WHO AM I?
Swami Chidananda
Varanasi
All of us, the humanity is conditioned to think in certain ways. In the east or in the west everywhere you & I have certain desire and in this medium of desires of the mind, the personal self, the personal worth, self worth, self esteem, self judgment, self perception, ideas of what I was, what I am and what I want to be; mark my word ‘ideas’. What I really am, God knows—in a manner of saying, but I carry ideas. I shall not answer this question ‘Who am I?’ rather I shall try to show that this question ‘Who am I?’ puts the axe at the very base of all human suffering—I shall attempt to show that the sense of ‘I’ is the very foundation of numerous forms of human predicaments.
To begin with in a simple domestic scenario, I married a few months ago, come into this joint family, I am the new daughter-in-law, I come from my particular background and here I am as daughter-in-law, my husband, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my sister-in-law all are under one roof in a joint family setting and alas! As it happens sometimes after a few days or few weeks, there are various differences in values, perceptions, expectations etc. and after six months I ask myself in this – Who am I? Where am I? What is my position? Am I really well received here? Do all want me? Am I truly a loved one? Even by the man called my husband? Does he really love me? Who am I? In the medium of a lot of relationships, you & I are asking this question actually. We had good understanding before, as partners of a company. But as it happens sometimes, after a while there is some confusion, then I ask who am I in his eyes now?
So we do ask this question, but we do not go to the depth of this issue. Generally, we stay on the surface. The mind drawing from memories, yesterday’s hurt or last week’s gratifications, constructs a sense of ‘I’ and labels it, judges it as pretty good. ‘I am very fine today or I am not very good today’. If I am pretty good, mind is capable of saying ‘I need to remain like this for the whole year to come, to long time to come. How to sustain this good sense of the self? If I feel bad how can I move from this feeling bad about myself to feeling good about myself. So from I-1 we want to move to I-2.
The spiritual wisdom has a bearing on all these issues. It is rightly said by many thinkers that in science typically one wonders about the things, phenomena outside and the question is – What is that? What is this? In spirituality question is ‘Who am I?’ This question assumes a special importance in the so called – way of wisdom. I must admit in spirituality of another kind – the way of devotion, one is dwelling on God, thinking of God in some way or the other. Various religions, various mystics, great seer here talked about God, the supreme, the creator. Various names – Ek Omkar, Father in Heaven, Rama, Krishna, Shiva and all that. So in the path of devotion one thinks about God. Incidentally in that exercise one’s self dissolves away. That too aims at undoing of false construction of the self. But in what we call the way of wisdom, we are taking cognizance directly of this Self, rising in ourselves.
In fear, there is someone who is afraid. In desire, there is some entity that is desiring. In hurt, there is something in one that is hurt. So we call it a center. There is in me a centre that is pleased at times, displeased at other time and annoyed at yet another time. So what is this centre? Is this centre something Absolute? Is this centre a product of conditioning? Is this that is hurt or that rejoices a programmable and programmed entity, is the significance of this question ‘Who am I?’
A spiritual classic like Bhagavad Gita addresses the issue of one’s identity and does a bit of ground work, does a bit of preparatory teaching. In fact the whole lot of verses from Bhagavad Gita just ask us to know our personality constitution, for which the word is svadharma . In a well known and much quoted verse of Bhagavad Gita III:35 Sri Krishna says:
-shreyaansvadharmo vigunah pardharmaatsvanushthitaat | -svadharme nidhanam shreyah paradharmo bhayaavahah || 3.35Which means everyone should act as per one’s true nature. One should not pretend and imitate someone else. When one imitates someone else falling for some temptation, may be pursuing false prestige or may be just under fear or pressure or whatever, one is not oneself. That somebody else’s nature is paradharma. My true nature is svadharma and what a wonderful advice Sri Krishna gives – he says first thing to live a life of an order, is to recognize that pretending is harmful. Putting up a façade, putting up some false image for whatever reason is not going to give us true peace. Shed, avoid all pretending and be yourself. Being yourself, working in the reality of how God made you, reach the highest.
