Who am I ?

Who am I ?

To find the answer for this question is what spirituality is all about.

You may laugh. You may point to yourself and say this is who I am. Where is the confusion?

Oh, yeah? Are you pointing to your body and saying , “This is who I am”?

Yes of course!

So this body is you?

Yes, it is.

Ok, what is this?

This is my shirt.

And this?

This is my pen.

The shirt and pen are yours? Yes, they are.

But you are not the shirt or pen.

Of course not!

So this is your hand? Yes, it is.

This is your leg? Yes it is.

The hand and leg are yours, but they are not you, right?

They alone are not me, no.

In the same way this body is yours but it is not you.

How?

Ok. So someone –say X - dies and his body is very much there. Still we say X is dead. How can that be?

Hmmmmm…

It is so common to say my body pains, my body is tired.

So who is the real I ?

Perhaps the mind is the real me! The western philosophy says I think, therefore I am.

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Cogito ergo sum (French Je pense donc je suis; English: "I think, therefore I am"), often mistakenly stated as Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum (English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"),[1] is a philosophical statement in Latin used by René Descartes, which became a fundamental element of Western philosophy.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

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Well, you sleep. There are two kinds of sleep. One is where you dream. Second is when you don’t dream. When you dream you exist certainly as it is you who walks, jumps, laughs – of course all in dream. At that time it appears very real. What about the other? When you don’t dream? You don’t exist? Still when you wake up you say, “I had such a nice sleep. Never knew anything!” Aha! You never knew anything as your mind was not functioning but still you existed? Where did you go and from where did you return? And who is that you who felt that happiness of undisturbed sleep?

So the real you is something that is not body, that is not mind but something else.

How do I get to know who this real me is?

Getting to know that is a process called sadana.

There are several types but they are generally clubbed into four ways.

Why and how can there be different ways? Not a single way for the truth? Are there several truths?

There are different ways because all of us are not the same. Some like action always and some the intellectual way. Some can sit and control their breath and many cannot.

Therefore different ways are suggested. We may choose a way that is more suitable to us and get on. Whatever way you choose the end result will be the same – realisation.

How can that be?