DISCOURSES Volume II - Avatar Meher Baba Trust

76 DISCOURSESseeks self-expression either in the role of someone who isdecidedly better than others or in the role of someone who isForms of the egodecidedly inferior. As long as there is ego,there is an implicit background of duality; andas long as there is the background of duality, the mental operationsof comparison and contrast cannot be effectively stilled forever.Therefore even when a person seems to feel a sense of equalitywith another, this feeling is not securely established. It marks apoint of transition between the two attitudes of the ego rather thanpermanent freedom from the distinction between the "I" and the"you."This pseudo-sense of equality, where it exists, may bestated in the formula, "I am not in any way inferior or superior tothe other." This will at once be seen to be a negative assertion ofIdea of equalitythe ego. The balance between the "I" and the"you" is constantly disturbed by the predominanceof a superiority or inferiority complex. The idea ofequality arises to restore this lost balance. The negative assertionof the ego in the form of equality is, however, utterly different fromthe sense of unity which is characteristic of the life of spiritualfreedom. Although the sense of equality is made the basis of manysocial and political ideals, the real conditions of rich co-operativelife are fulfilled only when the bare idea of equality is replaced bythe realisation of the unity of all life.The feelings of superiority and inferiority are reactions toeach other, and the artificially induced feeling of equality mightbe regarded as a reaction to both. In all these three modes theTwo complexesego succeeds in asserting its separateness. Thesuperiority complex and the inferiority complexfor the most part remain disconnected from each other.