Just understand this one simple truth. In order for an animal to breathe, it does not need ego, it does not need an identity or any character. But as a human being, you are afraid that if you drop your identity you will not be able to use your body. You fear that something bad will happen to it.

You are afraid that if you drop your identity, your body will not function smoothly. You have an idea about yourself as ‘I am somebody’s father, I am somebody’s brother, I am somebody’s son.’ This idea that you have, this identity that you carry, this ego that you carry, is not necessary for the smooth functioning of your body and mind. Of course it is very difficult to believe this.

Do you need to think about breathing, making your heart beat, digesting food, or eliminating wastes from your body?

No!

This very fact should help you to realize that your ego is not needed for you to survive. There is something beyond the ego that is keeping you alive and functioning. If your existence depended on your ego what a catastrophe that would be! We would not be able to manage it! We are so much more than our ego, but that too is hard to believe.

A small story:

A person who was born blind went to a doctor and asked the doctor, ‘Please do something and give me eyesight.’
The doctor said, ‘I will perform surgery and you will be able to see. Then you will be able to walk without the help of a cane.’
The blind man said, ‘Doctor, I understand you will perform surgery. I understand that I will regain my eyesight. I am not able to understand how I can walk without my cane!’

We cannot convince the blind man that after the surgery he will be able to walk without a cane! We cannot convince him intellectually because over time he has started associating his walking itself with the cane. Only after he gets his eyesight can a blind man understand that he can walk without a cane. Similarly, you do not need your ego to live in the body and mind. You can live inside your body, inside your mind without the ego. Just as the blind man who had gained his vision does not need a cane to walk, you do not need the ego to live.

We all have two identities, the identity we project to the outer world, and the identity we believe to be us in the inner world. The identity you carry inside your mind is called mamakar in Sanskrit. It will always be much smaller than what you really are. You carry or remember all your failures, past mistakes and guilt and constantly try to work on them. This identity that you carry in the inner world is based on greed. You constantly try to chisel your identity to become better. The identity you project to the outer world is called ahankar.

Ahankar is your visiting card. You print everything that you want others to know about you on this card. It will always be more than what you have and what you are because you think you have to sell yourself. It becomes a basic need, especially in societies where you have to market yourself. There is a fear compelling you to project yourself as more than what you are. 

If you spend all your energy trying to expand the ahankar, the identity that you project to the outer world, then your life becomes materialistic. If you spend your whole life chiseling and developing mamakar, the identity that you think is you, your whole life becomes moralistic and suppressed.

Ahankar is based on a superiority complex. Mamakar is based on an inferiority complex. Ahankar is based on fear, mamakar is based on greed. If you spend all your energy trying to expand the ahankar, the identity that you project to the outer world, then your life becomes materialistic. If you spend your whole life chiseling and developing mamakar, the identity that you think is you, your whole life becomes moralistic and suppressed. When you project to the outer world, you project yourself based on the strongest link of the chain. When you measure yourself inside your mind, you measure yourself based upon the weakest link of the chain. The conflict between ahankar and mamakar, the conflict between the personality that you show to the outer world and the personality that you reveal in your inner world is called ‘tension’.

You constantly spend your life trying to protect these two identities. When they start growing, they start fighting with each other and giving you trouble. It is like marrying two women at the same time and living with both of them at once! These two identities are purely illusions. You are something far more than these two identities that you carry around constantly.

Freedom from these two identities is what I call liberation, enlightenment, moksha, nirvana. Whatever words you may use, it is nothing but liberation from these two identities. These two identities are bondage. When you understand that you are something beyond these two identities, you are a jeevan mukta, liberated while living.

I tell you, if you drop what you think of as you, only then you become alive. Until then, you are living and breathing, but are never really alive. Breathing is not a measure of whether you are living. Never think you are alive just because you breathe.

I tell you, if you drop what you think of as you, only then you become alive. Until then, you are living and breathing, but are never really alive. Breathing is not a measure of whether you are living. Never think you are alive just because you breathe.

You are something much more than what you project to the outer world and what you project to yourself. When you relax from these two identities, you achieve what is called jeevan mukti, living enlightenment.
I tell you, any identity you believe about yourself that is less than you being god, is low self-esteem, because you are god.

There are two reasons why your mind will never allow you to believe that you are unclutched. Whatever you feel as your identity in the outer world, that is your wealth, relationships and such, is based on your thought shafts. If you relax from the shaft, you may lose all your identities. So, fear of losing this identity is the first reason.

The next reason is your morality, your idea about what you should be doing. If you lose your identity, if you no longer trust that you are connected thoughts, your identity about yourself will be lost. The identity that you show to others will be lost and the identity that you have about yourself will also be lost. How will you then realize what is right and what is wrong for you? There is no basis to judge. So the mind will never allow you to believe that you are unclutched.

Let you clearly understand, I tell you from my experience, I have never seen a person who feels complete with the identity he is projecting to the outer world or towards himself. You can’t feel you are complete because even if you try to be pure and perfect, even if you try all the practices that you can do, not just for twenty five years, but even for fifty years, you will still have the same mind. It is simply because of the mind that you are trying to chisel what doesn’t exist. If it did exist then you could chisel and make it as you want it to be and keep it as you want it to be. That base itself doesn’t exist, that shaft itself doesn’t exist so there is nothing that you can chisel.

As Ashtavakra says, Unattached, formless and witness of all are you. You are not your identity. You are the formless, unattached, witness of what is going on around you.

As long as you are afraid, you can be exploited by your own ego. Whoever wants to exploit you, the first thing they have to do is to create fear in you. If someone wants to exploit you, he will create the fear in you that if he is not there, you will not be able to manage things. You will start believing that if he is not there, your activities will be disturbed, whether it is your company or house or any other place. He first creates the fear in you. Then, depending on the level and the intensity of fear, he starts exploiting you.

In the same way, the first thing your own ego does is to clearly prove to your being that you cannot live in your body and mind without it. Once this frightens you, once you start believing that you cannot live in your body and mind without the ego, it is very easy for your ego to exploit you, to cheat you. Be very clear, it is just simple fear, nothing more.

source: Living Enlightenment