Who am I? - Deepak Chopra (a must-read article)

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" According to Vedanta, there are only five reasons why humans suffer.

The first is not knowing who we are. The second is identifying with

our ego or self-image. The third is clinging to that which is

transient and unreal. The fourth is recoiling in fear of that which

is transient and unreal. And the fifth is the fear of death.

 

Vedanta also says that the five causes of suffering are all contained

in the first cause — not knowing who we are. If we can answer this

one basic question, Who am I? we may find the answer to all other

related questions like, Where did I come from? What is the meaning

and purpose of my life? Where do I go when I die?

 

Now, if someone were to ask, " Who are you? " your response would

probably be " Oh, my name is so-and-so. I'm an American, or I am

Japanese, or I am the president of this company. All these answers

refer to your self-image or to an object outside your self: a name, a

place, a circumstance. This process of identifying with your self-

image or the objects of your experience is called object referral.

 

You may also identify with your body and say " This is my body. This

bag of flesh and bones is who I am. " But then the question is, What

is the body, and why call it yours? The body that you call yours, is

really the raw material of the universe: recycled earth, water, and

air. But so is the tree outside your window. Why call the body yours

when you do not call the stars, the moon, or the tree outside your

window yours? Of course your body seems nearer to you, but this

assumes that you know where the " I am " that you think you are is

physically located.

 

Many people somehow feel that the " I " they call themselves, the skin-

encapsulated awareness, is located somewhere in their head. Other

people think it's located somewhere behind the heart or solar plexus.

But no scientific experiment has ever found a center of awareness in

any one location in space or time.

 

An interesting insight that comes to us from both Vedic Science and

the Jewish Kabbalah is that the center of our awareness is the center

of all space and time. It is at once everywhere and nowhere. But

let's assume for a moment that indeed your awareness is located where

you are physically sitting. If this universe has infinite dimensions -

and physicists assure us that it does - then infinity extends in all

directions from where you are.

 

You are in the center of the universe, but so am I because infinity

extends in all directions from where I am. Infinity also extends in

all directions from a peasant in China, a dog in Siberia, and a tree

in Africa. The truth is, I am here, but I am also everywhere else

because here is there from every other point in space. You are there,

but you are also everywhere else because there is everywhere, or

nowhere specifically.

 

In other words, location in space is a matter of perception. When we

say the moon is near, the sun is far, that's only true from one

vantage point. In reality, there is no up or down, north or south,

east or west, here or there. These are only points of reference for

our convenience. Everything in the cosmos is non-local, meaning we

can't confine it to here, there, or anywhere.

 

But my eyes tell me this is not the case. I am here, you are there,

wherever you are. So maybe we should not trust our senses that much.

My eyes tell me that the Earth is flat, but nobody believes that

anymore. Sensory experience tells me that the ground I am standing on

is stationary, but I know from science that the earth is spinning on

its axis and hurtling through outer space at thousands of miles an

hour. Sensory experience tells me that the objects of my perception

are solid, but that's not true either. We know they are made up of

atoms, which in turn are particles that whirl around huge empty

spaces. These are all superstitions that I've developed because I've

learned to trust my senses.

 

The universe is actually a chaos of energy soup, and we ingest this

soup through our five senses, and then convert it into a material

reality in our consciousness. Our senses transform massless energy

into form and solidity, texture and color, fragrance and taste, sound

and vibration. And our interpretation of that energy soup structures

our reality and creates our perceptual experience. Most of the time

we do this unconsciously as a result of social conditioning.

Scientists have called this the hypnosis of social conditioning. I

call it the superstition of materialism.

 

The superstition of materialism relies on sensory experience as the

crucial test of reality. In this world-view, reality is what we can

see with our eyes, what we can touch with our hands, hear with our

ears, smell with our nose, taste with our mouth, or touch with or

hands. If energy or information is not available to our senses, we

tend to think it isn't there. And the intellect, with its

linguistically structured system of logic, serves to justify this

mistaken perception of reality.

 

Sensory experience is totally illusory; it's as transient as a

fantasy or a dream. Is there really such a thing as the color red?

Every color you see is a particular wavelength of light, and the

light you can actually detect is a fraction of what exists. How long

can you cling to a world of illusion? You may think you are the body

that your senses can locate in space and time, but the body is a

field of invisible vibrations that has no boundaries in space and

time.

 

So maybe you are not the image you identify with, and maybe you are

not the body. Then at least you must be your thoughts and feelings.

But who can honestly claim to know where thoughts and feelings come

from? Where do thoughts come from, and where do they disappear?

 

If you can't claim exclusivity over the objects of your experience,

your body, or even your thoughts and feelings, then what can you call

your own? And here the knowledge of Vedanta saves us. If we replace

the word exclusive with the word inclusive then you are not just

these objects, you are not just this body, you are not just these

thoughts and feelings. You are all things, you are all bodies, you

are all thoughts and feelings. You are a field of all possibilities.

