"Who Am I", says Ramana, is the most important spiritual question. To answer this, we must first understand the question. Usual answers linger around 'I' is permanent, 'I' is the only thing that exists, 'I' is eternal etc etc. All this is very esoteric and seems to be for only a selected set of folks! Isnt it better to keep it simple?
I feel that 'I' is that for which we care for. We care for our body primarily and the 'I' resides in it. We care for our computer on which we are reading this and 'I' is attached to it. We care for our spouses and the 'I' is there too. But we dont care that much for some distant relative as we care for our spouses and we dont care that much for some random person in another continent as much as we care for a distant relative and thus the 'I' tapers off. Insight into why this happens will certainly help in identifying the 'I'.
When we see that we care more for some people simply because of the relationship they have with our egos, it will help in fixing the tapering of the 'I' to a great extent. This is not to deny that relationships deepen with time and hence we will be affected more when something happens to someone with us. But, it is usually totally mixed up with the ego. We suffer more when our parents suffer than when our neighbors suffer. When this fact is clearly seen, the I suddenly expands. If one is lucky enough, it may even expand to cover all of creation! This requires sincerity and total attention to every act / thought we indulge in to investigate why we are involved in it? With time, we will slowly weed out the interests we have due to our ego. Eventually we will be able to weed out our ego to a large extent and then, we will be genuinely involved in every thought / action and not because of narrow egoic interests.
To me, this is enlightenment, the unesoteric variety, where the ego goes away completely and one cares genuinely for all of creation. This is almost dull and boring. Its not material to be written about in many books and thereby make profits, and contains absolutely nothing in it to attract hot, young babes! It is not some esoteric thing about the body glowing in light or about one feeling one exists inside every form of matter or about being able to look back at ones past lives. All this may be true. May not be also. I do not know. The great seers say that one who knows does not talk and so we may never know if these aspects are true. But, we certainly can chop of all hindrances in us that prevents the 'I' from expanding and thus start caring genuinely for all of creation!
3 comments:
"To me, this is enlightenment, the unesoteric variety, where the ego goes away completely "
To me a statement like "the ego goes away completely" is highly esoteric. Even this level of
"simlification" is probably too much for most of us once you think of it.
After all, isn't this just another example of trying to explain something that seems to mean
fundamentally different things to different people, and seems to be different in essence for each
person? Is it not an attempt to control and categorise, and an attempt to explain things with the only tools at our disposal?
When I wanted to learn to swim, I saw DVD's on swimming and read about swimming :) When is the
best time to swim, what to eat, what stroke/exercises to do first etc.? I realize now how ridiculous that was. All the theory disappeared in a flash when I entered the water for the first
time and the fear and total newness of the situation took over. No amount of theory helped, no amount of reading about someone else's ideas, opinions and experiences helped. I think its no different for any spiritual journey.
I agree totally!
But from another perspective, I think the point of talking is not to talk about swimming, but to talk about the problems from not swimming and to hopefully encourage people to swim :)
Yes, that makes sense :) simple and well put
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