With youth: Ego thrives on hurt

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): Why do people do such activities that hurt them and still they keep on doing them? How can they continue doing such activities?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Your falseness never does anything that hurts it. Even the hurt reinforces it.

Let me give you an example. I think he is a bad man. So what do I do? A likely scenario is that I go and abuse him. If I abuse him, what will he do? He may not necessarily be a bad man, but he will slap me. So, according to you, I am hurt. So, what do I come back thinking? ‘He is surely a bad man. See, he slapped me’.

Are you seeing this? Even in being hurt your beliefs are being strengthened. You are being hurt, but your beliefs have been strengthened. What was your belief? That he is a bad man, this belief has been strengthened. The ego never gets hurt, it actually gets reinforced.

The only thing that really hurts the ego is intelligence. The only act that really hurts the ego is of intelligence.

Have you seen those vampire movies, anyone of those? When light falls on the vampire, the vampire vanishes away. Ego is like that vampire. Show it light, the light of intelligence, and it is shattered. Nothing else hurts it, but intelligence…