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THE DYNAMICS OF MEDITATION
avoid you quite skilfully whenever you try to capture it. Somehow they sense there is danger and they move away to preserve their lives. Even bats who cannot see are able to perceive danger and escape. All living things possess a kind of consciousness. Birds migrate and fly without any map or chart. We may get lost trying to take the expressway to New Jersey, but they fly thousands of miles every summer and winter. This is instinctive consciousness and it helps them survive and find food and shelter. This is the first level of consciousness.
Impediments to Growth: The Ego
Next we come to the human being, who is conscious of himself or herself. The birds and animals do not have this quality. When anything threatens or disturbs animals, they are ready for either fight or flight. We are different. We do not fight only for food or clothes or shelter, but for something else; we fight for our ego's needs, the feeling that “I am something," the drive for power and subtle types of greed. This tendency does not leave even the holy men, the rishis, seers, saints, yogis and munis. This is the food of the most intelligent, ambitious, creative people.
My teacher used to say that the most difficult thing to give up was not sex, or pleasure, money, the home or even family. Beyond all these, there still remains ego and the power drive. This is the primary hurdle for spiritual growth. When this ego comes over us, when the ambition and need for power come over us, they daze and dazzle us. Other people wonder why a person changes in this way, but they don't see that the person is under the spell of the
