Beating down the Ego : Some Feasible, Tried and Tested Techniques

Usually many blogs and articles end with a disclaimer. This blog is starting with a disclaimer. Disclaimer: Although this blog mentions several methods of beating down the ego, these are all remedies suggested/practiced by some of those great souls whom the author had the good fortune of knowing personally.  The author himself is certainly not fit to be in the category of these great practitioners. Hence the author must be merely seen as a compiler of these techniques and it should not be mistakenly assumed that the author himself is an accomplished practitioner.

We all know that some amount of ego or ‘I’ ness is necessary for us to feel our earthly connections. We all know the value of human emotions and some degree of love and attachment for our family, people, nation of birth etc.  If there is absolutely no ego, a person literally belongs to the entire cosmos. This might not be desirable at certain stages of our sojourn on earth.

However, in today’s world, we find innumerable instances of people causing suffering to others or suffering themselves, all because of a hugely bloated ego. Many autocratic leaders of countries suffer from terrible megalomania. Just as a recent example, the leader of Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte has decided that he could play the role of investigator, jury, judge and executioner – all rolled into one and kill drug users and pushers, summarily,  without any fair trials. These bloated ego people are happy to bring terrible suffering, violence and calamities upon others, to feed their huge ego. Let me share another example from the life of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. When Saddam Hussein was in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and was looking for a way to end the war (which he had himself started), he invited his ministers to give him candid advice. Taking Saddam’s invitation at face value, his ill-fated health minister, Dr. Riyadh Ibrahim advised Saddam to temporarily step down to promote negotiations with Iran.  For his honest advice, Dr. Ibrahim was sacked soon afterwards.  Then, within a few days, Dr. Ibrahim was arrested by the Saddam regime. According to Wikipedia, Ibrahim’s body, cut into several pieces, was delivered to his wife the next day. This is the level of cruelty and violence that people of extremely bloated ego are capable of inflicting upon fellow humans and other living beings. 

There are millions of such instances where men and women have inflicted cruelty, mindless violence and suffering upon others to feed their bloated ego. Shakespeare says this about the relationship of ego and hunger for power/authority.

“But man, proud man,

Dress'd in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—

His glassy essence—like an angry ape

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.”

― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

The ancient Sanskrit sloka (verse) said to be from ancient Hitopdesha starts with ‘vidya dadati vinayam…..’ (knowledge gives humility). In other words, the indication of true expertise and deeper knowledge is humility (a much trimmed down ego).

Anyway, this blog is not about providing evidence of how a bloated ego is extremely damaging. There is enough evidence all around us and in the pages of history. This blog is about methods adopted by wise people to shrink/beat down their ego.

Besides being needed for our own well-being and harmony, a highly reduced ego is also a necessary requirement for certain spiritual achievements. I have known someone who was into meditation for several months but was not getting the desired results. This person was a great achiever, had created immense wealth, practices charity and was appreciated and praised by his family and friends. Hence, he was not able to understand where he was going wrong. When he approached his guru he was advised to reduce his ego.  Although he initially felt annoyed at his guru, after some contemplation and further advice, he found some practical ways to reduce his ego (I have included the techniques suggested by him in this blog).  Shortly after he started using the ego burning techniques, he found renewed spiritual growth.   In fact, an initial angry reaction against the person who suggests we need to reduce our ego is the first sign that our ego is oversized. As mentioned in the blog ‘An introspection Framework’ (http://karmasutratkos.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/an-introspection-framework.html), the ego is surprisingly cunning and often manifests itself in the form of anger, jealousy etc.

Dwelling on why reduced ego is sometimes required for certain spiritual practices to bear fruit, let me use the analogy of driving the car. When we are driving on a straight road, we can drive at a higher speed, but when negotiating a bend, speed needs to be reduced or we are unable to safely make that turn. Similarly, when we are involved in a quest for spiritual growth and wisdom, if the ego is bloated, then it is difficult for our mind to negotiate the path of introspection needed for assimilating certain insights. Minds which carry too much pride about their own self, culture, nation, family, race, achievements etc.  often lose the mental perceptual sharpness and objectivity required for spiritual advancement purposes. (In my book Karmasutra, I have referred to this ‘perceptual sharpness’ in more detail and referred to it as ‘cosmic sensitivity barrier’ which needs to be thin.)

