‘WHO AM ‘I’ and ‘I AM THAT’ serves only at starting point

The yoga and religion are based on the false self within the false experience. It is necessary for the seeker to realize the fact that, all three states are unreal on the standpoint of the true self, which is the soul/spirit.  Therefore, seeking truth on the base of waking entity and trying to assimilate and realized the truth is futile venture.  Therefore, it is necessary to drop all the practices, which are based on the false experience to reach the reality, which is beyond the experience of duality.

When the mind appears, the duality appears. When there is duality, man and his experience of the world are there. The very search for physical happiness is the cause of the misery. The pain and pleasure is part of the illusory duality.  On standpoint of the formless witness of the three states the pleasure and pain, birth, life and death are mere illusion. Therefore, learning to view and judge the three states on the standpoint of the formless witness frees one from the experiencing the duality as reality.

  Clinging to the formless witness and realizing the fact that all the known is mere illusion and the formless witness is the knower of the known. All the physical existence is known, and the knower is apart and is real.

When one stops his search for truth on the base of the ‘I’, which is the false, self, then only  he will able to realize the fact that, formless witness of the ‘I’   is the true self.   Without realizing “What is ‘I’, it is impossible to go beyond duality, which appears and disappears as mind.

When one starts inquiry he does it to please himself, not for truth; hence he asks "Who am I?" It is an elementary stage of discipline because it is   based on the ego or physical self, but aiming at eliminating the ego.  It is impossible to eliminate the ego, because the ego is false self within the false experience. Therefore, there is a need to understand “What is mind” in order to assimilate the true self-knowledge.

The formula "What is I?" presupposes the existence of an ‘I’. But this is only an assumption. Before proceeding to act on such a formula one ought first to inquire whether there is such a thing as an ‘I’.

Those who have been baffled by unsuccessful inquiry, reading, intellection, have to find out what are the obstacles on the way what is blocking them from grasping ,understanding and assimilating the non-dual truth.

Yoga is intended to remove the hindrance in pursuit of truth such as sexual desire, worries, anxieties, desire for wealth etc. Also to enable the one to keep out irrelevant thoughts whilst making inquiry, analysis and reasoning.

 All this has to be done before indulging in pursuit of truth. Therefore yoga has only a negative value and is a preparatory stage. Pursuit of truth starts from what is seen, i.e. the three states.  Wisdom comes from both knowing the three states and the formless witness of the three states.

To leave out one of these parts is to prevent the attainment of wisdom. "Who am I” is useful no doubt, it has certainly a value in its place, and gives some knowledge of self as, the Witness. But what about the witnessed? The three states are mere object to the witness. It must also be looked at. If the witnessed [three states] is ignored, then "Who am I” cannot give the full truth.

“Who am ‘I’” is   yogic inquiry; not the spiritualistic; the latter deals with the whole of life whereas the former deals with a part only.

"Who am I” inquiry limits only to the physical entity, because there, is no person in truth but only in the illusion of mystics.  ‘It should be "What is  I?"

 

The question "Who am I” is a religious, not a spiritualistic question. It is a most selfish one. It is on a par with "What shall I be after death?" and "What shall I get in return for my good karma in the next life?" It is purely egocentric and it is based on the false self.

Only the people who are serious in knowing the truth can lift their thoughts above ego and ask "What is the mind?"  All  the three states  put together make the soul/self, not merely the ego questioning itself ''What is  I.”

When one is absorbed in thinking of anything, he forgets the subject, which consciousness the innermost self, that which witnesses all the coming and going of the three states in succession.

One may think for hundred hours continuously but it is all thoughts, hence not consciousness. But when one becomes aware the thinker of the thoughts are one in essence, then one does get consciousness, the knower, the formless witness of the three states. Consciousness the innermost self is the eternal.

One has to get rid of his doubts, But that did not mean, simply go and believe everything he is told. The doubt is to be got rid of "by the sword of wisdom. 

WHO AM ‘I’ and ‘I AM THAT’ is only for a lower stage where one gives up externally in order expose the false nature of the ego, which is not the full truth. To get ultimate truth one has to inquire into the nature of the mind, which is in the form of the universe.  Inquiring into the nature the mind or the universe is higher.  Thus ‘WHO AM ‘I’? and ‘I AM THAT’   will not reveal  the truth of the whole  thus the journey is incomplete.

‘WHO AM ‘I’ and ‘I AM THAT’ serves only at starting point. What one has learnt from the teaching of the sages be understood through the exercise of reason as far as the reason might go.  And what one has assimilated must be realized. There are stages in the seeker's goal.

Self-awareness does not mean one is transforming something into something else. In self –awareness there is no second thing exist other than consciousness in the midst of diversity.  The body and the world have become on in essence. There is no duality in the midst of duality.   There is not even the concept of real and unreal. Of course it does not mean that when one is involved in practical life within the practical world disappears. But in self-awareness one is consciously aware of ‘what truth’ is and ‘what is not the truth’ in the midst of duality, because one sees his ego, his body and his experience the world as consciousness.  Thus for a Gnani there is no second thing exists other than consciousness even though he is in the midst of diversity.