“I am AiR, not ‘Atman in RVM’” – I declared, because as long as I said I was the ‘Atman in RVM’, AiR had competition. There was duality between AiR and RVM. I knew if I wanted to start being AiR, I had to stop being RVM, even stop being called the “Atman in RVM”.
My 50th year of life thus started with a new gift – a new name, AiR. People stopped calling me RVM because I was not RVM. They knew that RVM was gone and AiR was born. It was like a new life, a new journey!
By now, AiR had already realized that AiR was an Atman, a soul and that the Atman was a tiny particle of the Creator or God. I realized that everything was a manifestation of God. This whole world was an illusion. And like a dream that was very much real while it was happening, it was nothing at the end. As AiR, I knew very clearly that I was fulfilling a role given to me by God. But my mission was very clear – to realize God, not to go back to the body–mind that I was not, not to create fresh Karmas, and not to die again only to be reborn and to suffer again and again.
I stopped seeking happiness, because every time we seek happiness, we create waves of joy and sorrow. We are glad and we become sad. Why create desires that would lead to disappointments? Why seek happiness as the body–mind, which we are not?
I am the Atman.
I shall not seek happiness.
I shall just be happiness.
Thus, AiR started living in a beautiful state of everlasting bliss – a state of ultimate joy – knowing that God is everywhere, even in my heart and in every cell of my body. Everywhere!
In one of my readings, I found the story of Adi Shankaracharya going to the mountains when he was just 8 years old. And then, he met Shri Govindpada Acharya – his future Guru. The master asked him, “Who are you and what do you seek?” Adi Shankara replied:
I am not the body, I am not the mind
I am not the ego
I am not the five elements of earth, air, water, fire and space.
I am Shiva. I am Shiva. I am God.
I was so inspired by Shankara’s answer, and I realized that God lived in the temple of my heart. God was everywhere. God is in everything.
Whatever I was doing, I realized I was not doing it. It was God who lived in the temple of my heart using this body as an instrument to do whatever He wanted. I had surrendered in total faith. I was just a flute and His divine music was playing through me.
AiR lives a very simple life with just one objective: To be a Liberated being. We all are human beings with a divine soul. The goal of a human being is Liberation. Liberation eventually comes when our journey is over and we transcend body and mind. However, we can also attain liberation while alive. That is a state of a Liberated being – one who has been liberated while alive, one who has experienced a mystic death, one who knows that he is not the body–mind–intellect–ego, and one who realizes that he is the Soul, a tiny drop of the Creator. He does not seek anything and thus does not create karmas. He lives a life of renunciation in deep love and longing for God, with complete control of the mind–body cravings.
Air is also subject to the onslaught of the wandering mind and the cravings of the senses. While AiR realizes he is not the body, mind, ego, and intellect, still AiR is in the physical form of the body and is not excused from waves of physical desire that have to be subdued and transcended as AiR evolves further on the journey towards God-realization.
AiR tries to live in Yoga – in union with God, in complete awareness of the ancient wisdom of the scriptures.
This Soul is God and because AiR believes that every human being is a manifestation of God, AiR sees God in everybody and