Page 149 - Ecstasy and Agony in the Journey to Infinity

64. 􏰀ావ్􏰁మానము (Svabhimanamu)
It is a shade of ego. In spirituality it can be understood as an attitude of unacceptance of the superiority of a guru bhai and demanding equality of status.
Drona and the pandavas are amazed at the archery skill of Ekalavya who fills the mouth of the barking dog with the arrows without hurting to quieten the barking dog. Here, Arjuna because of his self respect cannot tolerate the superiority of Ekalavya’s archery skill and insists his guru to take the fees due to the teacher by asking Ekalavya to cut off his right hand thumb and exhibits a poor quality in character - svabhimanamu that is respect to self to be preserved ever at the cost of loss to others.
When a person does paraninda, he loses goal clarity because your object of attention has gone to others. If you criticize say, Sikhism you forgot your goal, your mind is on that, on something else, your energy is focussed on something that is low and so the goal is lost. When, as Babuji puts it, several channels for your mind have been created, this is what happens. Now, instead of being 131