Over the years I have worked hard within to fight off the evil and vile ego (no, I am not implying sarcasm). I have become far humbler now than I was that first day at the camp when it dawned upon me that ego was my problem, that I was fighting everday a losing war against with the other me.
The ego is a tool for interacting in the real world. When you push the ego too hard, it fights back as something called "a shadow." In psychology, the shadow nature is something you're not even conscious of. But recklessly trying to push unconscious your panj vikaars, the shadow grows more powerful. If you drive yourself too hard before you are ready, you create more problems. Actually, harshness towards the ego doesn't make someone loving and good...it can break their mind and heart and create cruelty. A lot of the problems you see today in world religions are because of this disconnection in the heart and mind caused by wrong approach in spiritual discipline.
Veerji, you won't become more loving, more filled with light if you're always beating yourself up as vile and unworthy. At the same time, you are correct, you want to master your panj vikaars. To become a master of something is not to become a tyrant of anything. Simply move in your life with greater understanding of human nature. That's the path to mastery.
Take every one of the 5 evils, and understand that when purified by spiritual practices, those are your 5 strengths. So the goal is really more of transformation. Anger, for example, has the power to destroy the innocent. But transformed, it has the power to give strength and determination to the oppressed to no longer tolerate victimization. Simply to eliminate anger, you will lose a fundamental part of your own will. The more anger is purified, the less you are vulnerable to instinctive reacting to provocation, the less you corrupt your spiritual practice. If you beat up your own ego, your own imperfect humanity, how in the world will you treat other people? Train the mind as you would train an unruly child.
Ego implies a aserting a distinction between you and me. Ego is identity. Ego is in its barest the only idea which make one, one. Lets forget all condescion and the usual.
The key facet ( if only from a physical standpoint) of Sikhism, the hair, the turban, etc. clearly identify us Sikhs from all people (at least the Majority). How is that since the Gurus preached us to reduce Ego, they later make us distinct. Not blaming them, why is that where ever I go in Sikh society, the import of our Sikh Identity (you know what I speak of) is so highly touted, romanticised, and brainwashed into us. Aren't we, by the idea of Ego, all the master egotists if we flaunt our turbans, kesh, etc. as a symbol of us.
1. As they say, the fruit falls from the tree when ripe. If you aren't prepared, losing ego boundaries is something very destabilizing. You will only become psychotic. About 99% of the human population isn't ready for this kind of experience. Don't force it. Thats why they say spiritual discipline is like walking the razor's edge, because it's so easy to destroy yourself.
Why would Guruji make us distinct if the goal is to merge?
Okay, back to particles again. Every particle of your being already contains within it the properties of a wave, something which is indistinct, interconnected, united with all that is. Yet, because of the dual nature, it is also a particle manifesting it's distinction. Just look at the world around you. What do you see? You see a multiplicity of forms. You see ants, and birds of every color. You see all kinds of trees, all kinds of clouds, etc. The world is a dance of individuality. Individuality isn't bad. In fact, it's precious. But, despite all these seeming distinctions, underlying the core nature of every being is the same energy, the same life force, the same spiritual light.
Spiritual practice doesn't mean you blur distinctions as though merging with absolute was some kind of rejection of what is. It just means you are able to see beyond appearances. Merging with the absolute has a very interesting equation. The Buddhists talk about parinirvana as merging into this field of being, shunyata, or emptiness. But shunyata as a concept isn't only emptiness. It's the unification of light and emptiness, so it's 2 mathematical equivalents...everythingness and nothingness. It is the multiplicity of diverse life, and at the same time creative potential. Like nirgun and sargun natures. One is manifest and the other is unmanifest. Anyway, the point, although there is a merging, implying loss of distinctions, there's also everythingness as well that you take into your heart with piare. So you become one not with dissolution but with life-force itself.
There is so much misunderstanding about the panj kakkars. they are not a ritual, they are not a symbol we cling to superstitiously, they are not a focus of ego, they are not a burden.
When we take amrit, the panj kakkars become a part of who we are, our new identity. We take on the form of Guruji's saroop. How can you be egotistical, when you are taking pride in the appearance of the Guru's own roop? Does Guru's bana belong to your ego? Is it the same as plucking your hairs, shaving your dhaari? Wearing make-up? Is it some kind of egotistical based appearance like that? Or does every Singh and Singhni take on this same roop that belongs to Guru?
People are still corrupt, egotistical, vain or whatever. But the Guru's roop is the Guru's roop, that's why we love it so much. Little children like to see the great King in themselves. And in this case, people are a lot like little children. But Guruji has made us his little children. And we have opportunity to grow up (mature spiritually) and become great like He is, because His very presence is with us. We are trying to become the Divine dignity of the King, not the egotism of the "I." So please be patient with the Singhs and Singhnis, we are only people just like you are. Everyone is at their own stage of development.
If you were to compare any other fashion with Khalsa bana, I hardly think anyone will be thought as the supreme egotist who has the same style of dress as everyone else. I think what is happening, there are so few real Gursikhi Gurudwaras. That it seems if you find someone in bana he is sticking out like trying to be holier than everyone else. But if you visit Gurudwaras with a lot of chadi kala Singhs and Singhnis, that distinction fades away. We are all brothers and sisters. The ego is submerged in the Guru's roop. Especially you put keski on the head of a Singhni, she is not really being egotistical about her appearance. It's more of a discipline to limit your appearance in this way. And when you do stand out in a crowd, definitely you are standing against all the fashions that flatter the ego.
just compare: