Body/Mind and Ego in Self enquiry
To progress in spirituality, one must
enquire about his own self and understand “Who am I? “. This is very important
as unless we know who we are then there is no progress spirituality. We should
know who we are and what is God and how we are related? Etc.
In Advaita Vedanta to answer this question
we have Mahavakyas which encapsulate the entire teachings of Vedanta in to a statement
like “Tatvamasi”, “Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi” etc.
We will try to analysis and understand the statement
“Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi” here. The phrase consists of two parts one being “Aham” and
second part “Brahmāsmi”. What is Aham ? In short it is nothing but Self that is
within us. Self is nothing but the Atman. So, the statement clearly says that
the Atman within and the universal God (Brahman) are one and the same.
Now you may say that hold on how can you
say that I’m Brahman, where the person is always with many imperfections and
Brahman is supreme and perfect. So, it is at this stage Self enquiry becomes
important.
To discern and understand that I’m Brahman
now we will investigate who we (our true nature) are as opposed to our assumed
self. When the mahavakya says “I”, it is not referring to the body, mind or the
ego which is appears from it. This simply refers to the source of body, mind
and ego as we can consciously drop the notion of these and still exist.
If we do a simple exercise now, we can
clearly discern that we are not the body as we perceive it, we say this is my
hand, leg etc., so the perceiver/observer is different from observed, similarly
we can observe the mind undergoing so many thoughts and we say that I have a
good thought or bad thought, who is this I that is having good or bad thought?
When we understand this, we know that we are neither the body or mind.
So next thing that comes up is the ego, now
we will argue that the “I’m” the ego because it is for the ego that everything
is done. Or is it really? If I say my name is Deva, I’m identifying myself as
Deva and finally say that Deva did everything or doing everything. But stop,
here I’m calling myself as Deva, so who is that I calling itself Deva? So again,
ego is different from the true “I”. Meaning we neither the body, mind or ego.
Then what are we? Is the question that needs to be understood.
After negating everything what is left is “I”,
anything that can be imagined or cannot be imagined, anything that exist or
does not exist, anything that we perceive or not perceive is not “I” (Brahman),
then who am I becomes more confusing as it seems like there is not solution to
this problem. For this the answer is simple, who am I is nothing but the
witness of all of these and you are that witness, consciousness and bliss [Bliss
because the I is everything and there is no second thing other than it, at
material level we try to acquire more and more and think that we will be happy,
when only Brahman (“I”) exists and there is nothing other than Brahman which is
complete, there nothing to acquire, when there is nothing to acquire we are
complete and blissful].
