April 3, 2025 • 10 mins
Today's unplanned reflection explores spiritual ego—that subtle feeling of superiority that can arise when we believe we're more enlightened or humble than others.
• Spiritual ego manifests when we think we're better than others or have achieved higher realization
• True enlightenment brings certain values that vary between traditions but always include humility
• My guru demonstrated genuine spiritual maturity by eating bitter fruit without complaint in a remote village
• Expectations inevitably lead to disappointment—freedom comes when we release our grip on outcomes
• I once judged people who practiced murti puja (idol worship) but now respect what their practice represents
• When we reach true realization that everything is one, we find centered peace beyond all judgments
• Taking a break from recording from the 17th April to the 4th May while on a family holiday
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded
Mystic podcast, and I'm yourhost, rahul N Singh.
Thank you very much for takingout the time today to either
watch or listen to the podcastepisode.
So today I don't really have anagenda to speak upon.
I was going to record anepisode about the law of
(00:23):
attraction, part two, but I'mbusy with work so I haven't had
that free time to just look atit and the free mind to just
kind of focus on that.
But I thought it might be goodjust to see whatever comes up in
this moment.
Whatever comes up in thismoment.
(00:46):
And you know, one of thegreatest things I find about
YouTube is that we get to seedifferent speakers from
different traditions.
We even have people innon-duality who have a wide
variety of thoughts and feelingsand teachings and non-teachings
and non-teachings, and all thatis very, very important for us
(01:12):
to have conversations, for us tounderstand deeper insights and
to gain more from each other.
The concern that can happen isone that I speak about a lot,
(01:33):
and it's the spiritual ego.
I have to constantly check withmyself that there is no
spiritual ego that comes up, andit's easy for the spiritual ego
to come up If you think you arebetter than everyone, if you
think you have a higherrealization than someone, if you
think that you're moreenlightened than the next person
(01:53):
.
All these things are spiritualego.
And the essence of spiritualityis very simple, you know.
It's just simply.
You know, understanding thecertain values that an
enlightened person should have.
(02:15):
Now, these values again aregoing to differ from tradition
to tradition, and that's fine.
That was really hard to saytradition to tradition, and
that's fine.
Uh, that was really hard to say, um and but like in Advaita
Vedanta, I think the BhagavadGita really defines it very
clearly.
And so I've been thinking, youknow, we've, we started the
(02:38):
Vedanta Saras series and we'llcontinue with that soon, and
that's just to kind of get toknow the basics.
And I think that once you knowthe basics, once you know, once
you start, you know, observingyour mind more, observing your
(02:59):
senses more, seeing where yoursenses go, controlling how your
senses go, when you do all thatwork, the depriving of the
spiritual ego seems to berelatively slim, and the reason
for that is because the work hasbeen done and spiritual ego
(03:21):
only comes up when the ego stillhas some superiority or
inferiority, complex, and tokind of mask that you know it
will say I'm humbler than thenext person, like that's very,
very humble to say that.
Or when someone says, oh, Ihave no ego, I'm just like you
(03:45):
sit down, it's okay.
Um, let's put extra salt intheir meal and see if, uh, it
creates a reaction.
Um, and, you know, for a trulyenlightened person there will be
no reaction.
(04:05):
I, I recall a story of when myguru was.
My guru would travel to likedifferent.
Well, they travel to different,like villages in India, like
small villages, really smallvillages, really remote areas.
And once somebody offered somefruit and the fruit was very
(04:26):
kind of bitter.
My guru ate all of the bitterfruit and everyone was like you
know, why is he eating all thefruit?
And that particular one?
And later on it was foundthere's just a little piece of
fruit was left.
So the person whose house myguru went to, when they tried
(04:52):
that fruit, they realized howbitter it was.
Guru went to when they triedthat fruit.
They realized how bitter it wasand they didn't see any.
Uh, and, and my guru refused togive that to everyone else.
He said you know, let me haveit, it's okay.
Um, and you know these littlethings, and and there's
countless examples from othergurus too I'm not gonna say, oh,
(05:12):
it's only in my tradition, no,in.
I'm sure there's examples ofthis in other traditions too.
Uh, but it's just.
These are the little thingsthat sometimes we don't kind of,
uh, we don't observe.
Now, yes, if I go to a michelinstar restaurant, I'm going to
expect michelin star food.
That's an expectation of aservice, right so.
(05:33):
But should one become a Karenabout it?
You know, no, there's no needto become a Karen if.
If your expectations aren't met,and if you have expectations
and my guru used to say so manytimes, and it's so true, if you
have expectations, you're goingto be disappointed.
