The I-DEA of ‘I’ (1)

Virtue and order in one’s life harmonizes what is initially called the daily secular life and what is practiced as yoga or meditation. This division of life is also the work of the ego.

Common sense tells that east and west, above and below, right and left, meet in me. When you stand on the ground all that lies in the facing direction is the east and all that lies in the other direction is the west. If you move a mile in the easterly direction, what you previously considered east has joined the west. Is it difficult than to see that you are not only the meeting point but also the dividing factor?

Caught in this trap of “I” am this or “I” am that we are not aware that there is a state of peace of mind, and existence that is unconditioned. Every time we want to get out of one trap, we walk into another trap. This is so because we have no idea whatever that a state beyond all this exists.

In yoga योग, at the beginning of our practice, it has to be taken for granted that there is a state of consciousness, accessible to all of us. Provided we are willing to take the necessary steps, in which there is no confusion, conflict, distress or disharmony a state of bless, joy and peace which is reached through yoga योग, through meditation, through the understanding of the mind and its modification. Chitta चित and Vritti वृति When you are not in that state of yoga योग, then the state of your mind, the thought and the feelings that prevails in it, determine the world around you. An object does not exist except as the sum total of all the thoughts of all the observers, when all these thoughts and viewpoints, opinions and descriptions are dropped the object is what it is? Not as an object any more.

These are the words. It is when you become like little children, as the bhagavatham भागवतम declares that the greatest sages are like little children. If you wish to learn to meditate the only person to teach you is a baby less than six weeks old. When you look into its eyes, you will know what yoga योग means. There it is in all its absolute purity gazing at you without projecting a single thought of what you are?

Patanjali पातांजलि gives us a three-word phrase about Yoga योग in his Yoga Sutras योगसूत्र . (Yoga योग is Chitta चित, Vritti वृति, Nirodha निरोध. These words cannot easily be translated into English.

Problem is bound to confront us but they can be faced and surmounted by ensuring that “God” resides within us permanently. To keep God as “captive” the only requirement is that we should dedicate all our acts and the results there of, at His feet. Whenever we undertake a task, whether simple or complicated, we should remember the Almighty and seek his direction. Such an attitude provides us the base to launch our attacks to counter the impediments.

This will mean that we should totally shed “ego” and firmly believe that our achievements. If any are only due to the guidance given by God. If the sense of Varity that “I” have done it or that “I” am chiefly responsible for its success.” Is dropped all form of obstacles will vanish; what is necessary is to cultivate the feeling that our wisdom, if any, poles into insignificance before the supreme power of God. When God “occupies” a place in our hearts. He can act as a bright source of power with which we can light thousands of lamps. “I” am nothing” but God “You are everything” should be our guiding factor.

We should try to acquire certain qualities, the most vital being “Fearlessness”. We should not be afraid of anyone, excepting God. Fear may prevent us from realizing God and developing devotion. The battle of life should be fought relentlessly. Without succumbing or yielding to fear “Strength is life and weakness is death”. We should not attach too much importance to our personality. On the other hand God’s mercy and His gracious acts in saving devotees should be praised.

The body of everyone is made of the same substance. For all of us food comes from the same source, the earth, Prana प्राण the life force is cosmic. We are all breathing the same air. We all have the same intelligence within us. It cannot be divided. Yet when someone calls you a fool, you become angry. But when you say. “My hand is dirty” the hand does not strike the tongue for this remark. Yet this is what we do one another. Somebody insults you and at once you want to retaliate. We eat the same food, but each one wants to destroy the other because “I” feel that “I” am different from him”.

The self is the self. Its identity is intrinsic: “I am who I am,” “I am that I am.” The self has no identity. It is pure identity, being it is pure identity, being itself. In the self we are all that we see, and to see is to be. This is the ultimate equation, the solution to all questions, in which all things become one. The true self can never be a thing. To think that “I” am this or “I” am that is to lose identity as the pure “I” am. To think “I” need this to “I” need that is to become caught in a stream of dependency because the external can never be intrinsic or independent.

To have an image of one’s self is to lose the self, to make it into a commodity. To become something is to lose one’s identity as the pure subject and become an object among objects in an uncertain would. We suffer because we do not have a self. Our identity is dependent upon something or person that we are connected with. Identity that is dependent, that is given by another lid a name or a title is a fiction. It is a superimposition of thought, and though it may distract us for a time, it cannot afford us peace. We suffer because we keep the self in the not self, the subject in the object. We try to find happiness by achievement and acquisition in the external world. But achievement is becoming a bigger or better object.

