21. Hide and Seek

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Self is already realized. You only have to know that you are Self-Realized. You have to only remove the notion that you are not Self-realized.

“Aghh… I will agree to some extent with all the 20 posts that you have written till now. But not this. Do not dump some nonsense statements on me! Just because you wrote some logical arguments to explain several concepts till now, you cannot sneak in some unreasonable statements and expect me to accept them.”

Chill chill! No statement made in the blog will go unexplained. Not just explaining with some goody goody, decorative and impractical speeches as in religious discourses, nor explaining with some unending, meaningless and boring philosophical jargon. But we shall look at it with pure common sense and try to understand and see the practical implication. That was the very purpose of this blog. To revive common sense ;)

I go to a star hotel to have a grand buffet lunch. 60 food items are lined up just for greedy people like me. I am actually going crazy inside, I do not know what to eat and what to leave. I want to taste everything. Now I see a peculiar dish with a strange name that I have not heard till now, say ‘Bul Bul Boiler’. Its aroma is exotic and its looks are irresistible. I am very hungry and like how the tiger pounces on a deer, with all my animal instincts in full force, I serve myself with four big spoons of that dish. With a plate overflowing with food, and with a drooling mouth, I come, sit down and begin to eat. I first taste this Bul Bul Boiler, my most awaited item. But the moment I taste it, I know that I hate it. “This is so horrible” I exclaim. I continue eating other dishes and in the end, leave the mysterious dish untouched.

Suppose my friend who is with me asks “Hey why are you throwing so much of food?”, I have a reason ready “That item is horrible”. My friend says “Oh, it was not so bad as you say”. I say “Huh, you like and eat all dishes, actually that dish was not even worth tasting. I do not know why they even prepared this dish. Everybody will only throw this”.

But my conscience is pricking me all the while, I know that it was my mistake that I served myself too much just because of my greed. But now that my friend has questioned me, I am growing restless. I want to prove to others that it is not my mistake. I go to the manager and criticize the food. And to cover up further, I also criticize the hospitality and hygiene of the hotel. I point out one small mistake of the poor waiter as a big crime. The manager is very experienced and he knows all this stupidity of the customers. He acts as if he is very sorry for the great sin the hotel management has committed. I do the vote of thanks “Ok, It is alright” and end the proceedings of the day (Everybody thinks that he who ends the conversation and has the last say is the winner). After all my drama, I look at my friend with a smile of victory. I have successfully buried my mistake using my sharp wit. I am very content and I walk with my chest up.

But then… Who cheated who? Who beat who? Who hid the truth from who? Don’t I know that mistake was mine? Don’t I know that I was the one who was blind with greed? The dish may be of a peculiar taste liked by some people. After all, it is a buffet and I am free to serve whatever I want. Did anybody force me and stuff it into my throat?

I used reasoning ability so shrewdly that I argued with others and hid my mistake. But can I hide it from myself? No matter what and how much I argue, don’t I know that finally it was my mistake? Now the question – Are there two Selfs? One that knows the mistake and the other that hides the mistake? No! And Yes! My Self has to be one whole, ‘I’ cannot be two. But apparently there are two, because I am actually trying to hide a fact from myself! Who hides from who? Paradox!

In the process of arguing with others and cheating others, am I actually not cheating my own self? Am I not pushing my own Self away from me? Am I not blocking my own Self from me? This way, I probably cheat myself 20-30 times a day. Layer by layer, inch by inch, I am putting dirt after dirt and covering up my own Self from me. I do not listen to my own Self, I threaten it and I suppress it. And then how can my own Self be transparent and visible to me? And then I say ‘I am not Self Realized, it is very difficult’. Really? Is it difficult? After all what am I going to realize? My own Self! So, just to realize my own self I need help from outside? I need help from scriptures? Is this like getting an M.B.A. degree? Who hid from who and now who is seeking who?

The true Self that we suppress is called ‘Atma Sakshi’ in scriptures. But do we need scriptures to tell us that we have an Atma Sakshi? Isn’t Atma Sakshi another name for ‘Me’? Do we need scriptures to tell us that we exist? Apparently we do, because we have forgotten ourselves. We remember everything else except our true Self. The apparent split Self is explained by the scriptures as the Sun and its reflection. We have been believing that the reflection of the true Self – the ego – is itself the true Self. And we were always busy pleasing the ego and suppressing the true source, the Sun, ever shining and brilliant, Self-evident awareness. Pleasing the ego by suppressing the Self is called as Prajnaparadha in Ayurveda and that, it says, is one of the root causes of diseases. Ayurveda talks of diseases of the body, but if we look at it truly, the biggest disease is cheating ourselves by saying ‘I am this body’, the deepest Prajnaparadha. Because no matter how much we argue with others that I am this body, we ourselves know that deep inside us we are not happy with that answer.

A witty excuse for not practicing Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge) is this – “You must have read all scriptures to know philosophy”. Oh! What came first? People or the books? Books gave rise to knowledge or people’s knowledge gave rise to books? And if one person could experience something, why can’t I experience the same? He just wrote his experience in the form of scriptures. What good it will do to me if I just mug up the whole lot and display my ‘scholarliness’? Do I get to know my Self then? All unnecessary distractions. We have to use the scriptures only as validations of our own experiences and revelations. Finally they are meant to be a reference book, not a text book. They are invaluable guides, not insensitive dictators.