{Having said this, if we are looking to only acquire certain ‘siddhis’ or ‘special psychic powers’ then this condition is not applicable. That is because in order to accrue certain powers, mere ability to use some aids is needed (tantra, mantra, yantra or techniques to communicate with certain other non-visible cosmic entities/energies). Hence, even very egoistic people are able to obtain certain psychic powers.  However, it must be remembered that true spiritual growth is not merely about gathering certain psychic abilities.}

Now, having talked about the desirability of having a reduced ego, without further ado, let me come to the gist of this blog on practical ego-burning techniques. I must also add that this is not the final or comprehensive list. If other readers can find/add other ego-reduction techniques, I would happily welcome their additions to this blog. 

• Seeking Help – In most Western nations, we are encouraged to be independent. However, those who seek to keep themselves humble ask for help.  Egoistic men want to do everything themselves not because they like to work more, but often because they loathe to show the humility to ask anyone else for help.  For example, even when lost in the middle of a crowded city, not able to make sense of a map, some of us do not like to ask for directions, because when we ask for directions we need to humbly seek help from another human being.  If asking for the smallest help from anyone puts us off, it is an indicator of an oversized ego. 

It is not without reason that rules among some orders of Eastern tradition monks specify that they have to eat food obtained by begging for food, on a daily basis. If they receive excess food on a particular day, they are also prohibited from storing it.  This act of begging for food and often facing ridicule keeps them humble on a daily basis.  Of course I am not suggesting that we should all adopt this stringent technique. Perhaps, we commoners can practically implement this ego-burning technique in minuscule ways, for example, by asking our friends or acquaintances for advice even when we are intellectually capable of solving an issue, or asking for directions or asking for other small help. For men who pride themselves on their charm/good looks, a good win-win method is to request a beautiful lady for sensual company. If she rejects the man, it is a good ego-busting technique for him (for which he should thank her) and in the rare situation that she accepts it, it is anyway a good, enjoyable sensual celebration.

• Indulging critics – We love people who praise us and tend to avoid those who do not support our opinion. In more sophisticated organisations including the business world, this is much more subtle. If we are managers, we like people who give us more public appreciation and enthusiastically declare that our plans will work the best. We tend to dislike people who point to possible flaws in our plans. If they are subordinates we tend to side-line them as much as we can officially. In private, we call them ‘trouble makers’. 

We love to have around ourselves, those who laugh hysterically at our jokes. In fact, cracking a ‘not-so-funny’ joke and noting those who actually pretend to laugh the loudest is one way of identifying those who are seeking to flatter us.  

In such a milieu, perhaps it is still practically possible for us to seek out and reach out to our critics and meet them in person. Having a meal with them and listening to their critical opinion is a sure shot way to reduce our ego. Inviting people whose political opinions and world view is completely different from ours or those we find ‘difficult to agree with’ is a good way to reduce the ego.  

Retaining as ‘friends’, those who completely and publicly disagree with our Facebook posts especially on political/social issues or make fun of our messages/pictures/videos, is one ego-reducing technique. Based on the advice of one of my spiritually realized friends, I tried practising it myself and found it incredibly difficult to resist the temptation to ‘unfriend’ those among my Facebook ‘friends’  who were vehemently criticising my posts (especially those who were not too close to me). On my Twitter account also, despite my efforts, I sadly succumbed to the temptation to block those who abused me often. 

• Discouraging flatterers – A few years back I was watching the TV interview of a political leader who was asked why she did not discourage her followers from prostrating and falling at her feet when they met her. The leader replied that she did ‘forbid’ them from doing so, but her followers ‘would not listen’.  (In fact, a recent funny picture of an African nation’s sports minister giving a shamelessly flattering ‘bending handshake’ to his President was the butt of many twitter jokes. The picture is given below.) 

