Mera|my|mine vs Apnaa|ours

A gursikh once said many years ago that there are many ways to defeat your ego through the words you use.

One way is to never use the word 'mera' (my) when you are referring to a possession. We should never say mera ghar or my house, or my car instead we should use apna ghar (our house) or apnee gaddi (our car).

The only things we should profess to have should be weaknesses 'My weaknesses belong to me, they are mine and my own doing'. However any qualities I have belong to you - tudh gun mai sabh avgunaa.

In the same way anything we achieve should be accredited to vaheguru (vaheguru Ji ki fateh). Many gursikh who achieve something will often say it happened because of 'guru di kirpa' with the blessings of Vaheguru.

Gurbani talks about how nothing belongs to us anyway, including our achievements or our possessions.

Bhai Gurdas Ji says 'kar kay neech sadaavanaa taa Prabh lekhe andar paae' - When we do a good action, we should not boast about it, we should remain humble, then that action is registered in our destiny.

Naam kamaaee makes this all second nature anyway as it will lead us on a path of humility to defeat ego.

By adopting these few basic strategies we can try to live the message of Gurbani alittle more.