I am???

Bhagvita says that our body is a reflection of our soul….of our own SELF. Even if the body gets destroyed the soul….the self is eternal…its sublime…it lives.

So what is this SELF?

The yogic scriptures state it - as a force that resides within each one of us…a greater energy…a greater power. Some people experience it from time to time…some realize it and achieve it and some choose to lead this life as it comes and for them this self… God… is nothing but a hypothetical theory.

The scriptures further states that this SELF: is an absolute being living inside us…its an absolute consciousness…an absolute bliss…and that we are nothing but the SELF itself!!!

Huh!!!!

Really???

Well, how can that be?? If I’ am the self then why don’t I feel like it? How can someone talk about eternal bliss to me…specially in the world that I live in with endless tensions … sufferings…infatuations…mood swings…etc…etc…

The multiple terrors and agonies of existence do not overwhelm me becoz I keep my eyes resolutely shut against them. Through all sorts of ruses, with all sorts of medicines and devices I try to deny and avoid the depth of my pain and that of my fellow creatures for if I don’t then I would go crazzzzy.

Simply and honestly I ll try and count and measure the frights and alarms that have befallen my own heart – the fears of my childhood, the insults and rebuffs of adolescence, the anxieties and countless hurts and losses.

Forget absolute knowledge…forget the feeling of holding hands of your girl friend…forget the calmness u get by resting on your mother’s lap!!!

What about the abysmal ignorance that men and women live in???

Where do we come from??? Who are we?? Where are we going?? What are we doing?? Guys we have no idea…though we may depart any moment.

And as for fact, most of us feel that our identity and existence is so much less than it could have been. For example….we wanted to become a great concert pianist but…alas, we ended up working as a clerk! How pity! And truth often seems as remote and unobtainable as some brilliant distant star.

Perhaps in the end its all these sufferings that turns most of us towards a spiritual path. We start to feel the need of some guidance…

But for me my acquaintance with my spiritual path has been an interesting one… I guess am into it by chance…actually I started to believe in the concept of “SELF” slowly…very slowly. It was just the practice of mediation and certain yoga that fascinated me earlier got me into this path.

Now am completely logged in the path.

I don’t experience the self nor have I seen it just that I have felt its presence inside me and have touched my own space for just a moment…

Instead of feeling constant torrent of bliss, I experience spurts of pleasure and shocks of pain!

Its not that I don’t experience the self but just that my experience of the self is small and restricted, which is quite valuable for me…

So what is it that keeps me away from experiencing my Self in its full glory and form???

Yoga says it is – Your Mind!!

Gerald Manley Hopkins once said:-

“O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
frightful, sheer, no man fathomed. Hold them

cheap

May who ne’er hung there”