There is probably a good reason why the followers would not listen if we tell them not to flatter us. If the followers keep seeing that the leader’s flatterers get some advantages, they will never take the leader at face value. One way of reducing flattery is to find some simple, ways to punish or belittle those who flatter us. For instance, if someone in the office is always flattering us, (or in Indian context, touching our feet), then we can punish that person by deliberately reducing the access of that person to us. When flatterers start getting the message that there will be some form of punishment for flattery, the speed at which the culture of flattery disappears will surprise us.  I once went to a meeting of a revered spiritual leader, Dada Vaswani in Goa, India. He had come out with a novel solution to the problem of people touching feet. He would make it a point to touch the feet of all those who touched his feet. Seeing this, very soon, people stopped touching his feet, because very few people wanted to trouble an elderly spiritual person. 

As a corollary, another way to reduce our own ego is to touch someone’s feet. It is not easy if we are not born in the tradition where touching feet and seeking blessings of elders come naturally.  Jesus did this when he washed the feet of his disciples. Lord Rama and Krishna always touched the feet of learned rishis (seers) everywhere. A gesture of respect similar to touching the feet in Western or Middle Eastern context may be kissing the hand or touching the hand to the forehead. All these when done to others, reduces our own ego. 

• Criticising our own religion or family or tradition –  I am not saying that we should be constantly negative towards our own national culture or religious tradition. We are all born within a certain religious or cultural tradition because our overself  (sorry I cannot lengthen this article further by going into a detailed explanation of what I mean by overself – please refer to my book Karmasutra, if possible; otherwise, you can always get an understanding of what it means from the passage which follows),  before our birth has decided that this family or religious context is good for our advancement.  Hence, we should be happy and reasonably proud of our own culture, tradition etc.  It is therefore somewhat normal human tendency that we get upset when someone criticises our religious path, race, national origin or the cultural traits of our people. We tend to go into a defensive mode immediately.  

A sure shot way of reducing our ego is to evaluate the critic’s comment and agreeing with him/her if it is reasonable, instead of retorting angrily, ‘okay what about the bad things in your own religion?’  Hence, if I am a Catholic and if someone is criticising the Catholic Church for some reason, if his/her reason is justified, then I should agree to it and maybe contribute my own reasons to support this person. Even when the criticism is not reasonable we can maintain our silence and simply resist the temptation to go on defensive by attacking the practices in the other person’s religious traditions. Similarly, if I am of Indian origin and if someone is criticising India, then if it reasonable, I should adopt a supportive stance. In fact, joining the person in criticising our own traditions instantly reduces our ego and increases our bonding with that person. At the same time, we are also able to feel the psychological discomfort instantly, because our brain tells us that we belong to the same group that we are criticising. 

When we go to gym and work hard to burn our fat we can feel the pain and discomfort. However, this pain and discomfort is also the proof that our fat is burning away.  In a similar way, when we feel the discomfort psychologically, it is proof that we are burning down our ego. Therefore, this is a good and proven ego-reduction technique.  

• Attempting and looking foolish – If lot of people keep giving us praise for our intellect, this technique is a very good ego buster. One great person I knew personally used to practice this. He was working as a senior level government department official and was blessed with a razor sharp mind and great spiritual sensitivity. Once in a while, in large official meetings he would say something off-topic or somewhat silly. Other people in the meeting would immediately find flaws with his statements and those who liked him less would even ridicule him. He would cut a sorry figure for himself and pretend to look like a fool. He would do this charade every once in a while, without telling this to anyone.  This whole exercise kept his ego rather slim. (He was kind enough to share this technique and its efficacy with me, on the condition that I will not reveal his identity.) 

Another variation of this technique is to deliberately seek out the company of those (at least, once in a while), who are far more intelligent or better than us. If we are terrible at understanding finance or economics, we can seek out those who are wizards in the subject and discuss things related to Economics.  In their company, very often we are sure to look like a fool. 

In fact, people with bloated ego often seek out those who are weaker than them in some way, so that they can feel better. Egoistic ladies who look good sometimes seek out as ‘friends’, those who are much worse in the physical looks department, so that they will always gather more attention  by contrast and get to massage their ego. 