 

The essential you, your real essence, is a field of awareness that

interacts with its own self and then becomes both mind and body. In

other words, you are consciousness or spirit, which then conceives,

constructs, governs, and becomes the mind and the body. The real you

is inseparable from the patterns of intelligence that permeate every

fiber of creation.

 

At the deepest level of existence, you are Being, and you are nowhere

and everywhere at the same time. There is no other " you " than the

entire cosmos. The cosmic mind creates the physical universe, and the

personal mind experiences the physical universe. But in truth, the

cosmic mind and the personal mind are both permeated by infinite

consciousness. Infinite consciousness is our source, and all

manifestation is inherent within it.

 

Infinite consciousness observing itself creates the notion of

observer, or the soul; the process of observation, or the mind; and

that which is observed, or the body and the world. The observer and

the observed create relationships between themselves; this is space.

The movement of these relationships creates events; this is time. But

all these are none other than the infinite consciousness itself.

 

In other words, we are infinite consciousness with a localized point

of view. And yet our whole system of thought divides the observer

from the observed; it divides the infinite consciousness into a world

of objects separated by space and time. The intellect imprisons us in

a cage of fictitious images, a suffocating web of space, time, and

causation. As a result, we lose touch with the true nature of our

reality, which is powerful, boundless, immortal, and free.

 

We are all prisoners of the intellect. And the intellect's mistake in

one simple sentence is this: It mistakes the image of reality for

reality itself. It squeezes the soul into the volume of a body, in

the span of a lifetime, and now the spell of mortality is cast. The

image of the self overshadows the unbounded Self, and we feel cut off

or disconnected from infinite consciousness, our source.

 

This is the beginning of fear, the onset of suffering, and all the

problems of humanity from our minor insecurities to our major

catastrophes like war, terrorism, and all other acts of human

degradation. To one who is trapped in the prison of the intellect,

all indeed is suffering. But the cause of the suffering can and

should be averted. Ignorance of our real nature causes the inner self

to be obscured. But when ignorance is destroyed, the powerful,

unbounded, free nature of the self is revealed.

 

At first this may sound strange and abstract, but as you bear with

this notion and understand it, you realize the most dramatic

discovery: The real you is nonmaterial and therefore not subject to

the limitations of space, time, matter, and causation. The soul, the

spirit, the essential you, is beyond all that. In this very moment,

you are surrounded by a pure consciousness. Pure consciousness

illuminates and animates your mind and body, and it is powerful,

nourishing, invincible, unbounded, and free. Pure consciousness, the

eternal spirit, animates everything in existence, which means it is

omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (present in all locations

simultaneously), and omnipotent (all powerful). "

 

Deepak Chopra: Power, Freedom and Grace, pages 13-22,

Hardcover: 232 pages

Publisher: Amber-Allen Publishing (July 31, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1878424815

ISBN-13: 978-1878424815

 

 

" Vedanta, one of the world's most ancient philosophies, is based on

the Vedas and Upanishads, which are the earliest and most sacred

scriptures of India. Regarded by many historians as the oldest

surviving texts of humanity, these scriptures were said to be

revealed by God rather than created by humans.

 

The word veda means knowledge, and the Vedas are considered to have

existed since the beginning of creation. Centuries before they were

written, the Vedas were passed on orally from teacher to student in

the form of exact verses chanted in precise patterns of a three-note

scale.

 

Vedanta tells us that our true nature is divine. The divine Self is

the underlying reality and source of all that exists, and to realize

this truth experientially is the goal of Vedanta. Revered for its

enduring wisdom, Vedanta is a timeless philosophy that expresses the

heart of all religions and spiritual doctrines. "

 

Deepak Chopra: Power, Freedom and Grace, page 219

Hardcover: 232 pages

Publisher: Amber-Allen Publishing (July 31, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1878424815

ISBN-13: 978-1878424815

 

Main Entry: experiential

relating to, derived from, or providing experience : empirical

<experiential knowledge> <experiential lessons>

 

Merrian-Webster Online Dictionary

 

 

Main Entry: empirical

1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical

data>

2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due

regard for system and theory <an empirical basis for the theory>

3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or

experiment <empirical laws>

 

Merrian-Webster Online Dictionary

 

 

" At the core of Hinduism is the synthesis of sat (existence), chit

(consciousness) and anant (infinity) as found in the texts of the

Vedas and the Upanishads said to date back to 2500 B.C. These truths

known as shruti (heard) were revealed to sages in an inspired state

of mind, and were handed down for centuries from teacher to pupil by

word of mouth. The techniques of transmitting the shruti verse were

so accurate and precise that when they were finally written down,

manuscripts composed independently were found to agree syllable by

syllable, Rukamani (Ph.D) said. "

 

The Gazette (Montreal, Canada), April 23, 1996