Books only remind us what we already know. In fact, a scripture (I forgot which one exactly) itself says that Atma Sakshi is the one to be consulted first before any action, scriptural guidance should be taken only if you are too faraway from your Self and cannot hear your Self! All knowledge is within you, proclaimed Vivekananda. If one person could experience something, then even I must be able to do it. Uniformity in its principles is the hard truth of nature. It cannot be different at different times for different people. “Oh he, he was born from a portion of Mahashiva. He was God’s embodiment, he had been blessed with special powers. That’s why he could achieve Self Realization”. Oh Yeah? Then what are you? Demon’s incarnation? Did demon curse you and send you here? Is God a birthday cake that he cuts himself and sends portions as special people? Tell all these childish reasons to children. We are fooling ourselves big-time with all possible nonsense and weakness, misusing our brain for all negative excuses, and being sharp for all wrong reasons.

And over that we say ‘We are not that sharp, Jnana yoga is all difficult stuff’! We say that Jnana Yoga is only for intelligent people with sharp brain. But just look at the above example of the hotel. Everyone is so unimaginably witty, but for all wrong reasons, for hiding the truth to ourselves. Even an illiterate can be seen putting such sharp reasoning when it comes to protecting his ego. Isn’t intellect sharp in everybody? Wow, it is much sharper than you can even imagine. “I threw the wrapper on the road because there is no dustbin anywhere. No proper administration by the city corporation”, “I didn’t keep the footwear inside the rack because it will be difficult to find when I come back. So I just kept it wherever I wanted”, “I didn’t want to marry, I got married because otherwise my mother will be alone.”. Wah Wah! Who are we fooling? Us or the listeners?

And why do we do that? There has to be a reason. The reason is that, we believe, very strongly, that we gain something by hiding the truth and cheating. We think that we will lose something if we are honest and straightforward. Being honest and straightforward with others automatically means that we are honest to ourselves. Others are only like a mirror for us to test our honesty. And that something, which we believe we lose with honesty, is money, dignity, fame and the like. So, just see what have effectively done – we have suppressed our true Self for the sake of gaining something external. And why do we need those external things? To please ourselves. So, I lose my true self to please myself! Will that ever happen? Never! Isn’t this pure common sense?

Just look at all Self-Realized people. Weren’t they the most unassuming, most simple, most straightforward people? Were they necessarily rich or scholarly? And look at the bliss they were in. Nothing can make them unhappy, not even cancer. Because they are absolutely true to themselves, absolutely transparent to themselves – Self-realized. And they said that it is a bliss like no other, knowing Self is the end of all misery. Listen to the Self and follow what it says and then see the confidence booming. Moral uprightness is a strength like no other. Positivity will reach the skies in no time.

And is it difficult? If, not throwing a wrapper on the road and keeping it in your pocket is difficult, if not lying to yourself that ‘I threw because there is no dustbin’ is difficult, if listening to and obeying your own true Self’s inner voice ‘Keep the wrapper in your pocket’ is difficult, then Self-Realization is also difficult. If all those are easy, then it automatically means that you are listening to and are in tune with your source self, and hence Self-Realization has to be easy.

So, finally everything is only for the Self. Everything is only for Self-Realization. ‘Good’ means that which takes you closer to Self-Realization, and ‘Bad’ is that makes you block your own Self from you. All moral and ethical values are only to take us closer to our own Self-realization, not for the sake of some society or world. All that is secondary. The good to the world happens only as a side effect. Our foremost concern therefore must be knowing our own Self. All the rest will follow on its own. Without knowing my own Self, without coming out of my own misery, how can I ‘help’ the world? It is only a joke! Struggle for Self-Realization is the biggest help we can do to the world around us. Because everything else will follow on its own. Do not run after ants. You become sugar and all ants will come to you!

By lying to ourselves, we create knots after knots, blocks after blocks between our true Self and the reflected Ego. And ourselves move far away from our true self and finally cry “Self-Realization is difficult”. If we remove these knots one by one, in all our daily activities be absolutely transparent to ourselves, no matter what we lose – money, dignity – then the final knot will automatically surface “Who Am I?”. This final knot is named Hrit-Granthi – the knot of the heart (Self). Now we do not feel that question, although we have not answered it, because there are several knots in queue to be untied on top of this fundamental knot. Once we follow transparency and start listening to the inner voice (like the Restless Robot), all these superficial knots will get untied in no time. And the final knot will one day suddenly arise ‘Who Am I’, only to get untied soon.

I already know that it is a mistake to throw garbage on the road, I only have to accept that I know that it is a mistake, instead of giving cunning reasons. I only have to remove the wrong notion that I am right in throwing garbage on the road.

Similarly (perhaps, now you may appreciate) – Self is already realized. You only have to know that you are Self-Realized. You have to only remove the notion that you are not Self-realized. ;)

(This statement is made by Ramana Maharshi)