 If we feel a bit proud about our wealth, and want to keep our ego in check, we should once in a while seek the company of egoistic wealthy people. Through their snide remarks, they will make sure we look terribly poor.  One of my spiritually evolved friend, used to practice this a lot. He used to deliberately visit one of his egoistic ‘show-off’ classmate’s house once in a year. On every annual visit this egoistic classmate used to show my friend all the latest gadgets, household equipment, cars or other acquisitions that he had made in the year. By the end of the visit my spiritually evolved friend would feel like he was completely penniless. This technique works well. 

Another variation of this technique is to play some sport/game with friends who are far better than us. If we think about it closely, motivation to play any sport/game is directly proportional to our ability to win that game, at least once in a while. We like to play tennis with a person against whom we win the match, at least sometimes. This applies to most other games. If our opponent in the sport is an expert in the game such that we almost never win a single match against that person, we generally avoid playing that sport with that friendly opponent. We might pretend that game does not excite us or that we are busy etc.  One of the best ego busting games is chess, because it does not depend on luck but intelligence.  If we are constantly losing the game in chess, we tend to look like we are fools. This is a great ego- buster. 

• Waiting – This is another great and proven technique to beat down the ego. Egoistic people do not like to wait for another person. They get very angry if someone keeps them waiting. They make sure they come right in time for the train or bus because they do not like to be seen as waiting. If one is generally a punctual person, then reaching somewhere a bit early and waiting around is a great way of reducing the ego. Waiting for people who are disastrously unpunctual and not getting angry with them is another way of ego-puncturing. 

• Apologising in public – We all love to get praised in public and apologize, if at all, in private. Apologising in public, that too, in front of those who do not seem to like us, is a proven, superb ego burner.  However, even the type of public apology can burn more or less of ego. A simple apology like ‘sorry’ in public is undoubtedly an ego reducer. One spiritually aware academic that I know has a more intensive ego-burning variant of this apology. If he ever reached late for an engagement, for example to an auditorium or a venue full of students, he would first say ‘sorry’ for coming late (which in itself was rare considering he was a full professor and they were only students, much lower in the hierarchy). Then he would also go on to scold himself rather harshly, in public and not in a facetious, but in a matter-of-fact manner. He might say something like ‘I was extremely stupid to rely entirely on my diary when I am so dumb that I often forget to see it in time’. He would use the strongest words to berate himself. However, if the same mistake was done by someone else, he would rarely scold that person, or even if he did, he would certainly not use such harsh terms. 

• Dealing with embarrassment - For most adults, falling down while walking is an embarrassment, more so for ladies who might be wearing skirts. The dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe was returning to his country from a trip abroad in 2015. While getting down from a raised podium at the airport, he missed a step and fell down to the ground. Immediately after the incident, the security personnel of the President forced journalists present there to delete photographs of the incident. (I have given below, one such picture published in the online edition of Independent newspaper). 

                                                    (Source : Independent newspaper online, AP)

Egoistic people do not like embarrassments and will punish those who even see this sign of their weakness. For men, being caught in a restaurant without the money to pay a bill is a major embarrassment. Similarly, caught with trouser fly open or burping/passing gas in public is a major embarrassment. Of course, deliberately creating an embarrassing situation might not be practical for commoners like us, but how a person feels after an embarrassing situation is a good indicator of ego. If an unforeseen embarrassment leads to immense anger against someone - a subordinate, colleague or servant, or even against oneself, it is a sure sign of a bloated ego.  Capability to laugh at oneself when one is the victim of an embarrassing situation is a sign of a trim ego.  

• Treating those far less powerful than us, better – It is said in Indian mythology that when an angry sage once kicked the all-powerful Lord Vishnu in the chest, Lord Vishnu humbly enquired with the sage whether his leg was hurt by this kick. Lord Krishna who was an avatar of Lord Vishnu, is said to have shared with gusto, the beaten rice meal of his penniless, old classmate Sudama. 

I have known a Professor who was the head of a department team of teachers (HOD) in a university department, consisting of several other junior teachers. In most cases, if one of his junior team members neglected to do something, he would himself do it. If a junior teacher refused to take on (teach) a subject/course, he would cheerfully accept to teach it himself.  Some of the other teachers would even say ‘what is our HOD doing? He is letting so and so take advantage of him’. In fact some would even try to convince this professor to be more ‘strict’ and ‘demanding’ but the professor would have none of it. I have never heard of him using power (threat/coercion) to force a team member to do something. The Professor would always request using the most humble and respectful language, as if, he himself was the subordinate.   

