Corporate struggle vs. Ego struggle

More than any other words in the dictionary, the meaning of the word ‘survival struggle’ is well known to all the living things on earth.  Every life form in the nature has its own struggle to survive.  The survival struggle is equal and impartial to both the microscopic species like bacteria & virus and to the biggest animal in the land or in water, the elephant or blue whale. 

One has to struggle to find its space, food and mate to fulfill the obvious truth of creation.  None can escape from it.

When we discuss about survival struggle, people in the corporate are the best example where we can find ‘survival struggle’ is always at the peak. 

The scope of the article is not about describing the survival struggle of people in the corporate world but to discuss about struggle of the ego to survive in us.  Many would not have understood or be aware of the fact that our ego too struggle to survive in us.  Swami Sukhabodhananda describes about the survival struggle of ego in his series of talks on Bhagavad Gita.    

Our ignorance prevent us from seeing or understanding the truth.  Our ignorance always guides us to see the world around us through our imaginary self than from seeing through the real self.   When we find something to be wrong or right and our ego tries to cement our meaning or justification to be right.  When we encounter a different meaning than what is conceived by us, our ego never let us to accept the same.  It compels us to discover or invent or investigate logics and reasons to prove our ignorance to be the wisdom or gospel truth.

In boss – subordinate struggle, the ego dominance is very high.  The ego of boss will never let him/her to see the truth in subordinate and similarly the ego of the subordinate will never let them to accept the boss to be right.

In general, the ego of the subordinate always longs to prove his or her boss to be wrong or less wise than them.  The subordinate usually keep storing different data on how and where the boss had gone wrong.  When some conflicts arise, the ego spontaneously logs onto the memory site and download all the stored date to support their conclusions. 

More or less, most bosses also do the same.  In the midst of the survival struggle of ego, both the boss and the subordinate never see the truth or reality.  What in most occasions they will be seeing is their version of truth or reality or in other words, what truth or reality they wish to see or want to have only will be seeing?

The law of ‘survival of the fittest’ of Charles Darwin creates meaning and relevance only to biology and never to psychology or behavioural science.  The law states that only the fittest alone would survive and the weakest would perish or get denuded in the process of evolution.   If the ego is allowed to survive as the fittest in our mind like the biological species in nature, life would be full of trauma and agony.  Eliminate/Weaken your ego and strengthen your wisdom.

The above reflections are my learning from Swami Sukhabodhananda.