It\u2019s strange that we use the word \u201cI\u201d more often in a day than any other word except \u201ca\u201d and \u201cthe\u201d without really knowing who \u201cI\u201d is. Ancient thinkers, both East and West, considered the self to be the highest mystery. The ultimate question, then, is \u201cWho am I?\u201d
\nFor most people, however, the question isn\u2019t something they dwell on. But think of the bedtime prayer that every child learns, the one that begins \u201cNow I lay me down to sleep.\u201d
\nWhen you get to the phrase \u201cif I should die before I wake,\u201d you\u2019ve hit upon something incredibly urgent. Your \u201cI\u201d arrived on the scene when you were born, but will \u201cI\u201d disappear when you die? In the Indian tradition nothing is more urgent than to reverse the wording. \u201cIf I wake before I die\u201d is all-important. It expresses the state of enlightenment, and with it the assurance that \u201cI\u201d is more permanent than death.<\/p>\n
The issue isn\u2019t just Indian but universal. Let\u2019s see if we can get the experience of intellectual enlightenment right this minute, simply by redefining \u201cI.\u201d<\/p>\n
The casual belief that \u201cI\u201d is very easy to define comes from everyday life. Everyone uses the word all the time, which gives a false sense of security. \u201cI\u201d is the first person, the experiencer. We hang all kinds of labels on it: I am Indian, a doctor, a male, a father, husband, and brother. But in times of personal crisis, such as severe grief or depression, these labels become hollow. \u201cI\u201d feels desolate and alone, owning nothing but a handful of ashes.<\/p>\n
Is there another \u201cI\u201d who isn\u2019t so fragile, whose sense of self can\u2019t be stripped away by loss? There\u2019s a feeling of \u201cI\u201d that doesn\u2019t depend on what is happening right now, whether the experience is good or bad. It simply exists. In the Upanishads there\u2019s a lovely image of two birds sitting in a tree. One eats the fruit of the tree while the other looks on silently. The two birds, mated for life, are the self, and the one who looks on silently, sometimes called the witness, is the aspect of \u201cI\u201d that doesn\u2019t depend on acting in the world.<\/p>\n
The reason this \u2018I\u201d is so difficult to experience isn\u2019t hard to see. Everything anyone does in a day can be reduced to four possibilities: I think, I speak, I feel, I act. In other words, \u201cI\u201d always gets attached to something else, and all of us spend 99% of our lives valuing the other words \u2013 \u201cthink,\u201d \u201cspeak,\u201d \u201cfeel,\u201d and \u201cact\u201d \u2013 while taking \u201cI\u201d for granted. The sensation of \u201cI\u201d is simply a given because existence is a given.<\/p>\n
Reread Hamlet\u2019s soliloquy \u201cTo be or not to be,\u201d which is all about the possibility of not existing after you die, and you may not have noticed that in 35 lines the speech doesn\u2019t use the word \u201cI.\u201d This isn\u2019t accidental. When you get serious about existence, which is boundless, the limited, bounded \u201cI\u201d no longer works; you need an unbounded \u201cI\u201d to truly experience the state of being.<\/p>\n
To know, without a doubt, that \u201cI\u201d is limitless, totally free, and untouched by birth and death is the state of intellectual enlightenment. (The \u201cintellectual\u201d gets dropped once you actually go deep inside and experience the unbounded \u201cI.\u201d That is enlightenment beyond the thinking mind.)<\/p>\n
What holds us back from enlightenment is a set of false beliefs, prejudices, second-hand opinions, and personal illusions. There\u2019s a wonderful moment in the book I Am That<\/i> where the guru Nisargadatta Maharaj is confronted by a troubled young man who is haunted by the fear of death. He wants to be rid of this fear but doesn\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour problem is that you believed your parents when they said you were born,\u201d Maharaj replies. \u201cDeath is attached to the illusion of birth. In reality you cannot imagine a time when you didn\u2019t exist or a time when you will no longer exist. There is the opening to escape the fear of death.\u201d<\/p>\n
This advice comes from pure intellectual enlightenment. There are other arguments that can be used to appeal to the rational mind:<\/p>\n
– \u201cI\u201d usually refers to someone inside your skin, but it cannot be located the way the brain, liver, and heart can be located. \u201cI\u201d has no definite region of activity in the brain. When a toothache dominates your sensations, \u201cI\u201d is in the tooth. When you are in love, \u201cI\u201d is in the heart. In so-called out-of-body experiences, \u201cI\u201d extends beyond this package of skin and bones. So assuming that \u201cI\u201d is inside your body is just that, an assumption, not provable as fact.<\/p>\n
– \u201cI\u201d seems to exist in relationship to other people and events. There is the world \u201cout there\u201d that a person sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. But quantum physics long ago demoted the world \u201cout there\u201d to an invisible, constantly changing, uncertain energy field. How we relate to it is a total mystery. If the world \u201cout there\u201d is illusory, you can\u2019t define \u201cI\u201d in relationship to it. The observer melts away when the observed melts away.
\n– The only reason that \u201cI\u201d exists in a specific time and place is due to a construct of the mind. It\u2019s like longitude and latitude. A ship is lost at sea until the navigator specifies a point on the map defined by longitude and latitude. This position is the creation of map-makers, an intellectual construction that makes sailors feel secure. \u201cI\u201d is like that. We feel secure knowing that \u201cI\u201d lives at a certain address, but in truth \u201cI\u201d sails on the open seas of existence.<\/p>\n
Where do these arguments actually get us? To a much better place. The great suffering of the world can be traced to the need to defend \u201cI\u201d against \u201cyou,\u201d \u201cus\u201d against \u201cthem\u201d in a war based on a belief in the narrow, limited self with its cravings and fears. In the world\u2019s wisdom traditions, releasing yourself from this troubled \u201cI\u201d is the key to peace, freedom, and a total absence of fear.<\/p>\n
In reality \u201cI\u201d is pure consciousness, a state of being vaster than the universe. The journey to reach the unbounded \u201cI\u201d has always been considered the ultimate adventure. Once you step on the path you will steadily lose the insecurity of the everyday \u201cI,\u201d and in time you will answer \u201cWho am I?\u201d by uttering a timeless truth: I am the universe. Anything less is unworthy of being human.<\/p>\n