The I-DEA Of “I” (2)

The I-DEA Of “I” (2)

A great Buddhist used the example of the Bullock-Cart. He asked his disciple.

“What do you see there?” (as a cart drawn by Bullocks passed),

“A Bullock-Cart.”

“What are those two circular things?”

“Wheels.”

“Burn them.”

“Now what is sticking out there?”

“The axle.”

“Throw it away” then the body was discarded, than the yoke.

“Where is the cart now?”

If all the different parts that have their name and individuality have been dismantled where and what exactly is the cart? The cart is an idea- even before the assembly of the parts the idea of the cart was there and it persists.

The ego and “I” is nothing but an idea, a vritti वृति. As an idea “I” exists, but not as an independent entity capable of producing its own idea. One must observe all this. As you observe for instance, seeing, you note that seeing take place. Who sees? The eyes see, while seeing happens from somewhere, for no apparent reason, the idea arises” “I”  am seeing.”

Patanjali पातांजलि gives us a very beautiful sutra सूत्र in which there is a description of what is the ultimate in yoga. Translated literally it reads” Then the seer rests in himself.

“What does the seer signify?”

“What one calls the seer is only seeing?”

“Why must you invent a thing known as “I” which sees?”

“When the eyes are open, they see.”

You have a beautiful expression in English viz., “Sight seeing Tours.”

“The sight is what sees?”

“Who sees the scenery?”

“Sight sees.”

What you call the sees is nothing but the action, the event of seeing. All our yoga योग practices lead us to this realization that seeing is not the doing of “I” but a happening.

In exactly the same way, all of life can be lived. Sight sees, action takes place, everything in this world happens. Somehow, somewhere we have been conditioned by the idea that without this vritti वृति, this ego, without a goal to reach and hold on to, we shall not progress but our lives would be a failure. There is only one failure, the failure to do not the failure to achieve. Success is always there. To succeed is “to come after.” When one does anything, success follows. It is when you don’t do what should be done there is failure.

Once you see the whole picture, action is spontaneous. The finite thing (I, You, and he) does not exist in reality. It is only when you are not really spiritually awake that there is this division and confusion. Once the awakening has taken place, it stays at least until you discover the reality, and it swallows the “I.”

As we have been, chitta चित   is indivisible cosmic consciousness or intelligence, and the vritti’s वृति are idea, which may be knowledge, wrong understanding, imagination, memory, or sleep. There are all -universal. Wherever there is ocean there are waves. Wherever there is a chitta चित   there are vrittis वृति. It seems to be clear, but when you view the ocean as one indivisible entity, there are no waves apart from it. The whole thing, with all the waves, is the ocean.

Similarly, in the physical body there are millions of cells sparking of, all sorts of streams following from the heart to the part of the body and back again, there is tremendous activity, yet because the organism is the activity, and there is no division, it is unaware of it. A body approaching fire is burned, but if you are the burning fire you will not be burned at all. You are the burner, not the burned. Somehow this fact that “I am that” has been forgotten.

“We ask,” Why should that cosmic intelligence forget that it is cosmic and create diversity, change or a becoming?” “ Why should this great universal being become anything”? “No one can answer, one can only bluntly, frankly honestly say.” “Sorry “I” don’t know.”