Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-12

June 22, 2006

>From Surging Joy

By Dr Sarada Nataragan

We have all built around ourselves the fortress of identity, of

thinking `I am so and so', of limiting ourselves to a name and form…

Identity is not a valid fortress, it is imaginary, it has no locus-

standi of its own. Naturally, it feels constantly threatened, it is

constantly putting up fresh and more devious barriers against life

itself, for, it takes all life as an encroachment. Life is real,

identity is false, so truth is always a danger to identity. It

builds illusion upon illusion to safeguard itself. Can we find true

life, except in the Heart? (35)

Self-enquiry is the marvelous alarm which Bhagavan has set to wake

us from the dream of life…Throughout our life, of not through many

lifetimes, we have been dreaming that we are a given name and form

(36)…The most obvious difficulty, of course, lies in accepting that

what we have taken to be ourselves may be a mere illusion, only a

seeming reality. However, through our analysis of the daily

experience of dream and deep sleep, we may come to recognize that

the waking "I" is certainly not the whole truth about oneself.

Identity changes in dream and still the "I" continues unchanged. No

awareness of body, not even any thought exists in deep sleep and

still the "I" continues. Hence the "I" must be in truth that

continuous experience, the basis on which the three states pass as

clouds in the sky or as reflections on water. (37)

We often worry that the effort does not seem to bear adequate fruit.

What we forget to ask our selves are the all-important

questions "Who is to attain?", "Who makes the effort?", "Who is the

disappointed?"…

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