Question 3:
Who am I? Tell me!
What does inner journey mean?
Here the questioner asks Shabestari “Who am I?” please tell me…
The answer to the question “Who am I?” never comes from outside, because this Is not an objective matter, but a subjective realization. It’s about the questioner, not the world.
When it comes to knowing things and objects, we can use our intellect to analyze and make conclusions, whether they are right or wrong.
But, the answer to man’s query of his/her own nature is not really an answer in the normal sense, but it’s more of an inner elevation of perception and a realization. An experience, rather a psychological process. In the quest for self-realization, one has to turn the consciousness inward.
The great Sanit Yogi Ramana Maharishi has summarized all of these in one simple sentence:
“Concentrate on the Seer, not the seen”
Half of the work for finding who you are, is actually finding who you are not. It is freeing yourself from the illusions and dreams, and waking up to the truth of the real you. To elaborate on this, I want to tell you a real-life story of the ancient Indian king, Janaka who later became a great saint.
“King Janaka was once reclining on a sofa. It was the middle of the day in the hot month of June. He had a short nap for a few seconds. He dreamt that a rival king with a large army had invaded his country and slew his soldiers and ministers. He was driven out of his palace barefooted and without any clothes covering him.
Janaka found himself roaming about in a jungle. He was thirsty and hungry. He reached a small town where he begged for food. No one paid any attention to his entreaties. He reached a place where some people were distributing food to the beggars. Each beggar had an earthen bowl to receive rice water. Janaka had no bowl and so they turned him out to bring a bowl. He went in search of a vessel. He requested other beggars to lend him a bowl, but none would part with his bowl. At last, Janaka found a broken piece of a bowl. Now he ran to the spot where rice water was distributed. All the food had been already distributed.
King Janaka was very much tired on account of long travelling, hunger and thirst and heat of the summer. He stretched himself near a fireplace where food was cooked. Here someone took pity on Janaka. He gave him some rice water which was found at the bottom of a vessel. Janaka took it with intense joy and just as he put it to his lips, two large bulls tumbled fighting over him. The bowl was broken to pieces. The Raja woke up with great fear.
Janaka was trembling violently. He was in a great dilemma as to which of his two states was real. All the time he was in a dream, he never thought that it was an illusion and that the misery of hunger and thirst and his other troubles were unreal.” ~Swami Sivananda
Self-Relaization is kind of like waking up from a dream, But in this case, the dream of the illusion of self. and nobody can explain it to you, they can only point towards it, but if you try to grasp it intellectually, you’ll move away from it!
Shebestari tries to point toward this truth, but he is not really trying to answer the questioner’s mind, because that would be a merely theoretical answer. But let’s see what he says:
The Absolute being (the cosmic consciousness, the divine spirit)
When is manifested in this world we call it “I”
Again, just like all true spiritual teachings, he is trying to remind us that the only way to know the absolute truth of the universe, is to see it in ourselves, not outside. That’s why he says that this “I” that we identify ourselves with, is a reflection of the Absolute being (The Great “I” or Divine)
Ramana Maharishi always thought this: “Find out who the I is”
The I is actually a mirror for the Ultimate / God/ Spirit.
Here we’re talking about pure “I” Without any attributes like I am this, I am that, Just the simple I. Just pure existence, Pure being, Pure Is-ness!
First and foremost, there is I and then, I am this and that, as a matter of fact when you experience deep silence in meditation or by any spiritual experience, you’ll find yourself detached from the attributes and identities, and you experience pure “Being”.
In the same manner, in order for one the get closer to self-realization, one needs to concentrate on the I, without assigning any attribute to it. Just I, not I am good, bad, a doctor, a lawyer, poor, rich etc.
As a matter of fact any psychological identification with anything is illusion, and a veil to the ultimate truth of one’s nature.
When one can stay with the I-Consciousness without the attributes, that is the beginning of enlightenment.
Moses on the Mount Sinai
It’s written in the bible that when Moses asked God “Who are you?” God answered “I AM THAT I AM”
Most of scripture written in a symbolic language and have a much deeper meaning than what people understand. Moses is also known to be a mystic, and maybe he never actually physically climbed the mount Sinai and never really walked to a burning bush, and there wasn’t any voice coming out of clouds talking to him saying “I AM THAT I AM” But this is all his inner mystical journey! When he realized that God is actually the “I AM” , the “Existence” in all beings! This is the exact same concept that exist in the core of all religions.
I think that’s why Rumi said “I took the core from the scripture and left the skin for the donkeys” (This is a funny way he uses to compare it to eating something like a sweet watermelon and leaving the skin for donkeys to eat! , Also in Persian donkey is a word usually used to refer to someone dumb)
This is to say people who follow the superficial part of religion, can never taste the sweetness of the core of their own beings, which is the ultimate goodness and perfection, which you may call God, Divine, Buddha nature etc.
Shabestari says, once you achieve true wisdom, you’ll see that your true nature is that which is beyond body and identity. It is beyond time and space. Once you release all of your identifications with other things (Including physical body, mind and identities) Then what remains is just your pure “I”, Your ultimate nature.
Then he points to something interesting: “All of the instructions of religions matter only because you have this “ego”!
Here he Is talking about the small “i” or the ego. The false identity and our animal nature, and because we are out of tune with our ultimate nature, and we don’t intuitively see what is right and what is wrong, that’s why religion exists, that’s why philosophies of religions exist, but the real book of religion which shows the laws of universe, exist in everyone’s heart and when you see it, there’s no misunderstanding, no need to fight for it, or prove it!
No matter how great a written religion is, and even if it hasn’t altered over time, which is very unlikely, people will still misunderstand a lot of it, that’s why we see a lot of so-called religious people do stupid things in today’s world!
Once one becomes free of false identities, or in another word, becomes free of the small self or “i” then he will return to the ultimate nature of universe or that great “I”
Identification is a psychological process that traps a person in their psyche and prevents them from seeing their existential truth. So Shabestari concludes this section by saying, “Identity is a veil for the ultimate.”
Man sees the duality in existence, man sees the separate individuality, and many individuals because of this very identification.