The Biggest Enemy

One day, a monk came to Shri Gautam Swami and asked him, "O great Swami! I have a question. You live amongst so many enemies, still how you keep yourself calm? How would you conquer your enemies?"

Gautam Swami replied sweetly, "I only conquer my biggest enemy, thereafter I easily win among other four. Then after conquering four enemies, I easily conquer another ten enemies. After conquering these ten enemies, all other enemies disappear."

The puzzled monk inquired, "Who these enemies are?" Gautam Swami replied, "The most terrible of the enemies is the ego, the arrogance of self. Due to this darkness of ego and ignorance, I lose the highest humane quality of empathy towards others. Once I conquer my own ego, I easily win over another four enemies, namely - anger, deceit, pride and greed. After conquering these four, the other ten enemies are also easily defeated. These ten enemies create temptations for our five senses causing us to wander in the world of lies and illusion. These ten enemies are associations we create with ourselves using our five senses creating the definitions of good or bad words, smell, touch, visions and taste. On dissociating myself with these definitions, I could see myself very clearly within. Once I am able to dissociate my inner self and finding true freedom, I could see that all other enemies disappear on its own. I get extreme and limitless strength to conquer anything and any other enemy thereafter."

The monk asked a final question, "But how would one clean his or her self so that he or she can win over ego in the beginning. This happens due to poisonous plant growing in the mind, how can a person destroy this poisonous plant?" Gautam Swami responded, "One needs to understand that he or she does not need to water this poisonous plant. The water for this plant is worldly desires. This desire waters the plant of ego. Once a person understands this and leaves the desire for worldly pleasure and comforts, the path to ultimate bliss opens up. These pleasures and comforts would also come to him or her while walking down this path, but he or she would not waste the precious time of life in desiring such wishes."

Story Credit: The post is being taken and inspired with story shared by one of our Facebook member to our Facebook page: Payal Tated