Acquisition is the accumulation of objects around our assumed objectivity or materiality. But to be an object is to be heavy, dependent and transient. Objectivity is not a state of happiness or fulfilment. Happiness is only possible in eternal existence. Which is only possible in the pure subject? As long as we think we need something to be ourselves, we will always be dependent on another. We will always be somebody else or trying to please someone else.

We will never be ourselves but will be trapped in the conditioned response around us. We will be victims of other people’s thoughts. The true self is not the ego. It is not the “I” want that’. It is devoid of any self-mage. Misleading because it being belongs to it. Yet it is who we naturally are. It is the state of pure seeing devoid of any objectification of self or other.

How does this happen? We have forgotten that we are all one. And when this is forgotten there is a peculiar polarization the other and “I”. Neither cosmic intelligence nor cosmic ignorance creates the concept, the idea of you and me. It is in the shadow of that the “I” arise and this “I” creates You and the Other”.

Perhaps the first person “I” is nothing but the abbreviation of the full word idea. The “I” may itself be nothing more than an idea. However, as soon as the Idea arises, it creates you, the other person, then he, she and its.

The problem of our world is that the human being, the individual each “I” become the centre of the Universe as soon as the ego-sense arises. Why do two individual fights? Because each one assumes that he is the centre and that everything must somehow be related to his pleasure to his will. This self-limited cosmic being, which is the individual personality that goes on building relationship, it is all ignorance. The child and the grandchild of ignorance can only be ignorance just as all off spring of man can only be human. So everything which manifests within this cosmic being or cosmic consciousness is borne of ignorance. The self-limited infinite, which is called the individual, looks around, feels registers and reacts. Fear, contempt, like, dislike, attraction, repulsion, approval, disapproval all these spring form the ignorant self-limitation that is called ego.

Once the Idea of “I” is there it becomes the centre of the entire Universe. Who determines what is East and what is West? The deciding factor is where you stand at the moment. You lay down the law as a Nation or as a culture. It depends on where you stand physically, psychological, morally or spiritually. “We” declare this to be good and that to be bad, that is pleasant and this is not pleasant. The centre of creation is always “I” and collectively “We.”

From this “I” comes raga राग (attraction, approval or liking) and dvesa द्वेष (repulsion, rejection or dislike). Raga राग is better translated as approval and dvesa द्वेष as disapproval. If someone gently scratches your back you approve him, but if he twists your arm, you disapprove him. This is so because you see yourself as the centre of the Universe.

How can one restrain all these innumerable thought-wave or idea or notions with which one identifies oneself, because of one’s original identification with one idea, the Idea? How does one return to the source, the truth the reality of one indivisible consciousness?

The teaching of Patanjali पातांजलि points out that there is this cosmic being, cosmic oneness, cosmic harmony, and cosmic consciousness, which have been mysteriously rapture, fractured by ego-sense. The ego-sense says, “This is I” therefore “That is you”. From this division flows an interminable stream of worry, anxiety, fear and hate. How does one put an end to this? By realizing that you are the stream. The moment you realize that, the menace has ceased. The “I” am anxious “Duality creates a distinction between ‘I’ and anxiety, anxiety no longer haunts you. You are it, and there are no more struggles. The anxiety as anxiety falls away.

A very holy man pointed out “Fear is the first product of Duality. The realization of non-duality is Yoga योग. But you cannot create harmony, bring about unity, or non-duality, there is no need, no possibility of this. It is already there. But what you can and must do is observe how and where this oneness has been disrupted. If one sincerely and seriously carries out this observation, then it does not take a split second to realize that the break happens the moment the ‘I’ thought arises. The moment the feeling “I” am ‘This’ comes up, that thought, the Vritti वृति, mental modification creates the “you” and there is conflict.

What yoga योग philosophy suggests, if one studies it without preconceived notions and prejudices, is this. When you observe the ego, it is possible that you discover that the ego, is not an entity like a table or a tape recorder.

The ego is more like an assembly in the sense that Buddha बुद्ध used the word. What you call consciousness, the self, is nothing but an assembly of past impression and experience. Buddha बुद्ध did not deny the existence of the world and its objects.

Once a man asked the Lord Buddha "I want Happiness"

The Lord Buddha भगवान् बुद्ध said "First remove “I” That's ego"

"Then remove 'Want' That's desire"

"See now you're left with only 'Happiness' "