Who am I ?

In the last blog, we discussed the basic generic problems of life which cannot be escaped. But we left the question unanswered as to why and how the solution of thsese generic problems, and the need to understand God are interrelated.

Well, first of all I ask you a question. Who are you? To this question, I may get several answers, like I am a software engineer, I am an Indian, I am an American, I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am Mr. XYZ, I am a politician, I am boy, I am a girl, I am a human being etc... Hence, to this single question, I may get n number of different replies. But none of the above descriptions depict our true nature.

The real intelligence of a human being is, when he starts enquiring 'Who am I'? This is called 'athata brahmna jignyasa', i.e. to enquire about self. If one does not enquire 'who am i', 'why am i here', 'why i have to undergo birth and death', 'what is there after death', 'what is karma and karmic activities and reactions', 'what is my relationship with God', 'am I this body' etc... then he is as good as an animal.

An animal also eats, sleeps and mates and the humans also do the same. But an animal cannot enquire about self. So if a human being is also wasting his life in simply maintaining his body through the means of eating, sleeping, mating and defending, then he is as good as an animal
pretending to be a human being.

Our Vedic scriptures propound the supreme gem on knowledge, i.e the science of soul. In Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna explains the real identity of all the living entities.

dehino asmin yatha dehe, kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantaram praptih dhirastatra na muhyati (BG 2.13)

As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes to another body at death.

Hence, the soul is eternal and never dies. It is only the body that dies and the soul takes up another body at the time of death. We are not this body but our real identity is that we are part and parcels of the Supreme Lord. We are souls and He is the Supersoul. As the sloka above describes 'embodied soul'. This means that the true nature of the soul is pure, but in material condition it is embodied in some form of body.

There are innumerable souls acquiring different kinds of bodies. It is not sure for us also, that we may get a human birth in our next life. There are 84,00,000 differnt species of life and based on one's karma in this birth, he gets a body in his next birth. For example, if someone is too much inclined towards eating meat, he gets a body of a carnivorous animal, based on his desire to eat meat so much. Hence, we may become a beast, an insect, a plant, a mammal, a reptile or a human in our next life. This is decided by our karmic activities in this life. Hence, based on our karma and its reactions, we keep undergoing the cycle of birth and death. This is an endless journey.

We have already seen in our previous blog (Need to Understand God -II), how miserable this journey is. Hence we must find out as to how to put an end to this journey of continuous birth and death and migration to 84,00,000 different species of life. We must enquire, if I am eternal
then why I have to undergo death?

Yes, eternity is our right, for we are the part and parcel of the Supreme personification of all knowledge-eternity-bliss. We are the part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Lord says in Bhagvad Gita "sarva yonishu kaunteya... aham bija pradah pita" i.e .. I am the seed giving father of
all the living entities. This Supreme Lord is sac-cid-ananda, i.e He is adi purush, eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. Since we are His part and parcels, we are also eternal and blissful. Just like the Sun and the sunrays are qualitatively same, similarly we are the small sunrays of that Supreme Sun. Because of falling into this material world, we have forgotten our eternal relationship with our Supreme Lord and hence we are suffering in the hands of birth and death.

Hence, our endeavour should be to re-establish the lost relationship between us and the Supreme Lord, and go back to Him, by transcending this birth and death cycle. Actually, the relationship is eternal, hence it is already there. But it has become dormant and forgotten under the influence of this material world. Hence we have to revive that dormant relationship. This is the real aim of human life. Because in none other form of life, can this be achived. Only human birth has the developed consciousness to understand God and our relationship with Him.

The coming blog (Lizard Tale) depicts the true nature of human birth and karmic activities.