In general everyone has one simple question regarding :
Question: In general everyone has one simple question regarding
: “I am not this body, I am not this mind,’ we are supposed to chant this daily.
So that means if I am not this body, I am not this mind and if this body is not
there, mind is not there, still I will be here. Is it so? How is it so?
Secondly, related to this is: if it is
so then it is very difficult to believe, because whatever is here and there
without the body and mind is a result of some kind of cosmic accident or some
kind of evolutionary accident? So he wants to know about : “who am I” .
Answer : Now, when you say or when you ask if I am not the body,
if I am not the mind, you’re making it hypothetical. Just ask yourself : “is it
a fact that you gathered this body? Is it a fact? Is it a fact all the content
of your mind was gathered from outside?” Yes…if it is so. So then what you
gather cannot be you. And hence there is no anything hypothetical about it, it
is definitely not you, isn’t it? But do you still exist? So how one can say
about : “who am I ..? or who are you..?”
Now, so what you’re asking is ‘Who am I?’ Don’t ask to anyone, why
do you ask ‘Who am I?’. People had lined up at airport to check in at the
counter. And one man came in a big rush, jumped the line came straight to the
counter thrust his ticket like this and he wants to check him. The lady at the
counter said, ‘Sir, there is a line, please go stand in the line.’ He said,
‘No, I’m in a hurry.’ She said, ‘Well, everybody’s in a hurry. You please stand
in the line.’ Then he said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ So she promptly picked up the microphone and
said, ‘There is a man here who doesn’t know who he is, can somebody help him?’
Now you come and ask me who am I? What anyone to tell you about
that? Whatever he tells you will be just a nice… if he tell you, ‘You are an
embodiment of the Divine.’ If you go and
act out your Divine nature at home, your wife will leave you, if you act too
godly at home. If you try this in your office, you’ll get fired for sure, or if
he tells you, ‘You are a no good nothing’ you won’t believe him. If he tells
you, ‘You are a drop of divinity that fell off Shiva’s lap and here you are.’ Just
ask yourself what kind of story do you want? A pleasant story or an unpleasant
story, if you hear an unpleasant story, you will not want to believe it, and if
you hear a pleasant story, you will become fanciful and lose all your sense.
But if you know the nature of the story, then it’s a different level of sense.
So at present, don’t bother about : “who am I…?” do not try to drop into a
conclusion, do not arrive a conclusion. Just seek, what is not you….and keep it
aside. If you keep all that is not you, what remains…is “You”, where it will
go..? Watch the picture at top ....The question is getting bigger and bigger...but once you start searching what is not you......the question itself getting smaller and smaller
Suppose you’re a Vedantin and you believe you’re all maya, at
least that you must discover, not believe what somebody said, isn’t it? If you
do not exist, is it not very, very, very important that you find out that you
do not exist? And if you do not even exist, what the hell are you going
through? Why all the pain? Why all the nonsense, why all the rubbish of life,
when you don’t even exist. Not worthwhile if you do not even exist, isn’t it?
Yes? At least if you are in existence and you’re getting somewhere, little pain
on the way it doesn’t matter. Yes?
You’re climbing the hill. You’re going to reach the top of the
hill, on the way your knees are hurting, it’s okay, but you want to get there.
You’re not going to get anywhere just legs are paining, you don’t want that,
isn’t it? And you don’t even exist but legs are paining, do you want that? For
sure, you don’t want that. So you must find out.
So this simple in spirituality is about keeping aside whatever you are not. What you are, no one can talk about it. Any one cannot make a statement about that. Just remove what you are not…..and that is the way to find out what you are.  |
