You are so powerful that you are scared of yourself

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

Question: Pranaam Acharya Ji. One of your quotes says, “You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.” What does this mean?

Acharya Prashant: There are three ‘you’s’ used in that statement. The questioner is quoting me to me. The quote says, “You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.”

“You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.”

How many ‘you’s’ do you see in that statement? How many instances of ‘you’s’? Three. The first two refer to one thing, and the last one refers to something dimensionally different. The first two refer to…..

The small self. Right? The small self or the ego. And the third one ‘yourself’ refers to…..? The third one in, “You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself,” in this the ‘yourself’ refers to…..the best that you can be, the Great Self, the Truth; classically the Atman. And classically the first two ‘you’s’ will refer to the Aham, the ego. The third one refers to, you could say — the dissolved ego, the ascended ego, the purified ego.

So the ego is afraid of its own betterment. That is what that statement says.

The ego is so used to its littleness, to its familiar excuses of powerlessness, and worthlessness, that it just cannot tolerate coming to a point where its usual excuses do not hold anymore.

It’s almost like telling a fat guy, “You can run hundred metres in ten seconds.” And he can. The fellow might be just twenty two years old, he can shed weight, and he is well built. He has all the basic biological ingredients needed to be a athletic, but he has a lot of additional staff; a lot of flab, and a lot of habit.

So you call him and tell him, “You know what, you cannot run too fast. I don’t think that you can run too fast.” And he is happy. He is happy even though what you are telling him is a statement of his limitation. What you are saying to him is a declaration of his limitation, and powerlessness, and incapability, but he will be happy with that — “Oh yes, yes. I am happy. I cannot run too fast.”