interview

ANDREW COHEN: It is said that all spiritual practice in pursuit of liberation is solely for the purpose of slaying the ego. From your perspective as a master of yoga, could you please define what the ego is?

AMRIT DESAI: The ego is really the inborn sense of "I am," and that is something that nobody can avoid. The sense of "I am" is an identification that has different expressions through the evolutionary stages. The first experience of "I am" is when we directly identify with the body and is connected with the survival of the body. That's how it begins. And then I realize that I have a body, but I'm not my body. Then I realize that I have a mind, but I'm not my mind. I have my emotions, but I'm not my emotions. I have my self-concepts, but I'm not the concepts I have about myself. I have opinions, but I'm not my opinions. It's an evolutionary process, an evolutionary journey of ego. Ego is a sense of "I am" as an individual being, which nobody can deny. Ego is not something that is useless or that should be gotten rid of. It needs to be purified by clearly realizing who I really am.

AC: Can you please describe how that purification takes place on the path of yoga?

AD: In Ashtanga yoga, or eight-limbed yoga, there is the practice of the moral and ethical codes of conduct (yamas and niyamas), yogic postures (asanas), breath control (pranayama) and a proper, balanced, simple, conducive lifestyle. This is what creates the appropriate conditions so that the internal environment can be purified and so that naturally you begin to vibrate at progressively subtler frequencies. And then that makes certain stratas of life that are at a much more subtle level, which cannot be grasped intellectually or biologically, begin to come within your reach. It is the purification of the body, mind and heart.

AC: Yogi Desai, I want to ask you an intriguing question: What does it mean to have no shadow? I understand that your guru, Bapuji, was supposed to have been a truly remarkable being. What I want to know is this: Do you believe that it's possible for anyone to ultimately destroy the ego, which means to purify the vehicle of ego tendencies and motivations to such a degree that they thereby become truly empty and finally free from narcissistic self-concern and selfish actions? Do you think it's possible to have no shadow in this way?

AD: Yes, it is possible. And it has been proven by many great masters who reached that state. It is not the annihilation of "I am," but of the false identification that follows "I am"—the false identification with the self-image, self-concepts, belief systems, personal biases and fears and attachments. It is a letting go of who I am not. It is a discovery process, a letting go process; it's not an acquiring process.

AC: There are many well-known therapists who would say that it's not possible to not have a shadow. But I've always felt that if it wasn't possible to not have a shadow, then enlightenment really wouldn't mean anything. Whatever it ultimately means to be fully enlightened, I have always assumed that that would imply that the enlightened one was no longer casting a shadow, simply because of their utter purity of motivation.

AD: What I consider shadow is self-image and self-concepts, and they are all built into our unconscious, which is why we call it "shadow." It's an emotional reaction, and it's unconscious because our survival reactions are supposed to function in that manner. When an animal is attacked, adrenaline is released and immediately there is a reaction. So why do human beings have that emotional reaction? Because human beings have a survival instinct just like animals. Human beings, however, identify not just with the physical body as "I am"; they also identify with self-image as "I am." So when anybody attacks who I believe I am—my opinions, my way of doing things, my approach—it triggers in me the same survival reaction that ordinarily protects against danger to the body; and with that same intensity, human beings protect their self-image.

AC: So would you say that the goal of spiritual practice would be the eradication of those unconscious tendencies, to no longer cast a shadow?

AD: Exactly. That's the function of yoga.

AC: Could we say that would be, for lack of a better term, a perfected state or perfected condition?

AD: Yes, that would be a perfected condition.

AC: Jungian analyst Marianne Woodman, who regularly teaches at Kripalu, feels that perfection as a concept or as a goal "rapes the soul." She feels, as many others do, that for the human being who is seeking to evolve, the ideal of perfection not only does more damage than good but is, in fact, impossible to achieve.

AD: That is because psychology has been developed in the form of a "healing art." It's a pathological system; Freud's focus was dealing with pathological conditions. Yoga, on the contrary, is about transcending the ego rather than developing the ego. At the same time, psychotherapy may be necessary for people who are emotionally sick; it is appropriate for them to develop a healthy ego because that's the groundwork for transcendence of ego. That is why I always taught that we go from recovery to self-discovery. "Recover" means I want to come to a normal state. However, most "normal" people are sick; most people are schizophrenic or live with internal conflicts, most people have fears or paranoias.

AC: Right. So-called normalcy, from the point of view of enlightenment, is delusion.

AD: Yes, that is why I say that yoga was not developed for the pathological conditions; it was developed for enlightenment. My guru reached that state, and where I am coming from is having known directly from my guru that that state is possible.

AC: Do you think that it's possible for someone to become powerfully enlightened or awakened and yet still have a big ego? I've seen several of my own students, as a result of experiencing profound insights and intensely blissful feelings, awaken to their own deeper nature to such a degree that they were able to speak in a powerful and effective way to others about it. And yet at the same time, their egos and self-importance definitely seemed to grow large as a direct consequence of their experience. But when they were asked to forgo the ego-driven, narcissistic thrill of charisma and personal power that the experience had bestowed upon them, they found it impossible to face into their pride without sacrificing the newly won enormous self-confidence. It seems that in the last twenty years there have been many powerfully awakened masters, extraordinary people who were in touch with and capable of transmitting spiritual experiences to others who also, in retrospect, seemed to have had very big egos because of a narcissistic investment in being the best, the greatest, the truest, the most enlightened master alive. Is the temptation of self-importance almost always a by-product of powerful spiritual transformation? Even though ego death traditionally is the goal of spiritual practice and experience, isn't ego growth, except in very rare cases, almost always the inevitable result? Remarkably, in the end, for most, isn't the temptation of narcissism the "Catch-22" of enlightenment?

AD: What I have noticed is, even in the practice of yoga, when you begin to have the higher spiritual experiences, there is a danger because at every step or evolutionary stage for us all, there are temptations. And one of the first temptations, which you described, is a messiah complex that begins to emerge the moment you have some spiritual experiences. You begin to see the reality, and it gives you a grasp of what is going on. And all of a sudden the ego wants to take over and possess that. There is a tendency already there, and if you don't let go of that, then you are caught there, because that's where prosperity and anything you ask for begins to happen for you. That's the power—your abilities, your spiritual power, begin to manifest into worldly prosperity. And if you get caught there, then you stop there. So at every step of the way toward higher spiritual evolution, there is a surrender that is very basic to the spiritual unfoldment. So I would say, yes, that is very normal and most people compromise at a very, very beginning level of spiritual awakening, and they can't go any further.

AC: So the temptation of personal power is one of the biggest traps of spiritual experience?

AD: The biggest. And it is meant to be that way. What is the last nightmare that happened to Christ or the Buddha? They were given the temptation of having anything they wanted, and they chose wanting nothing. All they wanted was emptiness, wanting nothing for themselves, and therefore, they could transcend that state.