My grandmother was a remarkable woman. We come from a tradition that has been matriarchal for centuries, and within our large extended family –­ over a hundred people ­– Granny had weighty responsibilities. She liked to get up before dawn, long before the heat of the tropical sun became oppressive, and though I don’t remember her doing anything just for herself, she would work throughout the day. Self-reliant, afraid of nothing, she stood steady as a pillar when a crisis arose –­ a death in the family, for instance, or a failure in the crops. In worship, in work, she set an example for everyone.

But Granny knew how to play too. She could throw off her years and join the children at their games ­– and not just the girls either; she played hard with the boys at tag and ball, and usually got the better of us. During a particular annual festival, she liked to stand up on the bamboo and palm swing we had fashioned in the courtyard, single out one of the strongest boys, and say, “Push me as high as you can!” And up, up she would go in prodigious arcs, wood groaning from the strain, while the women gasped and we boys stared in admiration below.

Granny possessed a great secret: she knew how to put others first. If she bothered to think about her own needs, it was only after everyone else had been taken care of. I think especially of little things that mean so much to a child. On school days, she always prepared something special for my lunch ­– a favorite dish, a treat –­ and I would run all the way home to be with her. “Here comes the Malabar Express!” she would say. Then, though it wasn’t her own lunch time, she would sit next to me and keep me company as I ate. One of the village priests called her “Big Mother” –­ I ­imagine because she nurtured and ­sustained us so well.

At one point, when I developed some illness or other, the local doctor prescribed a saltless diet for a year. Three hundred and sixty-five days without salt! I cannot convey to you what a sentence that was. In a tropical country where salt figures into almost every dish . . . well, my school friends said, “Why don’t you just throw yourself into the river?”

The day after the order had been given, I came to breakfast with a long, long face. “What’s the use?” I said, staring down at my plate. Everyone gave me a look of commiseration. But what could they do? They felt helpless.

But not Granny. Serving me, she said quietly, “I am going on a saltless diet for a year too.” I don’t think I have ever had a better breakfast.

The drive to be separate

I said Granny possessed a great secret, but that wasn’t because she hid anything. The sad truth is that most people do not want this knowledge ­– chiefly, I think, because they fail to see the joy it brings, the sense of freedom.

One day I came home after school with something deeply disturbing on my mind: I had seen, for the first time, a child with elephantiasis. It is a terrifying disease, one that we are fortunately free of in this country. This little boy’s legs had swollen badly. He walked only with great effort and of course he was unable to join in our games. I told my grandmother about him. “Granny, it must be awful for that boy to have elephantiasis and not to play.”

Her face became very compassionate. She said, “Yes, everything in life will be hard for him.” Then she added, “But only one in a million suffers from elephantiasis of the leg. There is a much more dreadful disease that can afflict every one of us if we don’t guard ourselves against it all the time.”

“What’s that, Granny?”

“Elephantiasis of the ego.”

The more I have pondered that remark down the years, the more perceptive it seems. Our swollen concern for ourselves, she was saying, constitutes the worst threat in life. And the teachings of every religion bear her out. Repeatedly we are told that ego or self-will, our drive to be separate from the wholeness of creation, is the source of all our suffering. It keeps us from accepting others, from sympathy and quick understanding. More than that, it alienates us from the supreme reality we call God. It alone prevents us from knowing that, as Meher Baba put it, “You and I are not ‘we’; you and I are one.”

Puffed up by our self-will, we look out at the world through the distorting medium of our likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, opinions and judgments. We want everyone to behave as we think they should –­ the right way. When, naturally enough, they not only behave their own way but expect us to do as they do, we get agitated. And what we see through this agitation makes up our everyday reality.

The word ego, as you may know, comes from the Latin for “I.” Sanskrit too has a precise term for self-will: ahamkara, from aham, “I,” and kara, “maker.” Ahamkara is the force that continuously creates our sense of I-ness and its close companions “me,” “my,” and “mine.” Independent of any situation, something deep within us, as persistent as our heartbeat, constantly renews our sense of separateness. Whether we are awake or asleep our ego goes on, though we are more conscious of it at some times than at others. Since it is always there, we think of it as our identity, and we protect it as a miser does his gold. Not only that, we expect others to treasure it too.

