The Quest - Who am I?
Who am I? Go on a Quest.
Put all your prior beliefs to test.
When you realize the truth, you will find,
You are not the Ego, Body or Mind.
Everybody lives. But not everybody discovers the truth about life. A rare minority goes on a quest. They try to find out who is this 'I' that says, ‘This is my body, my hand, my head.’ Why do we say, 'My mind is wandering?' If the body and the mind is not me, then who am I?
The rest of humanity is racing through life. There is no time to think. They believe, 'I am who I am. I am a white American, aged 34, who is a lawyer living in New York city. My parents are British, and I have 2 beautiful daughters who go to school. I am a Christian and am not yet a millionaire, but hope to be one soon. I know everything about myself, why do I have to go on a quest to find out who am I? Is this some kind of a joke?' Most of us may tend to agree with this argument. There is no need to go on a quest to discover ourselves. But the fact is that a majority of us, do not see the truth. Only 1% of this world is visually blind. 99% is spiritually blind. We do not discover that we are, in fact, the Divine Spirit, the Soul. The moment we realize this truth, our life transforms. In fact, some people go through a metamorphosis when they wake up to the truth and achieve self-realization.
All through life, our ego says, 'This is me' and 'This is what I want', and 'All these are mine.' We don't realize that nothing is ours. We start our life without anything and when we end, we take nothing with us. Still, throughout life, we are constantly living with the illusion, that this is my car, my house, my family. This illusion is caused by our mistaken identity about ourselves. We get angry and upset, we worry and get anxious, all because of what we think we are. We get so attached to people, that it is not uncommon to get possessive about them. This life of attachment breaks our heart and makes us cry. All this is because of our ignorance - we don't know the truth, 'Who am I?'
If we truly want to live life, the key that will open the door to the truth about life is a quest. It is about going on a search; it is about asking questions, and investigating the truth, before realizing the self. This body, which has said a thousand times, ‘I am here, can you see me?,’ will suddenly realize ‘I am not the one I thought I was all through my life. This is only a habitat. I have lived in this body for decades, but this is just my body, it is not me.’
What else will the quest reveal? It will bust the myth of the mind, the one that says, ‘I needlessly worry, I am so afraid,’ will suddenly be relieved of all anxiety when we realize we are not the mind. In fact, if we try to find our nose, our eyes, our ears, we can. We can even find the location of our brain, our heart and our lungs in a scan of the body. But where is the mind, we can never find! The mind is an illusion. It does not exist. It is just a bundle of thoughts. These very thoughts make a fool of us throughout our life and stop us from living life the way we must.
Who is the leader of the body and the mind? It is the ego, the one that says, 'I'. Along with the mind, it becomes the ME – Mind and Ego, that makes us go round and round in circles and live life as if it is a merry-go-round, till one day, we stop and realize that life is over, that the joy ride was just an illusion, that we were neither the ego, the body nor the mind. We were something else. The quest reveals the truth that most of humanity is oblivious to. Because we don't realize the truth, we don't live life the way we should. We just consume this gift till one day, it's time to go.
Why is it that most of us never go on this quest? It is because, the moment we do, it threatens the existence of the ME, the Mind and the Ego. Once we realize we are not the Mind and the Ego, they cease to exist. Therefore, the mind and the ego push us to believe the myth, as it hides from us the Divine truth. They make us pray to a God in the distant skies, although in reality, it is within where the Divine lives. The ME brainwashes us and we don't treasure this amazing gift called ‘Life’. We just seek to be happy and chase happiness, when in reality, the ocean of bliss is within.
Those who live life after going on a quest and realizing the truth, live in a state of eternal bliss and peace. They discover what is known as Satchitananda, the truth that makes them conscious of the Divine within. This state of Ananda or Nirvana is bliss beyond description. Very few people are gifted to even know of it. This is because they have not read the Life Manual.
In the Manual of Life, one of the most important chapters is this – to go on a quest and discover, 'Who am I?'. This will create a paradigm shift, just as it will transform the way we think and live. It will change the very person who was alive all along. Instead of being a prisoner to our thoughts, we will start living as the Divine consciousness that we truly are. It will bless us with a sense of peace and tranquillity, unknown to the common man.
IN A NUTSHELL