Who am I

[Guest guest]

When did life begin for me?

I asked my parents and they gave me the date of my birth from the

hospital's records. I asked the doctor: "that was only the moment when

my body was delivered by my mother unto mother earth; please tell me

when my life really began."

He was surprised at the unusual query and frowned a little, engaged in

deep thought and said: It's a strange question which few ask. Of

course, there is an answer in medical science. The date of birth is a

conventional mark on the time-scale to define birth. But your life

began long before that -- in fact, about forty weeks prior to that

event. That was when conception of the first cell of your body took

place in your mother's womb. There is no record of the precise moment

of that birth. We can know only approximately." He added: "The process

of life is truly mysterious. It should come as no surprise to you that

the first moment of your life is indeed shrouded in great mystery!"

A one-half of my first cell started its life when my mother herself

was born; it lived for a long time as an egg in her ovaries, until the

day it was launched in its search for its other half which lived with a

million other sperms in my father's body. Among those million specks

which raced to meet my female-half, the unique one that is now my

male-half succeeded in beating competition and uniting with its

better-half. It is this historic event that truly marked the beginning

of my life.

In that first moment of life, my entire body existed in a potential

state in a single-cell-microscopic-dot. It knew Nature's 'Law of the

reversed effort' and divided so it can multiply! The process continued

in the womb until the space inside became insufficient and my body was

forcibly ejected to continue its growth in the free space outside. To

the world, that was the moment when I was born, but we know that life

began much earlier.

Later, when I read other books and listened to great scholars, I

learned about an even earlier origin to my life. This is what I

learned: "your body is just the house in which you live now. But you

have lived in other houses before and each such life is known as a

previous birth. Very few can recall the memory of such births; but rest

assured that that your life goes a long way back in time. Your present

body was chosen for you to fit your mission in life with reference to

your deeds in your past lives. Your life does not end when the body

dies, for Life is immortal."

The realized ones, the Seers, have encouraged us to enquire

constantly: Who am I? I am not my name; I am not this physical body; I

am not the mind which is another name for the constant flux of thoughts;

I am not the ego which seems to hold me in its tight grip and refuses to

loosen its hold on power, pelf and pleasure. Rejecting such untenable

answers repeatedly, they have assured us, will lead us to an awareness

of the universal Life-principle which does exists common to all of

us. I realize that my search will end only when this questioning

"I" disappears; this is the true purpose of my life for which I need

the guidance and blessings of my Guru and divine Grace. Late in this

life I have understood that every other enquiry or effort only prolongs

the agony of this search.

Adiyen Dasan

MK Krishnaswamy

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