscious? Only because you think you are a 'somebody' you are self-conscious. And on top of it, you think that you are exhibiting humility by being self-conscious. That is the danger!
When you become self-conscious, you are living and yet not living. It is like a barrier to your beauty and grace. Your beauty does not come forth freely because of this. Look at animals and nature. They flow so beautifully and freely. Why is it so? Because they are not self-conscious. They are simply happy just being one with Existence. The moment you start thinking that people are watching you, ego has stepped in and you lose your natural beauty.
Children are not as self conscious as adults are. If you watch them play, you will see: There will be so much beauty and innocence in the whole thing. Even when you take pictures of yourself, you will notice that pictures taken without you being aware that you are being photographed look much better than the ones taken asking you to pose for the camera!
The moment you are asked to pose, you become self-conscious. Your ego is afraid as to how the picture might come out. The self-conscious ego is all the time calculating the pros and cons in everything. It is all the time weighing others' eyes and opinions and losing out on its own freedom.
Even in our meditation classes, if you see, I tell you to tie your eyes with the eye bands given to you before starting the meditation techniques. But what do you do first? You first see if the other person is tying his eyes properly! Some of you don't do the meditation properly because you are self-conscious of the volunteers and me who have our eyes open! You do the meditation in a restrained fashion and end up losing the very purpose of coming to the meditation camp.
When you stop calculating and start being innocent and open, you will be filled with wonder and freshness all the time. Life will never become dull and restrained for you.
Also, the innocent person never does any harm to anyone because to do harm, they need to calculate. Even if they do harm unknowingly, people will not get hurt because they know that they didn't really mean it. Their very body language will speak out their innocence and stand by them.