"Me first"

"When you were born, for the first half an hour, you were just one cell. Of the millions of sperms that are released by the male organ, all die save one. It is this sperm which fertilizes the egg. Ask the doctors how you get this body, they will tell you that the sperm merges with the egg and fertilization occurs. Then after a series of stages a cyst is formed that gets embedded in the uterus and further development takes place - placenta is formed, it gives way to an embryo and then after 9 months the baby is born. Ask them trace the life events of this baby, they'll tell you about development of reflexes, of growth, of education, marriage… Ask them what next? Weakening of cells, old age and finally death.

So, out of the millions of sperms that were born, just one survived only to die a few decades later. The sperm that came first, the one that beat them all, even that perished eventually. This is the truth of life.

 Our basic nature is like that sperm only, that which survived - 'me first' or selfishness. That sperm after competing with millions, became the body that you have and even after that, all it experiences is just pain. And yet if you ask it to go back, it shies away.

So eventually no one is spared. And yet nobody is ready to leave it despite knowing that it is not going to last because they are enjoying it. You must have heard the story of Bheeshma. His mother, Ganga, married Shantanu on the condition that he will not question her deeds. She would drown her kids into the river Ganga soon after birth and as promised, Shantanu would not ask her anything despite being miserable. After drowning six sons, when she was about to do the same to the seventh, Shantanu could no longer hold back and intervened. So Bheeshma was ‘spared' to enjoy the pleasure of being born to a king. We all know how much he enjoyed in his life and in how much pain he left his body lying on the bed of arrows for days together. These are real stories, you can visit the Krishna Museum in Kurukshetra where you will find artefacts that prove that the Mahabharata war actually took place. So of the millions of sperms the ones that came first, and of those also the one that was not drowned, got laid on a bed of arrows and it too perished. It is just a matter of some extra years - extra pleasure or pain?

In this body is there anything besides pain? Every pleasure comes with a pain. No matter how long you enjoy, eventually you will meet the same end. So if you want to reach somewhere, you have to take the journey back. That race that sperm was running, that sperm has to run backwards –"I don't want to go further, I am going back" And in order to go back you need a lot of courage because the sperm can see all the pleasures…'I will be getting such a beautiful body, I will become a commissioner, I will wield authority over others.'

But till you do that, rest assured you are going nowhere, you are very much here. This is the fact, you can go to as many Yog Gurus, you will not get to hear anything different. For Yog Gurus do not talk of politics or increasing the business or improving relationships, they just talk about how to go back to complete this journey and that is precisely what you don't want. Why?  Because your basic nature is to come first in that race. You want to run the fastest and come first, that is, enjoy the maximum, the same pleasure the sperm gets by coming first and getting a body. But the doctors have confirmed - even that body wont stay for long. What then is the point of running that race?"

-Excerpt from Yogi Ashwini's discourse - http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/sermon/me-first-our-basic-nature.html