Management consultants advise their executive clients to establish priorities before they start to work. The ego creates priorities too. At the top of one of those legal-sized yellow pads it puts “To Be Taken Care Of.” Below, on the first line, it writes “Me.” There follows a list of all its requirements, which take up most of the page. At the bottom come the needs of those around. Oh, yes, if there are time and energy and resources left over, we will give them freely to others. But by and large, we must be served first.

The search for happiness

Ironically, this drive for self-aggrandizement has never led to happiness and never will. We cannot always have what we want; it is childish to think so. No one has the power to regulate this changing world so that he or she can continuously sing, “Everything’s going my way” –­ if we could do so, it would only stunt our growth. I have heard that even simple organisms placed in an ideal environment ­– controlled temperature, plenty of food, no stress of any kind ­– soon perish. Luckily, no one is likely to put us in such a situation.

“For those whom ego overcomes,” the Buddha says, “sufferings spread like wild grass.” You must have seen crabgrass or dandelions take over a lawn. In the countryside where I live, our fields have an even fiercer threat: thistles. The first spring only a few appear. You can walk through the grass without any trouble from them, and if you don’t know their ways, you may not bother to remove them. After all, the flowers are a lovely color, and who doesn’t like thistle honey?

But the next year, the “stickers” have spread. Big patches stand here and there, small clusters are everywhere; you cannot cross the field without feeling their sting. And after a year or two, the whole field becomes a tangle of tall, strong thistles; it is agony to walk through.

Similarly, the ­Buddha tells us, ­­self-will inevitably leads to increasing frustration and pain. What a strange situation! We desire, naturally enough, to be happy. But if we put our personal happiness at the top of the list, we only succeed in making ourselves miserable.

Putting others first

It is only by giving up this attempt to put ourselves first that we can find what we really want ­– peace of mind, lasting relationships, love. Do you remember the children’s game “King of the Mountain” ­– scrambling up the sand pile, pulling and pushing each other to get on top? That may be all right when we are seven years old, but when we are twenty-seven ­– or fifty-seven? By the time we become adults, we should begin to think of leaving these scrambling games behind.

Eradicating self-will is the means by which we realize the supreme goal of the spiritual life. This is what all the great mystics have done, and done completely, through years of strenuous effort. True, if we set out to do it, we are going to find it difficult and uncomfortable for a long while. But what freedom we experience when that monstrous impediment we call the ego is finally removed!

Says Saint Bernard of Clairvaux:

Just as air flooded with the light of the sun is transformed into the same splendor of light, so that it appears not so much lighted up as to be light itself, so it will inevitably happen that every human affection will then, in some ineffable manner, melt away from self and be entirely transfused . . . . The substance indeed will remain, but in another form, another glory, and another power . . . .

In this self-naughting lies the power of life itself, and through it we are born anew. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “If you want to find your life, you have to lose it.” It is what Gandhi meant when he said, in response to the suggestion that he was without ambition: “Oh, no, I have the greatest ambition imaginable. I want to make myself zero.”

What concrete steps can we take to bring this about? What can we do day by day?

When my grandmother told me about elephantiasis of the ego, I remember I asked her whether there was any cure for this malady. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Love of God.”

First, we need to ask what we mean by “love.” The term has been used so shamelessly in connection with all kinds of things –­ soft drinks, paper towels, garage door openers. And love between a man and a woman, we are told, means a muscular, tanned fellow running hand in hand through the surf with a stunning, billowy-haired girl, or couples sitting across glasses of wine at a little hideaway restaurant. From such imagery we draw our romantic notions of love.

But listen to Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over others’ sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance. Love will never come to an end.

That is a love worthy of us. That is a love powerful enough to dissolve our self-will.

When Jesus urged us to love God, he added also: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The two interconnect. The Lord is present in every one of us, and when we love those around us, we are loving him. The Hindu scriptures put it memorably:

When a man loves his wife more than himself, he is loving the Lord in her. When a woman loves her husband more than herself, she is loving the Lord in him. When parents love their children more than themselves, they are loving the Lord in them.