(05:55):
And that's the one thing I'velearned is do not have
expectations from anyone oranything.
Keep yourself free from that.
Keeps you undisturbed for awhile and whatever doesn't
disturb the ego.
That's good.
But we certainly haveexpectations, of course, but we
(06:18):
don't have to always adhere tothose expectations or get worked
up.
It's one of the things I've beenworking on a lot.
You know, just letting thingsbe.
You know just letting things beand just going with the flow
(06:39):
and not, you know, not gettingworked up, challenging, and
especially when you're a youngfather.
Well, I say young, but like afather, and you have to juggle
so many things At the same time,understanding that how you are
(07:02):
is going to be observed, and so,you know, it's always best to
be very mindful of how oneconducts oneself.
I, uh.
So yeah, spiritual ego, man, it, it can be devastating if you,
(07:22):
if you ever get, get it and it'sso subtle.
Um, I remember, uh, I canrecall times when I had
spiritual ego.
For sure, I can recall times,you know, I'll give a classic
example.
I used to look down on peoplewho used to do murti puja.
(07:44):
I actually used to look down onthem and I used to think that
what they're doing is reallysilly.
And now I have a differentopinion.
Now I'm just like, like youknow, I know what that multi
represents, you know it'sdifferent.
So now there's no anger oragitation about it, or or I'm
(08:05):
higher, like there's nospiritual, like ego that comes
in, like there's this humilitythat, okay, you know, I know
what they're worshiping and Iknow what it represents.
Maybe they don't, majority ofpeople may not know, maybe they
do, but who am I to judge thatthey don't know.
And so these are things we getto learn about ourselves and and
(08:29):
we improve, and that's thewhole point of spirituality is
improving, and when we can getto the height of true
realization, we will gain somuch.
So when we get to thatrealization that everything is
one, there is great, centeredpeace in that stillness and
(08:52):
there's no higher or lower,boring or interesting.
Life simply is being life, andthat's pretty cool.
So anyway, uh, let's see whatI'll do tomorrow.
I don't even know, taking eachday as it comes, um, but on the
(09:14):
I forgot today, I think the 17thonwards, uh, 17th to the 4th
there will be no podcastepisodes, unless I record some
while I'm on holiday, which mostlikely may not happen.
(09:35):
I'm not sure because I'm nottaking any of my camera or my
mics or anything like that, soit'd be simply just yeah, if it
is, it's going to be really badquality and I don't really want
to risk the quality unless Itake a different mic with me,
(09:57):
which I may do now, thinkingabout it, smaller one, but um,
but yeah, anyway, take care anddo look after yourselves and
I'll see you tomorrow.
Take care, namaste.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded
Mystic podcast, and I'm yourhost, rahul N Singh.
Thank you very much for takingout the time today to either
watch or listen to the podcastepisode.
So today I don't really have anagenda to speak upon.
I was going to record anepisode about the law of
(00:23):
attraction, part two, but I'mbusy with work so I haven't had
that free time to just look atit and the free mind to just
kind of focus on that.
But I thought it might be goodjust to see whatever comes up in
this moment.
Whatever comes up in thismoment.
(00:46):
And you know, one of thegreatest things I find about
YouTube is that we get to seedifferent speakers from
different traditions.
We even have people innon-duality who have a wide
variety of thoughts and feelingsand teachings and non-teachings
and non-teachings, and all thatis very, very important for us
(01:12):
to have conversations, for us tounderstand deeper insights and
to gain more from each other.
The concern that can happen isone that I speak about a lot,
(01:33):
and it's the spiritual ego.
I have to constantly check withmyself that there is no
spiritual ego that comes up, andit's easy for the spiritual ego
to come up If you think you arebetter than everyone, if you
think you have a higherrealization than someone, if you
think that you're moreenlightened than the next person
(01:53):
.
All these things are spiritualego.
And the essence of spiritualityis very simple, you know.
It's just simply.
You know, understanding thecertain values that an
enlightened person should have.
(02:15):
Now, these values again aregoing to differ from tradition
to tradition, and that's fine.
That was really hard to saytradition to tradition, and
that's fine.
Uh, that was really hard to say, um and but like in Advaita
Vedanta, I think the BhagavadGita really defines it very
clearly.
And so I've been thinking, youknow, we've, we started the
(02:38):
Vedanta Saras series and we'llcontinue with that soon, and
that's just to kind of get toknow the basics.
