Egoism, the Killer

Just a few days back, I saw an old movie “Abhimaan”.
It’s a very popular film of Bollywood industry of early seventies. However I never had a chance to see it. I liked the movie a lot due to the lovely songs. But the most important was the message it was carrying. This has led me put the feelings into my own words.
The film was based on the husband wife relationship and underlying ego. Though it was depicted in early seventies, it’s a lesson for this woman chauvinism society of this 21st century.
So question and concern is Ego in relationship.
According to the great epic Bhagavad-Gita, ego is the feeling of separateness, the sense of duality or the idea of being distinct and different from others. It is the false perception of the self that exists in all of us as individual consciousness. The ego makes us believe that we are doers of all our actions and are also responsible for all our actions.
The ego is an aspect of personality of a human being. It mediates the demands of the other aspects of the personality called the id and the superego. The ego is the part of us that prevents us from acting on our basic urges or more primitive instincts that flow from the id and also works to achieve a balance with our moral and idealistic standards, coming from the superego. It is considered to be connected to the conscious as well as the unconscious parts of our psyche.
Coming to a relationship of married couple, there is no relationship when there is existence of ego. Relationship cannot happen before the egos are gone. You only believe that it is a relationship. In contrary it is a conflict, it is enmity, it is jealousy, it is aggression, it is domination, it is possession, and many things – but not relationship. How can you relate with two egos there? When there are two egos, then there are four persons. The wife is there and the ego, and the husband is there and the ego – husband is hidden behind his ego, wife is hidden behind her ego, and those two egos go on making love. The real contact never happens. Here ego becomes the unconscious part of our psyche. It is disastrous.
When ego is dropped in the relationship, love happens and then ecstasy happens. Then that very relationship becomes sacred, it becomes a shrine. And through that door you can reach to Almighty, the Supreme of all being. You have to grow more and more towards the state where the ’I’ is not present at all. This is the goal of all love, and this is the misery of all lovers. Because they want this to happen and it doesn’t happen, then there is great misery, then they feel cheated, then they feel frustrated. Then they start thinking of changing the partner.
The movie beautifully illustrates the sacrifice of the wife for his husband’s ego and in turn beautifies their relationship. Sacrifice may not be the right word for it. Rather it’s the realization and demolition of the self-ego for a better life. In the end, only husband is for a wife and vice-versa. In this so called woman chauvinism society, as women always think they should be equal in all essence as men, this cannot always be valid. At the end, the wife has to sacrifice. This is life as defined all the great personalities.
In the childhood, my father had summarized me the life of a woman in three stages:
1. In first stage, a girl is under the guidance of her parents. Once she crosses it, she starts ruining her own life.
2. In the second stage, the girl is under the guidance of her husband.
3. In third stage, she is under guidance of her own children.

The lines may be small, but now I can feel this carries the whole meaning of life within it. There is no question of ego in the life of a wife/girl. But nobody should misread as a lady has not her own prestige or self-esteem. This is the way ladies have always been respected in our society. Sita Devi in Ramayan, whom I consider as the emblem of sacrifice should be the example of every woman’s life. She is also the most respected lady in the history of Indian epics.