A Christian minister wrote a book “God made you an original, do not die a duplicate”. So if we imitate, if we pretend like somebody else, we become a duplicate. Everyone can see that a lot of complications, stress and avoidable sufferings all come about because you & I on a day to day basis put up a façade. Many time we say, ‘what to do, unless I show up myself in that way, I’ll be in trouble’. But showing myself in some false way I invite a lot of other trouble what to do? Now you and I have the same dilemma with respect to pretending, we feel helpless. One of you may say to me that it is not just one self-image, we keep some ten self-images and depending on situation we put the mask. Kannada author D V Gundappa wrote: Ravana had ten faces and typically we human beings have hundred faces, at different time different face comes forth.
Interestingly our first reading of the Bhagavad Gita would make us think that this svadharma, one’s own nature and paradharma, somebody else’s nature are a matter of choosing duties. Do your duty, don’t get into somebody else’s duty. Find out your duty and be dedicated to it, be devoted to it is the simple reading and yes, lot of us easily understand ‘right, I must do my duty, why worry about anything else’. But please see behind the duty there is the doer. Svadharma right way touches on the two sides of the same issue. This is my duty because I am of a certain type, the way God (nature) made me. Obviously nature has made us all very differently, diversely. Some are by nature temperamental, some are slow, some are very fast; physically, intellectually, not only by body but by mind and intellect too we all are very different. Of course broad category have been made, broad classes – those who drive and those who are driven, there are various types- type A, type B in western psychology and eastern models certain personality types have been identified. So a false projection of one’s self is paradharma. A projection or presenting of oneself true to one’s constitution is svadharma and Bhagavad Gita calls it a very healthy state of affairs. If you & I, day in and day out present ourselves as we truly are without a single lie then it is a very healthy state of affairs, not only for achievement in the world which also is assured but for spiritual growth or a greater integration. You know integer is a whole number, integration is unifying ourselves. In contrast when we are something inside and show outside in some other way there is a division, a split, there is fragmentation which we make a beginning with personality types and have some contentment, some satisfaction at the answer to who am I? We say ‘truly speaking I am slow going person but pretend to be very fast etc. inwardly I am a slow person’. So who am I? I am a slow person in some context. This is a beginning indeed we need to inquire more and more deeply.
The same Bhagavad Gita at another place goes to dizzy height indeed and that is where the question –‘Who am I?’ is touched with the utmost sensitivity and greatest sublimity or subtlety. In XIII:2 shloka Sri Krishna says, well this entire life of our is viewed as consisting of two aspects—known and knower.
-idam shariram kaunteya kshetramityabhidheeyate | -etadyo vetti tam praahuh kshetrajna iti tadvidah ||There is the field of the known and then there is the knower. Every one of us can relate to it—I am the knower, I am the knower of object outside, I am the knower of hurt and pleasure etc. our life is broadly the field of the known and the knower. Everyone is the knower and then Lord drops the bomb shell-
-kshetrajnam caapi maam viddhi sarvaksetreshu bhaarata |
-kshetrakshetrajnayorjnaanam yattajjnaanam matam mama || 13.2Arjuna, the knower in all field of knowing is no other than me myself.
Lord says he is the knower. So as though pushes us out like pushing out some unauthorized occupants from some hutment accommodation. Just a while ago we appreciated in all knowing, in all feeling, in all experiencing there is us the experiencer. We earlier talked about centre that gets hurt, the centre in us that gets gratified. We say to each other, ‘I am so hurt, I am so bruised’ etc. who is that I? That question we raised. So if I am the knower and here comes Sri Krishna’s statement that He is the knower in all and he seems to say in all fields of knowledge. Adi Shankaracharya takes as a very significant statement from the Bhagavad Gita, which is also taken by the non-dual teachers as a pointer to, everyone essentially being pure Awareness and the ego constructed by thought being a mere myth. The classic Bhagavad Gita has said so much in different chapters that no wonder on the soil of India itself numerous great minds; great intellectuals interpreted this classic in different ways.
In chapter XIII we have so much that we can see, here is an experience; we first said the experienced and the experiencer. I am the experiencer but who am I? And is this ‘I’ the variable? And especially can this ‘I’ undergo a transformation? Situation being same, could I be hurt on one occasion and could I be simply unperturbed on another occasion while other parameters being same? The centre could react differently. So please see, there is this centre which being a programmable entity reacts differently to same external situations. In fact leave reacting, it sees the situation differently. It sees the situation as ‘Oh, not at all an insulting situation, this is very pleasant’ he said, ‘I have no hurt and very humorous indeed’ another day if somebody says ‘you have nothing above your shoulders’ I would interpret as ‘what a tremendous insult, how did he know it in first place.’ A set of reactions coming from me on a certain day and a set of reactions coming from the same ‘me’ on another day are so different—why? The ‘Me’ is different. Is it possible to be without a ‘me’? Is it possible to stay in a certain emptiness? Where praise and insult simply pass through like light passing through a transparent surface. Is it possible to have a pure attention and you are not reacting, you see what is said, you don’t interpret it, you don’t categorize it as either praise or insult and you don’t personalize it, ‘this is said for me’ – you don’t say. Though you know in a way that he is telling me. It is as though you look left & right who is he talking about? Sometime all of us do it in a good humor. This same could be done in a spiritual wisdom. That would be a quantum leap, a tremendous change.
Sometimes it is a strategy for us. We roll up our sleeves, prepare ourselves, put our chest up, take a deep breath & say ‘today no matter what they are going to say, I am not going to be hurt’. So then if they actually say bad things because of that will, because of that resolve we say- ‘Okay is there anything more you want to say today’ and so on, that is a different thing. That will, that resolve, that preparation, may break down after some time. We may not be able to keep that resistance because one by one the words said by the other person, the ashtotarashata naamaavali as they call it sometimes -108 names ‘you are this, you are that’ etc. is thrown at us. We have limits; finally we say ‘enough is enough’. So it is one to resolve; to face praise and insult with will power & certain conditioning of the mind, certain prior planning & strategy, psychological preparedness. It’s quite another to really have inner emptiness. In which there is great alertness, great attention. Surely we are not talking about thick skinned-ness or dullness etc. there is great sensitivity but there is no attachment to an image.
Simplicity, the essence of ‘I’: You think you are a very learned man, you are attached to that idea that I am very learned and in an important gathering suddenly most unexpectedly everybody says ‘well, all of us believed that you are a learned person and what fools we were, now we know you are nothing and you always bluffed, somehow you put up an image’. It could be very hurting to you. ‘what? Are you’ll kidding?’ all say ‘No, we are telling you the truth’. It could be devastating. You could have a sleepless night afterwards. Why? – I would say ‘not because they said whatever they said, but because you are attached to an image, you are a learned man. There is nothing wrong in being learned. In fact spiritually speaking there is nothing wrong in not being learned. It’s utterly unnecessary for everybody to be learned. If all were scholarly world would have been a chaos! Thank God ! There are only limited number of scholars, who themselves are a problem sometimes.
I think learning is not a necessity to a happy life. But in this world some are learned, some are good singers, some are good dancers, some are good cooks, some are gardeners, some have multiple talents. What I would envy if at all it had a room is not any of these talents, some people in this world are simple and I envy them. My God! If I had her simplicity how stress free my life would have been. In olden days I too sought talent; if I looked as smart as he does, if I had her height and his talents, this is the way of the world. But thinking about life, understanding life more and more we find that what is most desirable is simplicity and that is the essence of the ‘I’.
A certain king had called a meeting and he himself was yet to arrive. All others had come. A person looking very ordinary just walked in. How he made it in through security no one knows. He came and he occupied the chair of the king. The minister questioned him ‘who are you?’ and that man questioned himself, ‘Who am I?’; ‘I am asking you, who are you? The world just says who am I? The minister apparently said to this person, ‘are you some great scholar that you dare to take this chair?’ He said à‘I am above the scholar’
‘are you a great wrestler?’ He said à‘I am above any wrestler’
‘are you a millionaire?’ He said à‘I am above any millionaire’.. like that it goes.
At the end minister yells at this intruder ‘are you God?’ and he says -> ‘I am above God’
the minister says ‘there is nothing above God’ then this man says ->‘I am that nothing’ and he walks away.
For this being nothing is really wonderful. Almost above God or that is Godly. When we are nothing in our heart nothing can hurt us, nothing can blow into our ego. But all these stories, all these illustrations are very tricky. I say such a story and if all of you appreciate I lose my nothingness. I feel so good about myself. I believe somebody went up the stage and said, ‘nobody said about the nature of ego as I did’ so there is the emergence of the ego.
The ego is built by the movement of mind where memory is supplied to us as material to pigeon hole ourselves. Memories of how someone talked ill of me last week supply the building blocks for me to come to a conclusion today that ‘I have not been doing well, look at what they said last week, so many of them saying bad things about me’ memories of one event make me think of myself as bad. In the same way memories of some other events make me build the idea—I am good. Now if we don’t fall a prey to memories we are in the present with full attention. Are we good? Or are we bad? There is no good, no bad. ‘I am’ is the truth. You and I are very conditioned, very programmed, habituated to have a point of view in everything.
J Krishnamurti once asked some gentleman, ‘my friend, can you love your wife, without any point of view?’; see the flavor of that question so different indeed. Many of us spring forth saying ‘in my point of view that is not possible’ about that too we have a point of view right away.
Somebody asked J Krishnamurti ‘what do you think of Osho?’ his answer was ‘I don’t think of Osho.’ There the matter ends. That is psychological simplicity. I am not saying that anyone imitating has the psychological simplicity. But if we just memorize or take from some example and repeat it – in such and such situation, such and such saint said like that and I got to say the same. That will be burdensome affair. That would be an ‘outside in’ approach. You take something and try to push it in. Make yourself in conformity with that image, picture, personality, description; you want to become a Gandhi, you want to become Einstein, all of them impress us. Longfellow said “Life of great men do remind us that we can make our life sublime and departing, leave the foot prints on the sands of time” . You and I have that dimension in us where we are inspired by a lot of people and want to be like them. However, the other side of the story is for radical transformation within us, we cannot afford to have a circuitous path. In fact all paths are circuitous. For a radical change, a change in the depth of us, what we need is to meet with life outside & inside, what we perceive and how certain reaction rise in our mind etc. the whole thing. What we need is to meet with this whole thing without a reference, that and this. Meet with this directly. Meet with ‘what is’ straight away.
There are lot of spiritual literature which prescribes – do this, do that and I am sure it has a place. Then there are portions of literature which describes – Gandhi did this, Vinoba said that, Mother Teresa dealt with situation in this way, the Dalai Lama other day made such comment that is all description. So prescription and description are of course available but to handle our situation at a given moment what we need is meeting with that situation in its entirety. If we go for what is that prescription? What is that description? It is like in Engineering you say energy loss, efficiency loss. In finance you say over heads, comparison and conformity are overheads -meet with situation directly. Look, mind you the situation is not just outer stimuli, it is the inner reaction. If you are attentive to inner reaction as they are rising, there is a whole lot that you learn right away. Not from this book, not from that memory but you learn from this state of mind itself. Learning at this moment is of the greatest value than from any book, however great it may be.
The question ‘who am I?’ initially related to an awareness of the present moment in its entirety. If I am inspired by this question ‘who am I?’ which champions like Ramana popularized and I say I am going to go for this ‘Who am I?’ inquiry, it is a sadhana.
And I sit down – who am I? -> A thought rises -> well; I am a middle aged lady. Then I say as per the book it says avoid all answers, go deeper. Endlessly they have things to do, where as you apparently have seen the value of the need for inner change therefore asking who am I? But as you ask who am I? Suppose a thought rises I shall ask who am I. And very soon remove the ego àyou brought in the psychological time – do you see it? You introduced the destruction of the ego at the end of the certain period of time. You build it & you say I will eliminate it. Can you notice what is happening in you without introducing some artificiality? Can you stay with fact and not generate a world of fancies? And what is the fact please? The fact is the boredom probably. The fact that this moment could be ‘boredom’ in the minds of many. In the mind of many others the fact could be ‘a great curiosity’. The fact at this moment could be in somebody’s whole experience certain ‘happiness’. ‘I am so fortunate to be here’ and you could be so happy that you could not listen these statements. It becomes absorption. Can you be fully aware? And what do I mean by full awareness. I need to throw light on it. You know when you are aware of only the tip of the iceberg; you don’t know why you are happy.
Now being aware of entirety, of certain stimulus, a sound, a picture, a face, a gesture, whatever and the inner reaction – very quietly without jumping to conclusion, being aware very quietly, very gently show that the sense of ‘I’ that we are carrying- I am good, I made it, I made it before he dies or other ways. Nobody knows the dark side of my personality. You know there is a whisper going on within us, continuously this mind does it. If we could be silently aware of what is happening, in fact the essence of who am I? is not so much the question as much as the awareness, the observation. That direct awareness questions the construction. When we are not aware the construction of a certain judgment thrives. It snowballs into a gigantic figure. Some time it is a bloated picture of oneself which is not immediately painful, eventually it causes problems. At the moment it is very good to feel we are the greatest, we are the best, and nobody is as good as I am. At the moment it is a good feeling but once you are attached to it, it is a womb of trouble later. But very many other times we know how a negative judgment of oneself snowballs into bigger & bigger. I am a great sinner, nobody is as ungrateful as I am, nobody is so insensitive as I am etc. and it can snowball. Who am I? Is the one question that melts the snow. The snowflakes here are memory. If one is not a victim of memories there is no ‘I’. The ‘I’ vanishes into the thin air when one is not enslaved by memories. Memories come handy but if they do not rise unduly. Here when we go in the freeways sometime so many cars are there in several lanes. It always fascinates me how you people change the lanes, take the exit & go and even while merging also sometimes talking, laughing, joking but keeping an eye behind. An expert driver can merge and get into fastest lane so easily, so smoothly and come out also so smoothly. It is just like second nature. Can you manage memories like that? Use the memories, drop the memories, get into memories and exit the memory lanes. Then there is no ‘I’ –no ego in you, no self. When needed you come out with your identity, when not needed you are out of the freeways you are not caught in those memory lanes.
No wonder they say down the memory lane. Some of us are unable to come out of the memory lane. As even we are getting close to 2015 we haven’t come out of 1999 yet; where is the question of moving from 2010 to 2011. I am still in 1999 year that is terrible! And how does it happen? That kind of getting stuck is lack of intelligence. Not the intelligence that goes into IQ and all those. We say Intelligent Quotient – that intelligence that goes in high IQ is very different. Logical abilities, mathematical abilities, abilities to guess and all that. This intelligence is not logical, it is above logic. It is not emotional – Emotional Quotient also. But it is something above both IQ and EQ. It is seeing, one is able to see. This seeing is a tremendous faculty. And it is your nature. Alas! One is away from one’s nature; one is caught in what thoughts have built.
Swami Chinmayananda gave an example of a young boy in a traditional setting, who in a company of few friends took a little alcohol and more than a bit of an intoxication set in. As he came from a very orthodox family with strong value system, felt so miserable out there at some public place, he felt very guilty, ashamed, afraid and was shouting ‘take me home’ and his friends also realized we should not have given him. They lifted him and took him home. But he was so perturbed lying on the bed at his home with parents around was continuously yelling, ‘take me home’. What would you say about this? This is a situation where you see, in his mind, there was this construction I am away, I have taken some alcohol, I should not have, my parents would be very upset and they will ask me to go to Varanasi take a dip in Ganga and come. Till then he thought like that and lot of other things.
Now this is an exaggerated example of what mind can do to us. You and I are in fact are caught, we are trapped in what thoughts make of us. Even Shakespeare said “nothing is right or wrong, thoughts make it so”. Nobody should misuse this, do whatever you like and quote it. It is like someone heard lot of Vedanta and said ‘there is no doership & enjoyership, everything is illusion and he stole something, police were behind him, he ran and finally when police caught him—he quoted some Swami or some Lama. ‘Didn’t you know all is illusion, my stealing also is illusion’; the police said ‘my arresting you also is illusion’.
So you and I are not to take law in our hands but we need to have a certain insight into the way our mind works, the way the self is constructed, the way there is fear, there is desire and a whole lot of other emotions.
In every one of us, as Awareness is our very nature, there is a profound stillness and in that stillness there is no self, the separative self. Not even a tiny wave of being superior to X or being inferior to Y has room in that profound stillness. Somehow that stillness is lost sight of. If we say I have lost sight of that stillness then it becomes that tricky situation, who is this ‘I’ – so let us stay in lost sight of—in Awareness, in complete Awareness; not fragmented, partitioned, compartmentalized Awareness, not the Awareness where one, all the same chooses, where all the same one says, ‘this is a good thought, that is a bad thought’, not the Awareness where one says, ‘I have some ego, but I am feeling good about it, I’ll retain this and when it is unpleasant ego I will conduct the ‘who am I?’ inquiry and eliminate it. Then this choosing, this bias, this going for a lobby, inside the mind is terrible affair. Then there is no Awareness at all. True Awareness is invariably choice less.
The Awareness where there is some choosing, delighting in some self-perception and fearing or feeling displeased with another self-perception is not Awareness at all. It is another game of the mind, another play of the mind, where you are caught in the mind. Where there is the self there is the division. This division of others and I; he, she and I, ‘I was good, now a days I am bad, is a division. I am meditating well these days and need to keep it up’ this is division. All these divisions are the departure from that stillness.
To sip a bit of water do I need to know I am 46 years old? In the same way for you to watch a sunset is it necessary to know that you got a promotion? Not necessary, unwarranted. Normally what happens, we say normally but spiritually speaking it is not very normal. Spiritually speaking Ramana, Nisargdatta etc. were all normal and we are all in different lanes, levels and grades of abnormalities. Once an air hostess asked one passenger in one international airways on the plane ‘are you vegetarian or normal?’ So there are different notions of what is normal. It varies from place to place so I too said normally we cannot watch a sunset without some thought of ‘I got a promotion yesterday.’ We are unable to watch a sunset without a thought of –‘again I have been made scapegoat in my office’ and so on. Sun might be saying, watch me once at least fully. It could be your son or daughter who may say to you, ‘Dad, look at me for once’ therefore no wonder great seer appeal to us.
Spiritual maturity is not just a matter of knowing some shlokas or books or mantra or ritual which all has some place. Spiritual maturity is intimately related to seeing you daughter’s face with no thought about who you are. Often at that moment you a father might be relevant. That also it might not be necessary many times. Like when daughter has a certain sorrow, pain, agony, fear, to understand that fear is it necessary to know I am the father? Can I not see her face and understand her fear as a fellow human being? Is it necessary for a thought to arise, she is my daughter I am her father and what I need to give her is fatherly love. Is it necessary? Go into it as home work. To categorize love as fatherly love, motherly love of which we are very fond of (classifying, categorizing) perhaps we should go into it very subtly. Not by scholarship. Don’t go and gather some books by philosophers like Kent etc.
In conclusion: So ‘Who am I? Who am I truly?’ ‘Who am I’ not as thought(s) through their propaganda tell me, ‘you are this, you are that’. Thoughts are great propagandist sitting inside us. Our memories are a great lobby with their bias, with their vested interest and we have a certain idea of ‘who we are’. So not through another set of thoughts but really speaking by simple, gentle alertness. It would be gentle alert, because it is not alertness by which you are becoming Scotland Yard or CIA agent. ‘I am going to track down this ego’. Then you are assuming one more identity. Then there is no gentleness in that. It is good that this article has made an impression in you, without assuming any idea of, ‘I think now I am an advanced spiritual seeker’ in this very subtle affair of understanding one’s life, in this very subtle affair of watching the movement of the mind rather than ‘should’ and ‘should not’ when there is this thought.
‘Now we are in jet age, this self inquiry is high level sadhana and I am a high level sadhaka now’ such thoughts at the most take it sportily, have a hearty laugh about it and put it aside.
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In intense Awareness something happens, that’s what they call awakening. In theawakening a whole lot of seeker, the sought, the path, the tools used, the domain of time,obstacles and the ways to overcome them and all these vanishes into thin air.
Awareness becomes the beginning and the end, when it is utterly pure.
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HARIH OM !