WHO AM I?
Those who read this question for the first time will actually wonder what it means. 'I know who I am, don't I? I am Mr. Rajan Gupta. My father is Mr. Ratan Gupta. I have two children and I have a factory in Haryana. I am a member of Rotary club that does charity work. I have a team of over 200 people. I am a Hindu Punjabi and a patriotic Indian. I was born on the 6thof June 1965 and I am 55 years old. What more do I need to know about myself?'
But is this the truth of who we are? Sure, we have a name, a surname, a family and relationships, a date of birth, gender, nationality, occupation, and social connections. But all this is ours. This is not who we are. Unfortunately, we never realize the truth of who we really are. That is why the ego makes us falsely believe that we are a millionaire who owns 14 cars and 3 villas and soon plans to buy a private jet. This doesn't reveal who we truly are.
To find out who we truly are, we must go on a quest, a quest that asks all the relevant questions about us. When we go in search of the right answers, then we will realize at first who we are not. 'Am I the body?' Which body am I talking about? The body that I currently possess or that body which was a small boy in school. That body was born and could be held in our two hands effortlessly. Am I that? What was I before this? I was a baby inside my mother's womb waiting to be delivered. If I go one step back, I was just an embryo that was being formed before it became a foetus. What was I before that? I was just a zygote, a cell that was formed by fertilization between two gametes. But what was I before that? I didn't exist. Looking forward from where I am today, one day, the body will die and people will say, 'Rajan Gupta passed away. He departed and moved on.' Are they lying? Rajan Gupta is lying on the floor. He has not gone anywhere. No! This is not Rajan Gupta. This is just the dead body or the mortal remains of Rajan. He has left the body and moved on.
Is this contemplation not enough to realize that we are not the body we all along believed ourselves to be? We are not even the name that we identify ourselves as. The name didn't come with us when we were born. It was given to us and at death, the story of that name is over. Rajan Gupta's body will be cremated or buried, and in reality, that is the end of Rajan Gupta! But not of the one who was alive as Rajan.
We must realize that our body will die. But 'we' will never die. When we leave the body, death happens. To find out who am I, we must, therefore, contemplate the next question – at death, who leaves the body? What we see is that every cell of the human being remains intact. All the organs are contained in the dead body. Then who has departed?
We have already learnt about MIME. It is the subtle aspect of our body which cannot be touched or felt. This subtle body known as the inner instrument or Antahkarna departs. It is the Mind, Intellect, Memory, and Ego. Immediately, our ignorance will question, 'What is the proof that MIME departs?' To that question, one must realize that there is no proof that it exists in the first place. It is only through inference that we realize the presence of the mind or the thought factory, the intellect or the one that discriminates, the memory that remembers and recalls, and the ego, that says, 'It is me!' That is why the MIME is considered to be a subtle body and is known only by inference.
There is no proof that the Law of Gravity exists. But if I throw my mobile phone up in the sky, it doesn't fly away into the clouds. It comes back into my hands because it is pulled towards the centre of the earth by a force we call gravity. We cannot prove that gravity exists, but through inference we accept its existence.
So also, through inference, we accept that MIME exists and at death, it leaves the body. Some will question and suggest that the MIME is also within the body, only to be buried or cremated. However, those who go in quest of the truth, realize that as per the Law of Karma, the one who was alive, has to settle their past actions. The past actions or Karma are carried, not by the body which returns to dust, but by the subtle body that leaves at death. Thus it is the MIME that is reborn again and again.
Some may still question and argue, 'What is the guarantee that the MIME departs when we cannot see it departing?' Suppose it is just a fairytale and in reality, there is no departure of MIME and no arrival in a new body. Then, Karma would make us understand through inference that this phenomenon is inevitable. We must learn to submit to certain magical phenomena of the universe. Will somebody ask for proof that a mobile phone connects a person from India to someone in America even when there is no wire? We know for sure that we can see someone on a video call and send text messages. All these text messages, voice notes, and images are proof that we can transfer data from one continent to another. If we human beings, with our limited capabilities, can do this then why can't the Divine ensure that the MIME gets transferred from one continent to another, from one womb to another, from one life to another?
Most of us can digest only up to this point, that we are the Mind and Ego, ME. We can't go beyond to realize we are not even the mind and ego that we seem to be. For now, if we realize that we are not the body that dies, but the ME, that's a big achievement! However, this is not the truth. When we reach the level of self-realization, we will come face to face with the ultimate reality. At this point, we should be absolutely clear that we are not the ego that all along considered the 'me' to be the entity that had a name, possessions, and relationships. It is because we do not realize the true answer of 'Who am I?' that we continue to suffer. Even with a partial realization that we are not the physical body that will die, we still experience the misery of the mind and agony of the ego, as we suffer, first in this journey on earth and then in subsequent lives when we are reborn, again and again.
What is important - is the quest, the search, the constant probing of ‘Who am I?’ Until we realize the truth that we are not the body, that we are not even the ME – the Mind and the Ego, we will continue to suffer, not only till we die, but even beyond that as we are reincarnated.