who am I ?
Ask yourself: Who am I? If I ask myself this, I would answer: I am 30 years old, male, 5ft 9, dark hair, working in London, sitting in my chair writing this sentence. We would all likely answer in a similar manner – describing our age, health, body-attributes, job, location, actions. But when we analyse this innocent answer more closely, it very interestingly reveals what we all think we are….the physical body. i.e.
– I am 30 years old = my physical body is 30 years old. Therefore I assume: I = Body
– I am male = my physical body is male. Therefore I assume: I = Body
– I am writing = my physical body is writing. Therefore I assume: I = Body
– I am sick/old/born/dying/walking = my physical body is sick/old/born/dying/walking. Therefore I assume: I = Body.
Therefore, I (and you) clearly assume I am the physical body. Our everyday language and daily life reveals this fundamental understanding we have about the answer to the question “Who am I”.
OK, so what? Well, the Vedanta Shastra (teaching) comes in at this point and says something that may sound strange: you are not the physical body. (Tattvabodha: sthula-sukshma-karana-sharirad vyatiriktah atma). This physical body is nothing but inert ‘matter’. Just like the table is inert matter.
So what’s the difference between your physical body matter and the table matter? Well, your physical body is alive. The table is not alive. So what is it that makes my body ‘alive’? It can’t just be that all matter is alive, because that means your table should be alive and having a conversation with you right now. You’d try to sit on your chair, but the chair would walk off if it were alive! That does not happen, so obviously all matter (like tables, chairs, etc) is not inherently alive (called inert or jada). So what makes some matter (like human body, animal body, plant body) alive and other not? There must be something else that makes ‘life’– this additional factor is what Vedanta call the “Subtle Body” (Sukshma Sharira). Due to the presence of a subtle body in a physical body, a physical body manifests ‘life’. The subtle body is not a physical entity available for you to see/hear/touch/etc (Indriya agochara – non-perceptible). The subtle body is made up of the mind and other elements (the text, Tattvabodha, details 17 parts).
Ok – so coming back to our question – Who am I? I must be the subtle body!? Vedanta answers: No. You are not even the subtle body.
So I am not the physical body, I am not the subtle body. So this is what I am not….but what about what I am – Who am I (who are you)? Vedanta makes an amazing claim to answer this: You are existence-consciousness-happiness (Tattvabodha: sat-chit-ananda-svarupah atma). Your very nature is happiness.
Let’s explain what the Vedanta teaching is getting at here…in order to understand what we are, we first have to understand what we think we are. And then understand why what we think we are, is not correct. E.g. you may think the sun rises in the morning, but that doesn’t mean the sun actually rises in the morning (i.e. the truth is the sun does not rise, it is the earth that spins on its axis creating the illusion of the sun moving). So you may think you are the body, but that alone does not make it true. We will see the logic of this as we progress in future classes.
So the Vedanta teaching explains what we (wrongly) think we are by looking at our 1 body and daily experiences from different viewpoints:
– 1st viewpoint: 3 Bodies (Sharira Traya) – Physical, subtle, causal bodies
– 2nd viewpoint: 5 sheaths (Pancha Kosha) – Similar to above bodies
– 3rd viewpoint: 3 states of experience (Avastha Traya) – Waking, dreaming, deep sleep state
These viewpoints are exhaustively analysed in Upanishad. The Upanishad reveals I (Atma) am different from all the 3 bodies, the 5 sheaths and the 3 states. Then who am I? I am existence-consciousness-happiness (sat-chit-ananda). And it is this ‘I’ (Atma) that is Satyam, the truth of the entire universe (See Satyam definition: http://advaita-academy.org/blogs/clay-pot-the-reality-of-the-universe/ ). And only by understanding this fact clearly, can I achieve Moksha.
Om Tat Sat.
Aditya
