The conquest of the ego is a hard task; years of persistent effort are needed to get success in this endeavour.

The conquest of the ego is a hard task; years of persistent effort are needed to get success in this endeavour. Think of this example – have you tried to break the coconut as soon as it comes from the coconut tree? The shell is covered compactly by a coat of fibre. You cannot break the nut by hitting even with a crowbar. Take off the fibrous armour, then breaking it is easy. When you take a coconut to be offered in the temple, you remove the fibre, and then offer it to God by breaking it into two halves. This is the symbol for destroying the ego and surrendering to the Lord. So also in life, you must remove the fibre of desire for sense-objects and then, go before the Lord devoid of desire and anger (kama and krodha); there you declare that you are egoless by breaking the coconut into two. You are then accepted!

Bagavan Sri Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba