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| Who
am I?
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Who
are you? Where do you come from? And where are you going? Except by
a very few, a finger count, these questions have never been confronted
since time immemorial. You are here now, so let us try to solve them.
We
discuss this everyday: You have forgotten who are you. You
have forgotten that you are home, you have forgotten your destination,
where you have to go. This is why we suffer again and again. Millions
of years have passed and we have not yet solved these questions. It
is so simple no time or practice is needed. We are simply otherwise
engaged. We are busy with all our occupations, with wanting this and
that, with holding to the idea that, “This is mine.” and “I belong
to this.” Find out who you are and who are your relations.
Every
night when you sleep you experience leaving everything behind - your
relations and friends, your house, your country, the mountains, and
rivers. You don't see anything when you are asleep and you have no
trouble; you are happy. This is a very short experience which we have
every night due to the compassion of your own Self; giving you a hint
to discover Eternal Bliss. This is for a very short time. When you
go to sleep you are at peace. The only troublesome states are waking
and dreaming. Who wakes up and gets into trouble? Who dreams? The
dreamer gets into trouble, but no one knows who they are and where
they have to return to. This is so simple that every reasonable person
can solve it, here and now.
We
speak every day about this which has been lost. You turn outside to
a guide who is deceiving you and you trust that guide. Who is that
guide? It is your own mind. Although he has always deceived you, you
return to the same guide because you are used to him. He has been
your guide since the beginning, but he has always deceived you. Now
ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” for the first time. This question
has never been asked. You have simply trusted the mind to tell you
what to do and you have obeyed. This is the time for all of us here
to ask this question. Do away with this guide and you will return
to your Eternal Home, to Existence, to Consciousness, to Bliss.
Is
there any time when you are not in the mind, when you stop your race
after pleasures of the senses, when you simply see? Keep still and
this guide disappears, simply with the question, “Who are you?” Then
you will know what the mind is, and it disappears. This question has
never been asked. This guide has never been challenged before. Wherever
you have gone until now you have allowed it to deceive you. It has
told you this or that is good, and you accepted it - that this is
a world of pleasure, and you accepted it - that these gods will give
you pleasures in heavens, and you accepted it. When you challenge
the mind it disappears instantly. This is why every day we emphasize
the question, “Who are you?”
The
qualification needed to ask this question is discrimination - the
ability to know the real from the unreal, the eternal from the false,
the pure from the impure. Discrimination must first be developed,
and it will lead to the capacity to ask the question which dissolves
all that is false. When you ask this question with discernment you
will come to know what is real and what is unreal. Turn to any thing
which has name and form and see where this name and form came from.
Was it eternal or did it appear in the past a few years ago, and will
it disappear after a few more years? Everything will disappear. In
fact the whole world disappears when you sleep.
Whatever
is eternal must remain constantly. It never disappears. That which
appears and disappears is falsehood. All relationships up to this
point have been with appearances and disappearances, and so there
has been no relationship with that which is Eternal, which is your
own Home, which is your own Self, your own Friend, your Atman,
which is Existence itself.
Existence
will remain always. It will never become non-existence. Consciousness
will always remain consciousness. In the waking state you are conscious
of doing this and that. In the dream state you are conscious of the
dreamer doing something. In the sleep state you are conscious of not
knowing anything, of enjoying the bliss of deep sleep, you are also
very much conscious of this. Existence is there always, consciousness
is there always, and bliss can also be there always. In the waking
state, pleasure is mistaken for bliss. Pleasure is temporary. We may
call it bliss, but bliss is eternal. It is your nature. It is your
Atman, your own Self.
We
may stumble on different experiences but we are still searching for
the same thing. The one who is searching - the seeker itself - is
what is needed. We are lost in a search without knowing who it is
that is enjoying all this. We are attached, so we attribute the source
of this joy to the object without knowing the enjoyer. It is the Self
- the Atman - who is enjoying; not the object. No object has any capacity
to give you happiness. It is ‘I’ who enjoys the object, whatever object
it may be; anything, any relation, any idea, any concept, the source
of their joy comes from ‘I’, not from the object or idea or notion.
When
you rid yourself of all notions, all intentions and ideas, this will
be revealed. Stop for a while. Give an instant to your own Self -
just an instant that you have never found time for so far. You have
spent 35 million years for others, seeking love, seeking beauty, seeking
rest, and you have not got it. You have been hitchhiking millions
of times and yet again you are here.
If
this sounds good you can go through it and it is done, not by any
kind of practice for you have done enough. What had to be done is
done now. It is finished. What had to be attained is attained. You
are here in satsang. In satsang no practice is needed, nothing is
done. Only you are asked to keep quiet. Only you are asked to keep
still. Only you are asked not to stir a single thought. And wait...
Turn your back on whatever appears in front of you. Now is the time
to turn your back on what you have done in the past. Turn your face
to what has not been done before. Turn your face towards your own
atman for the first time and turn your back on this name and form.
18
May, 1992
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