Everyone can learn to love

I once spoke to a group of high school girls at a luncheon in Minneapolis. After my talk I answered questions, and the girl who presided asked, “You’ve used the word love many times. What does love mean to you?” I gave her the same answer: “When your boyfriend’s welfare means more to you than your own, you are in love.” This girl turned to the rest of the gathering and said candidly, “Well, I guess none of us has ever been in love.”

I think that can be said for most people. But we can learn to be in love. The spiritual life is marvelously fair: it is open to everybody. No favoritism, no hereditary class. No matter where you start, you can learn everything you need to learn, provided you are prepared to work at it. So too of love. Any one of us may be very self-willed now, but why should we be depressed about it? We can begin the work of eradicating our self-will, and the easiest and most natural way is by putting the welfare of those around us first.

In a sense, it comes down to attention. When we are preoccupied with ourselves – our thoughts, our desires, our preferences – we cannot help becoming insensitive to others’ needs. We can pay attention only to so much, and all our attention rests on ourselves. When we turn away from ourselves, even if only a little, we begin to see what is really best for those we love.

Hugh, for instance, really looks forward to watching “The Wide World of Sports” every weekend. He has done it for years. “I’ve had a hard week,” he says, puts up his stockinged feet on the ottoman, and leans back.

But what about his wife, Elaine? Was her week so easy? He might ask her what she would like to do. Go to the beach? Shop? Get the garden started? If might be painful to pry himself away, but if he loves her – if he wants to grow – he will choose to read the scores in Monday’s paper.

For Hugh it may be “The Wide World of Sports” that has to be forgone; for another it may be a shopping trip, a nap, a chance to make some extra money, a hobby, an unfinished painting. Whatever it is, giving it up, even temporarily, may hurt. Our preferences are sticky, like the adhesive on a bandage; there may be a wince when we tear them away. But it has to be done if we want to relate easily and lovingly with those around.

Any time we refrain from self-centered ways of acting, speaking, and even thinking, we are putting others first. Anger, for example, is often nothing more than violated self-will. Hugh expected a bonus and didn’t get it, so he sulks. Elaine wants their son Jack to stop tinkering with his car and spend more time on his schoolwork, but Jack has other ideas; both get resentful and quarrel. To be blunt, when we are crossed like this by people or events, we do our human equivalent of roaring, baring our fangs, and lashing out with claw, horn, tail, or hoof. The household can become quite a menagerie.

But anger is power, and we can learn to harness this power by putting each other first. Whatever the flavor of our anger – irritability, rage, stubbornness, belligerence, or sullen silence – it can all be transformed into compassion and understanding. Those we live with will certainly benefit from that, and so will we.

Opposing when necessary

This does not mean that if someone we love tries to do something foolish or injurious, we should ignore it or connive at it by saying, “Whatever you want, dear.” Putting others first does not at all entail making ourselves into a doormat. In fact, if we really love someone, we will find it necessary to speak out for that person’s real and long-term interest – even to the point of loving, tender, but firm opposition.

Often the way we do this makes all the difference. If we are accusing or resentful we will seem entangled, judgmental, just the opposite of loving. Our words, our facial expressions, may betray a lack of respect: “I knew you couldn’t stay on that diet, Hugh!” Even with the best of conscious intentions, we may provoke a nasty clash. But if we can support the other person and express our disapproval tenderly, with respect, it will help him or her to see more clearly. When we have such a helpmate, my grandmother used to say, we do not need a mirror.

Lately I have run across best-selling books encouraging people to compete with each other, even with one’s own husband or wife. Many couples, I hear, have taken this advice. Who brings home the most income? Who has the most promising career? I have even seen couples compete over their friends – or, tragically, for the love of their own children. But a man and woman brought into union are not adversaries. They are meant to complete each other, not to compete. Their union should dissolve separate boundaries – what is bad for one can never be good for the other.

On fire with love

My plea is that none of us cease ­striving until we reach the unitary ­consciousness beautifully illustrated in the lives of the great men and women of God, who have risen above separateness to become universal, on fire with love for all. Then we will live in the ­certitude that all life is one and that whatever we do has an effect, for good or ill, everywhere. This is the realization John Donne conveys in those haunting lines:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.