- How can I balance altruism and follow my inner needs or longings, brackets, if they would hurt someone? Can you say something on how it works ego versus altruism following
your inner true needs. Altruism, meaning selfless action, doing something for others. And then the inner needs, or longings that might hurt someone. If they actively hurt someone, they are not true needs, they would be egoic needs, egoic needs sometimes actively
hurt another for example, unconscious behavior such as diminishing somebody else verbally, in order to feel one's own ego growing. People do it all the
time it's unconscious. So if somebody has a success, or has something that you don't have, the ego and it's observed
sense of self feels diminished, if somebody else has
something that you don't have. And then the ego sometimes makes a remark that is designed either to
hurt the ego of that person, or to diminish the value
of what that person has achieved or possesses. So even children sometimes do it. The ego already is, of
course developed in children at school, when you listen to children talking to each other, you can already often detect very clearly, the ego there, the sense of identity, that is based on identification with things other than yourself that you take on board to
enhance your sense of self. And not that you can stop them. It just, is part of, the natural progression I would suggest is for human being to develop an ego as they are adolescence, in
childhood and adolescence, then when they reach adulthood, begin to go beyond ego so
that ego becomes a symptom or manifestation of
growing up, of a maturity. That would be, we may be going in that direction. But of course, the way it is now, it's not the case the
ego continues to grow and seek to grow sometimes
until you reach your deathbed. And then you remember the gravestone where it says, I got here first so I won. That's the last triumph of the ego. And so listening overhearing children, you can say my dad just bought a BMW. What car does your dad have? Oh, he has a VW. (audience laughing) But I know someone, he
carries on, he says, but I know someone who
has a friend whose uncle has a Bentley, it's far superior to a BMW. (audience laughing) Got him, the ego says I got him. But it's owned by VW, isn't it? That's a long story. (audience laughing) Altruism in our needs, or in our needs, that hurts, I'll just give just one small example of hurting others. Other egoic manifestations
of hurting others would be to actually to sabotage somebody else's success or what they want to achieve, to take something away from somebody, to spread rumors about some bad things about another human being
in order to create suffering or stop them from doing or achieving what they want to achieve. So many ways in which the ego want to hurt someone for its own, in order
to strengthen itself, the illusion of itself. So those are not your true inner needs, they are egoic needs, you need to recognize
those things in yourself. Then there is an indirect
way of hurting someone that may not be egoic. For example, let's say you
are a young man or woman, 20 years old, 19 years old, and your parents or your
mother or your father want what's best for you. They clearly have designs on your future. And your dad was a lawyer, and he has a flourishing law practice and obviously, you're supposed to
follow in his footsteps, there's no question about it. And if you didn't, you would make your parents really suffer. (audience laughing) Of course, that is indirectly
inflicting suffering. If you are true to
yourself and your longings which are not egoic, you may feel inclined
towards something else there's nothing wrong with law, but it's not for everybody. You may feel inclined to
follow totally different paths and what you and some people do that in order to spare their
parents from suffering, they do what makes them happy. It might not be your parents. Do what make somebody else happy. And so you're doing something that does not corresponding, that does not correspond to your true inclinations,
desires where you want to go, but you want to spare
someone else from suffering. Now, that is not the most conscious cause of action, because you're condemning
yourself to unhappiness and frustration, you're denying those deeper things, they are not egoic, they arise on a deeper
level of your being. And you are not making
these people suffer, they make themselves suffer. So they have to learn their lesson of letting go of expectations. And if their lesson involves suffering, that's just how it is. Another matter would be
if your parents are old, or there's only one parent left, you're inclination may
be to move somewhere and do something. But then there's nobody else
to look after your father or mother who needs
somebody that is there. That is a moral thing that you need to become very present with to see whether there's
an alternative solution, or whether you will give up one thing in order for the
love of another human being. And if you do so, you would have to be total in your doing so that you are not unhappy, looking after your aging parents, continuously regretting that you were not able to do
what you really wanted to do. Whatever cause of action you chose, you need to surrender
to and do it totally. These are old, a lot of presence is required. Altruism, helping others is wonderful. But, it needs to come from a deep not from some mental to help somebody because in order to
improve the mental image you have of yourself but to help somebody
because it feels right. And it feels good. And you've seen the other as yourself, and to give something
to another feels better, more often than to give
something to yourself. (lighthearted music) This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on
the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you
are beyond your history and your life situation. (lighthearted music) (water flowing)
