Shri Nathji also gave another example. The human soul can be likened unto a pure mirror, which is inside the body. It is absolutely pure and perfect in itself and at peace when in its pure state. However when the windows of the five senses of the human mind are opened, the entire world outside becomes reflected in that mirror. And when the mirror looks at itself it finds the colours of the outside world within itself. For a while it forgets its inner purity, in which no colours had existed. The reflections are a cause of the desires of the human mind and senses, which attach themselves to the things of the world. The reflections constitute the false I, the ego of the human body. When the soul gives up these desires and thus annihilates this false I it comes back to its state of purity and realises its divine essence– and the voice of the soul then becomes the voice of God.
The way to annihilate the ego or the I is to give up all desires which bind the soul to the world outside. It means shutting out the windows of the mind, which was reaching out to the world in the form of desires. And the way to give up the desires of the world is to evolve a desire for God alone, to give up one’s own will, and to accept the Will of God in everything that happens. Man must realise that he is nothing and that God is everything, that man is like a zero and God is like One who can convert the zero into ten. It was thus that Shri Babaji Maharaj had said:
I am convinced there is no condition higher than that silence which comes of the abandonment of all latent desires.
Realisation is that state in which the ego or I vanishes. When the desire for God enters our hearts to such a great extent that no other thought remains within, then we rise above the ego and its associated I. And this apparent annihilation of the I then takes us to that stage of realisation, which can be understood only by those who have attained it.