And I think that once you knowthe basics, once you know, once
you start, you know, observingyour mind more, observing your
(02:59):
senses more, seeing where yoursenses go, controlling how your
senses go, when you do all thatwork, the depriving of the
spiritual ego seems to berelatively slim, and the reason
for that is because the work hasbeen done and spiritual ego
(03:21):
only comes up when the ego stillhas some superiority or
inferiority, complex, and tokind of mask that you know it
will say I'm humbler than thenext person, like that's very,
very humble to say that.
Or when someone says, oh, Ihave no ego, I'm just like you
(03:45):
sit down, it's okay.
Um, let's put extra salt intheir meal and see if, uh, it
creates a reaction.
Um, and, you know, for a trulyenlightened person there will be
no reaction.
(04:05):
I, I recall a story of when myguru was.
My guru would travel to likedifferent.
Well, they travel to different,like villages in India, like
small villages, really smallvillages, really remote areas.
And once somebody offered somefruit and the fruit was very
(04:26):
kind of bitter.
My guru ate all of the bitterfruit and everyone was like you
know, why is he eating all thefruit?
And that particular one?
And later on it was foundthere's just a little piece of
fruit was left.
So the person whose house myguru went to, when they tried
(04:52):
that fruit, they realized howbitter it was.
Guru went to when they triedthat fruit.
They realized how bitter it wasand they didn't see any.
Uh, and, and my guru refused togive that to everyone else.
He said you know, let me haveit, it's okay.
Um, and you know these littlethings, and and there's
countless examples from othergurus too I'm not gonna say, oh,
(05:12):
it's only in my tradition, no,in.
I'm sure there's examples ofthis in other traditions too.
Uh, but it's just.
These are the little thingsthat sometimes we don't kind of,
uh, we don't observe.
Now, yes, if I go to a michelinstar restaurant, I'm going to
expect michelin star food.
That's an expectation of aservice, right so.
(05:33):
But should one become a Karenabout it?
You know, no, there's no needto become a Karen if.
If your expectations aren't met,and if you have expectations
and my guru used to say so manytimes, and it's so true, if you
have expectations, you're goingto be disappointed.
(05:55):
And that's the one thing I'velearned is do not have
expectations from anyone oranything.
Keep yourself free from that.
Keeps you undisturbed for awhile and whatever doesn't
disturb the ego.
That's good.
But we certainly haveexpectations, of course, but we
(06:18):
don't have to always adhere tothose expectations or get worked
up.
It's one of the things I've beenworking on a lot.
You know, just letting thingsbe.
You know just letting things beand just going with the flow
(06:39):
and not, you know, not gettingworked up, challenging, and
especially when you're a youngfather.
Well, I say young, but like afather, and you have to juggle
so many things At the same time,understanding that how you are
(07:02):
is going to be observed, and so,you know, it's always best to
be very mindful of how oneconducts oneself.
I, uh.
So yeah, spiritual ego, man, it, it can be devastating if you,
(07:22):
if you ever get, get it and it'sso subtle.
Um, I remember, uh, I canrecall times when I had
spiritual ego.
For sure, I can recall times,you know, I'll give a classic
example.
I used to look down on peoplewho used to do murti puja.
(07:44):
I actually used to look down onthem and I used to think that
what they're doing is reallysilly.
And now I have a differentopinion.
Now I'm just like, like youknow, I know what that multi
represents, you know it'sdifferent.
So now there's no anger oragitation about it, or or I'm
(08:05):
higher, like there's nospiritual, like ego that comes
in, like there's this humilitythat, okay, you know, I know
what they're worshiping and Iknow what it represents.
Maybe they don't, majority ofpeople may not know, maybe they
do, but who am I to judge thatthey don't know.
And so these are things we getto learn about ourselves and and
(08:29):
we improve, and that's thewhole point of spirituality is
improving, and when we can getto the height of true
realization, we will gain somuch.
So when we get to thatrealization that everything is
one, there is great, centeredpeace in that stillness and
(08:52):
there's no higher or lower,boring or interesting.
Life simply is being life, andthat's pretty cool.
So anyway, uh, let's see whatI'll do tomorrow.
I don't even know, taking eachday as it comes, um, but on the
(09:14):
I forgot today, I think the 17thonwards, uh, 17th to the 4th
there will be no podcastepisodes, unless I record some
while I'm on holiday, which mostlikely may not happen.
(09:35):
I'm not sure because I'm nottaking any of my camera or my
mics or anything like that, soit'd be simply just yeah, if it
is, it's going to be really badquality and I don't really want
to risk the quality unless Itake a different mic with me,
(09:57):
which I may do now, thinkingabout it, smaller one, but um,
but yeah, anyway, take care anddo look after yourselves and
I'll see you tomorrow.
Take care, namaste.
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