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' "
