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Human beings are known by a scientific name – Homo sapiens. The name ‘Homo sapiens’ means ‘wise man’ or ‘knowledgeable man.’ Most humans try to live less of the ‘wise man’ tag and live more of the ‘knowledgeable man’ tag.
In most cases, ‘I know everything’ leads to becoming selfish, egoistic, and promoting one’s own interests. One focuses less on being a social-being doing good to others in order to enhance their well-being. Exceptions do exist.
Selfishness leads to ego boost making one betray one’s own true nature and go astray in all aspects. A heavy dose of the same renders the person go after desires, rather than being happy with the needs. Self-aggrandisement, greed, name and fame, and the desire to acquire more dovetails one into the other to cause a state of unfulfillment leading to anger.
This anger clouds one’s thinking and judgement, causing the mind to become very turbulent leading the intellect to waver, and an ultimate destruction. Bhagwan alludes to this in Bhagavad Gita shlokas 63 and 64 of chapter 2.
Is there a solution for one who is getting waylaid in the manner described above? A slight tweak to being self-centred actually helps to realize our own self. The resolve when one is traversing along in the spiritual path is to have a clear understanding that there is a Self, the Supreme Power.
That understanding of the Supreme Power as within oneself or outside, in itself is a humbling factor. A state of surrender to the Lord or accepting how minuscule one is in this diverse universe
is a starting point to achieve detachment and discrimination to progress
in this path.
A video that I received on social media was a true revelation, in this regard. The camera zooms out from a young woman with a smiling face lying on a lush green lawn, to images of earth, to the solar system, to the Milky Way, to the Galaxy, and then starts to zoom back in into her eye, then the inside blood vessels, to the cells, to the chromosomes, to the atoms, to the quarks, back again to the smiling face. Any appreciation towards science and technology is apt, but can we get the implicit message?
We are each but a tiny speck in this vast universe.