There are three ways in which people treat those who are far less powerful than they are. People with bloated egos treat those who are far less powerful than them in a manner of disdain, insult, arrogance, or sometimes by completely ignoring their presence. People with moderate egos treat those with far less power in a nice, humane manner, but react with full force of their power and authority when this less powerful person behaves unreasonably or falls out of line.  Only people with true humility with far reduced egos will treat unreasonable or arrogant people who are far lower in hierarchy with indulgence. Therefore, how we treat people who are much less powerful than us in a situation where they are behaving a bit unreasonably and there are good grounds for us to come down like a hammer, is a powerful indicator of our ego.  

(However, there is one caveat. If avoiding conflict and using power is simply due to an extremely timid nature, then probably it is not such a powerful ego-busting technique. Of course, shyness and timidity usually go together with a reduced ego, but if a bad psychological constitution - for example, an abiding inferiority complex due to some deep-seated reason, is the cause for this timidity, then this compulsive avoidance of conflict amounts to making a virtue out of necessity). 

• Trust and forgiveness – Some of my great spiritual heroes used this technique to bust their egos.  It is said that Lord Ram the powerful warrior avatar of Lord Vishnu forgave Ravana after he was beaten in the war and then even approached Ravana in all humility. Imagine approaching a criminal who kidnaps our beloved lover or wife and imprisons her for several years. If we ever manage to fight this criminal and get back our spouse, will we ever want to see the face of this wretched person again? But not Lord Rama. Lord Rama asked his devoted younger brother Lakshmana to approach Ravana as a disciple, to gain Ravana’s expertise on statecraft. Similarly, while Jesus lay on the cross dying, one of his statements was about forgiveness for those who had harmed him.

Trust is another powerful tool used as an ego-buster. One reason why children do not have big egos is that they trust others easily. They are also very good at forgiving. They do not abuse their conscious memory system by retaining records of previous hurts or grievances and use these as excuses for unforgiveness or to stop trusting others. 

Not abusing our memory system to retain grievances, and forgiving and trusting people again is a good ego buster. One of my spiritually wise friends has often lent money to those who have not repaid him previous loans. While some might call my friend a fool, who refuses to learn, he is using this ‘being cheated periodically’ as an ego-reduction tool. 

Most religions have, in the form of some rituals or customs, some in-built ego reduction techniques. For example, the Catholic Church has the sacrament of confession where a person has to actually kneel down and confess his or her sins to a priest. Even a Catholic priest is expected to confess his wrong-doings to another priest. It can be a very humbling experience indeed to entrust our innermost secrets to some other human with whom we have limited intimacy. Similarly, among Hindus we have the ritual of offering our hair for gods. A good lock of hair is often an indicator of ‘good looks’ and therefore also our ‘ego’. To lose our crown of glory is indeed an exercise in humility. Prostrating before gods in temples or touching the feet of gurus or elders, suryanamaskar etc. are different traditions in Hindu – Indian culture designed to reduce our bloated egos and maintain this balance. In Islamic traditions, the namaaz and touching the forehead to the ground in prayer are acts meant to reduce the ego. 

Already this blog has become unusually long and perhaps a bit unwieldy. My humble apologies for that (trying to clumsily use an ego-busting technique here). As I mentioned before, this list is not exhaustive, but merely a compilation of the techniques used by some of my spiritually great friends/acquaintances. I thank them for kindly sharing these with me. I request other readers to add their own tried and testing ego-busting techniques. Wishing all my readers a great Kristu Jayanti (Christmas) season and Happy New Year 2017. 

©Staju Jacob, 2016.

Staju Jacob is the author of the path-breaking book Karmasutra The Karma of Sex, which deals with the karmic spirituality of consensual sexual actions. This book is available globally on various Amazon sites in Paperback and Kindle, Sony Kobo, Google books, Iphone Ibook etc.  He may be contacted on Twitter @KaRmasutraTKOS