25/11/2025
How to recognise a Narcissist.
The Prevalence of Dominating Nature
The first byproduct of mahā-māyā is called pradhāna or “I am the boss”. This bossiness is a form of the āvaraṇātmika or the “covering potency”.
The greater the sense of insecurity in a person, the greater is their need to project outwardly power and confidence. A narcissist is a person who suffers from inner fear and projects outward confidence, power, and satisfaction. So, the idea that “I am the boss” is not based on true inner confidence and fearlessness; it is rather based on insecurity. The greater the inner insecurity, the greater is the restlessness and then outwardly projected confidence. Since the whole thing is paradoxical, therefore, it is hard to spot such people, because they are alternating between supreme confidence and excessive insecurity.
A good example is managers and leaders in the corporate world who project supreme confidence outwardly, but they are always scared of losing their job, getting reprimanded, etc. They lack leadership because they are fearful. Their inner insecurities and fears prevent them from making righteous decisions. All their decisions are meant to protect themselves. They project outward power, but they are weak inside. Hence, they oscillate between extreme bouts of anxiety over small issues and then project great outward power as if they are truly confident.
A truly confident person is calm. A narcissist is not calm, even if they are projecting boldness outwardly. At the slightest of trouble or problem, their insecurity, fear, restlessness, anxiety, etc., becomes apparent. Then, they get angry, start blaming other people, conjuring the worst, and spreading fear and stress to others. They are always prone to sacrifice others in order to protect themselves.
Hence, their so-called bossiness is not a sign of leadership, tenacity, strength, etc. It is just a projection. When they can dominate other people, they feel more confident, relaxed, and stress-free. Hence, they are constantly aching to control, dominate, and subjugate others. This is known as the “narcissistic supply”. They need to feel good about themselves, and they will always catch those people whom they can control, and dominate, and use them to create their “supply” of egoistic fulfillment. All these people that the narcissist uses, are generally lower in status, age, wealth, position, or power. People who are lower in social status are prone to naturally respect those who are higher in status. The narcissist feeds on those who are lower in status, because they are naturally respecting, and easy to dominate.
The Absence of a Moral Compass
The by-product of pradhāna is mahattattva. As noted above, mahat means “greatness” and tattva means “essence”, so mahattattva means the “essence of greatness”. We commonly call these moral virtues such as truthfulness, kindness to others, sacrificing nature, and cleanliness or organized life.
The narcissist lacks a moral compass. They do not hesitate in lying, cheating, and deceiving others. They are often manipulative, and they manipulate to gain control over people, to use them as fodder for their “narcissistic supply” or egoistic fulfillment. A simple example of this manipulation is that they will never share complete information about anything with you. They will always present what is favorable for them and hide what is unfavorable for them. They will always tell you one-sided stories to fool you. Whatever they are saying is untrustworthy; they will highlight problems that don’t exist to prod you into fear and anxiety (to evoke some action from you) and hide the real problems from your vision.
A narcissist is never sacrificing and never kind to others. They will create a big hue and cry if they are asked to make a small sacrifice, even if that means a lot for the other person. They will terrorize the person who is making a small demand, and make it seem like it is a huge ask being made of them. Even if they do something for you, they will constantly gloat about it, and try to make you feel guilty about having made such a demand from them. This is their tactic so that you will stop asking them.
A good example of this is selectively miserly behavior toward others. A miser doesn’t want to spend money at all, but a narcissist only doesn’t want to spend money on others. If he or she is forced to spend, then they will make you feel guilty. They will constantly tell you about the great thing they have done for you, and how you should feel gratitude toward them. Meanwhile, the narcissist will spend excessively on his or her egoistic needs. Their need for egoistic fulfillment is so big that any expenditure is justifiable but the big needs of others are so insignificant that any expense on them is a waste of money. This creates a paradox in which money is spent on useless things when it comes to the narcissist’s needs, and not spent on important things when it comes to the needs of others. To boost his or her ego, the narcissist will spend any amount of money and then complain about others spending too much—even if those others are spending money on their basic necessities.
Many narcissists do charity and donate money to distant and unrelated people because it makes them feel good about themselves. Meanwhile, people in their home may not have clothes, food, or education, because—as the narcissist will tell them repeatedly—“there is no money for luxuries”. Again, a paradox is created in which distant people will praise the narcissist for his munificence and generosity, while those who are living close to them will struggle for the basic necessities of existence.
What doesn’t break you, will make you stronger. The narcissist relies on breaking you because that’s the only way they can control and manipulate you. If you can survive this incessant onslaught, then you will become spiritually stronger. But if you cannot, then the narcissist can also destroy you completely.
Ashish Dalela
